£352 billion to convert UK homes to Heat Pumps

Quite a lot of years ago (40 to be precise), 1981 I did a project as part of a Durham Uni Business School placement on heat pumps for domestic and small industrial and commercial use. The consensus then, which I understand hasn't substantially changed, is that there is a cost and a payback period. A good commercial payback period then was 3 years, domestic was longer for various reasons. 40 years later they're still the next greatest thing. The technology hasn't changed and from the (very) little I see performance is much the same as it was which is hardly surprising, the technology is 100 years old at least (they're fridges). All heat pumps are at their least efficient when the source is lowest (Air source pumps need noisy fans and are at their least efficient when the air is cold and you need them most), ground source pumps are expensive and need an area of ground to dig the refrigeration pipes, and the most efficient for domestic use were ground water source pumps that basically need a well in your back garden. The one aspect of the technology that I believe has improved slightly is that 40 years ago all but the very smallest heat pumps needed 3 phase electricity which then was a killer for markets such as farms where they were all on the end of a piece of wet string and a donkey on a treadmill generator.

Forgive my scepticism but if anybody can convince me that heat pumps are the solution to the average British 3 bed semi then I am open to persuasion, bring it on as they say.
 
FartingGnome said:
Quite a lot of years ago (40 to be precise), 1981 I did a project as part of a Durham Uni Business School placement on heat pumps for domestic and small industrial and commercial use. The consensus then, which I understand hasn't substantially changed, is that there is a cost and a payback period. A good commercial payback period then was 3 years, domestic was longer for various reasons. 40 years later they're still the next greatest thing. The technology hasn't changed and from the (very) little I see performance is much the same as it was which is hardly surprising, the technology is 100 years old at least (they're fridges). All heat pumps are at their least efficient when the source is lowest (Air source pumps need noisy fans and are at their least efficient when the air is cold and you need them most), ground source pumps are expensive and need an area of ground to dig the refrigeration pipes, and the most efficient for domestic use were ground water source pumps that basically need a well in your back garden. The one aspect of the technology that I believe has improved slightly is that 40 years ago all but the very smallest heat pumps needed 3 phase electricity which then was a killer for markets such as farms where they were all on the end of a piece of wet string and a donkey on a treadmill generator.

Forgive my scepticism but if anybody can convince me that heat pumps are the solution to the average British 3 bed semi then I am open to persuasion, bring it on as they say.
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That's quite clear to me, an ignoramus on anything technical. We have a fault in this country in that we go to the extreme. E.g electric cars. Only 20 years to 30 years ago cars were lucky to do 20 to 30 mpg, now hybrids can do 160. But it's electric cars or nothing. I read that the cruise ships out of Southampton create more environmental problems than all the cars in the UK.
There are better ways to make our houses fuel efficient, insulation us only one.
 
Yes, house insulation should be maxed up - I would offer free loft, wall, door insulation. Most houses that can off it must have it by now.

Faced with £12,000 pumps - wall mounted electric heaters and electric boilers are going to popular.

I heard solar panels were a lot cheaper than say 15 years ago and it must be cheaper for a housebuilder to buy them and fit them then the householder to go out and have them fitted years later. I understand there are environmental issues with their production and disposal, but it appears burning carbon is our biggest environmental problem at present with regard climate change.

I know this is not going to be popular but I would increase VAT on energy to say 10% and use the cash raised for carbon reduction projects. Sometime a higher bill is a push needed, with low income groups protected with warmfront and free insulation type schemes.
 
Caesium137 said:
Wonder how many super energy efficient new builds £352 billion would build? I'd prefer more modern housing stock to be built with joint ownership etc. than trying to make a 1920's two up two down thermally efficient.

As has been said, this should be brought in on new builds and eased in over ten to twenty years.

I find it baffling that car emissions are absolutely hammered and are seen as a giant evil but the insulation and design of homes barely ever seems to change.
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The trouble is knocking down old buildings and building new ones in their place is incredibly carbon intensive. (Not to mention the damage to the historic landscapes that would ensue). The energy involved in demolishing an old property, manufacturing the new building materials, removing debris from the demolition and recycling it (where possible) and finally building the new house all requires a lot of energy. It is more effective in terms of investment and return to upgrade old homes. New houses are already well insulated and much more fuel efficient though some elements of design could be improved even with existing technology. Using hydrogen to replace "natural gas" is something that can be looked at. Hydrogen has something of a bad rep because things like the Hindenburg disaster but it is no more flammable than Methane (94ish% of Natural Gas) and when combusted the by product is pure water. Producing it is the problem.

Car emissions are "hammered" because there are attainable solutions and as Tesco tell us "every little helps", so not really baffling. There is the additional problem of vehicle emissions being "in the wrong place" i.e. concentrated in City centres where lots of people get to breathe the exhaust fumes.
ThatFragranceGuy said:
with regards to solar panels ive read they’re often not that green to produce as they produce waste during manufacturing and contain lead, cadmium etc
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True, to an extent but over the lifetime of the unit they are really pretty green and at the end of their life the heavy metals like lead and cadmium can be recovered and remanufactured into new products, like the argument about batteries used in vehicles they can be remanufactured.
 
Green H2 is the most cost effective and efficient solution IMO.
In the meantime blue H2 should be developed.

Loved the pilot wave power project highlighted on the BBC though. Some way off to being commercially viable.
www.bbc.co.uk

Orkney tidal turbine generating 'phenomenal result'

The device, off Orkney, has generated more electricity in its first year than the entire sector produced before it.
www.bbc.co.uk
Powering the Earth through the moon. Amazing.
 
The answer has to be making new builds super thermally efficient. Those units look dreadful I would loathe to put one of those up in my house.
 
Glover_elbow said:
The answer has to be making new builds super thermally efficient. Those units look dreadful I would loathe to put one of those up in my house.
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Yeah the Norweigans have homes that only need a small amount of heat. Very tight building regs. Borolad will know all about Sweden?
 
Whilst I agree we should do our bit and I do hope the UK becomes a market leader reducing our omissions will not have the slightest effect on climate change.

I don't believe that the costs involved are worth the dubious benefit of being the country which leads by example.
 
Millbrook said:
Whilst I agree we should do our bit and I do hope the UK becomes a market leader reducing our omissions will not have the slightest effect on climate change.

I don't believe that the costs involved are worth the dubious benefit of being the country which leads by example.
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It will though. Check out the fully charged plus podcast. There is an episode on there with a government advice and he explains the importance of of targeting net zero. The show was one with Micheal Liebreich. it was interesting. Maybe you should check out his "cleaning up" podcast. I imagine he'll explain it in there.
 
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Millbrook said:
I don't believe that the costs involved are worth the dubious benefit of being the country which leads by example.
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It isn't just about "leading by example" it is more being ahead of the game. If the current best climate models are even remotely accurate we will be selling this technology and know-how all over the world. Tidal power in particular could be a real game changer.
 
Muttley said:
It isn't just about "leading by example" it is more being ahead of the game. If the current best climate models are even remotely accurate we will be selling this technology and know-how all over the world. Tidal power in particular could be a real game changer.
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Funny enough, all that is in the podcast I mentioned.
 
Muttley said:
It isn't just about "leading by example" it is more being ahead of the game. If the current best climate models are even remotely accurate we will be selling this technology and know-how all over the world. Tidal power in particular could be a real game changer.
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I agree, you missed out my comment about being a market leader which means exactly the point you make.
SmallTown said:
It will though. Check out the fully charged plus podcast. There is an episode on there with a government advice and he explains the importance of of targeting net zero. The show was one with Micheal Liebreich. it was interesting. Maybe you should check out his "cleaning up" podcast. I imagine he'll explain it in there.
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Thank you, will do.
 
I have a air source heat pump installed in my house, it's been in since March this year, all the rads had to be replaced for much larger ones and some additional rads installed to ensure the house got warm enough, ours only runs the heating and not the hot water so we had a gas Baxi combi installed as well to run the water system.
We have the pump set to 21 degrees and it turns on auto when the house is lower than that. the gas boiler also overides the pump if the air temp is -3 or below.

We were one of the few lucky ones that managed to get a government grant for most of the work done via the renewable grants scheme that was running for a few months before it was cancelled.

We haven't had a winter yet with using it, although it was cold in March/April this year and we didn't have a problem with the house being warm.

Our pump is installed on our garage roof which seems a good place to have it, so it doesn't take any back garden space up.
 
The_Big_Woodowski said:
I looked in to it when replacing my boiler earlier this year. The boiler cost me £2k and the heat pump was just going to be under £15k. A government scheme was in place but it involved me paying the £15k up front and then would receive a portion of it back over the next 7 years I think it was. If my memory is correct I would have got circa £12.5k back over this time.
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How much would you have saved ?
 
TheLodger said:
It's not really about money savings, but the environmental savings are huge.
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But if not financially viable the environmental savings will be nil as it won’t get purchased. I decided to opt for the cheaper solution rather than spend an additional £12k I didn’t have,

Because I needed to pay up front would have involved me getting a loan again reducing the financial benefit even further.
 
It's like scrapping good cars to achieve some 'green' target. It stands to reason there must be extra environmental damage in there somewhere. Burning scrap, electric arc furnace etc.
For most people, energy saving measures are unlikely to pay off unless subsidised by the taxpayer. Added value to a property is hard to prove.
Build things to last and repair them as needed.
 
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