Received this email from Octopus today which makes me think they are planning for a new heat pump tariff ?
Does make me wonder how they know I have a heat pump. I didn’t buy mine from Octopus and I had the pump for 2 years before joining Octopus last summer.
Maybe they worked it out from my high winter consumption, but equally I could just be growing “plants” in the loft …. 🤣
I received the same email from Pete at Octopus this morning.
I was on Cosy for a while so perhaps they know about my heat pump from then.
My heat pump was installed last July and not from Octopus.
I have no issues with taking part in the survey.
Cosy seems to expect that 'low' rates would be used to heat up the house (gas boiler mentality) whereas heat pumps are best employed 24/7. I used the slots to charge up battery but the slots are too short and not equally spaced. The 12 hour gap from 4pm to 4am is just when you need the cheaper slots. 7am to 1 pm is just 6 hours when power may be supplemented by PV.
rob
geoffreycoan They're lobbying to get the "green subsidies" removed from electricity tariffs and put on gas tariffs.
They have ZERO chance of that happening while 80%+ of people in the UK use gas for water and space heating. Political suicide, not to mention technically impossible for all those people to switch over until the grid and local networks are upgraded. That'll be about 20 years from now at the rate things are "progressing" in the UK.
Basically people are starting to wake up to the fact that heatpumps make zero financial sense to anybody with mains gas. You'd need a COP >3.4 and a totally free install to break even.
Something will need to happen but any govt which does this will be out on their arse in the next election.
There's no money (nor should there be IMHO) to subsidise every heatpump install, never mind the grid/substation upgrades (if the materials/engineering staff could be sourced, which they can't since Brexit).
So there's the conundrum/gordian knot. Best of luck solving it.
If it keeps flooding and we get 40c + heatwaves on a regular basis these opinions will change. Also nice to at least attempt to leave a planet for my grandchildren. A cop of 3.4 would be the lowest that should be acceptable- many do much better. Need to disconnect gas and electricity prices which a few more floods etc should allow someone with a large majority to do? Maybe?
The grid thing is mostly you tube scare stories.
SimonClarke The grid thing is mostly you tube scare stories.
No its not. There are dozens, if not hundreds of new developments on hold because there is no grid capacity. There's water, gas, fibre, sewerage (aye right!) but no power connection possible from National Grid.
One near here (Garendon Estate, 3000+ houses) has been on hold for 5 years while they completed an incinerator. Now that the building regs have changed (heat pumps on new builds started after 2023) its still mainly on hold as 42MW of extra power isn't close to what will be required with heatpumps/EV chargers.
On this estate the substation will have to be completely rebuilt when gas is phased out. As will all the others in the town as there is no possibility of them coping unless people are forced to run heatpumps intermittently, and you're never going to get decent COP figures that way.
People are pretty clueless as to the state of the grid, both local and national. Switch from gas space heating to heatpump and you're at LEAST doubling your electricity consumption - more likely quadrupling it. There isn't the capacity for that at a national or local level. Then add in EVs.
Our ex-neighbour is fairly senior in BG on the renewables side of things (has been for 20 years now) so I picked up a fair amount. From initial proposal to deployment on anything over 100MW is currently 13 YEARS. Reason is that its pretty much impossible to get an interconnector to the grid. That's much the same for any significant generating capacity, regardless of how green it is.
In terms of climate, no doubt at all things have to change.
Policy however is a joke (blame the Tories for that), there isn't taxpayer money to pump in and even if there was, every developed country in the world is rebuilding/expanding their grid so where is Brexit Britain going to get the materials and the skills when we can't even make steel now?
OK, some may say lefty propaganda…. 😉
Everything’s impossible, until someone does it. And it would make sense to try!
Watcher Hadn't seen that but it mentions moving levies onto gas which is exactly what Octopus are lobbying for. No UK govt is ever going to do that as it'd quadruple people's bills and frankly condemn a lot of them to freeze to death.
Also I love the "statistic" that 67% of people are happy with their heatpump - they bloody ought to be given they got £7500 free cash from their fellow taxpayers, most of whom won't be able to afford a heatpump!
Flooding and incinerating ourselves or not probably shouldn’t be a political football but it will be. And I definitely agree that the current mob really haven’t helped with anything - especially the sewage ( despite creating a lot….). In the end whether it costs a bit more or less to run an ashp isn’t going to matter if some brave politicians say no more fossil fuels in homes. As for subsidies I think they should be means tested and on a sliding scale rather one of the usual sharp cut off type.
As for consumption this seems to show a noticeable decline
Definitely all worth a try as the alternative is starting to look unpromising
SimonClarke I agree but the Octopus lobbying is a poster child of having your cake and eating it. They have benefited HUGELY from levies on electricity in the past/present and its only now they have their own (significant) PV/wind generation running and are trying to flog heatpumps (and failing to hit targets by a country mile) that they want it all turned around to benefit them (again).
The consumption graph is to be expected as pre-2000 a disproportionate amount of energy was used for lighting. Also pretty much every device made during that period has become more power-efficient than its predecessor - ovens are a classic example, pre-2000 had a lot less effective insulation compared to now. Also the recent drop on the graph seems more likely to have been caused by the energy spikes in 2022.
Gas isn't going away in the next 20-30 years unless govts get serious about district heating schemes. That's unlikely to happen while the English right-wing press is around, which I find amusing as such bastions of socialism as New York City have had them for the best part of 100 years 🙂
I’m probably an easy use case for switching over. I’ve got a 21 yr old inefficient boiler, a dead rad in the hallway and very poor heat from the one in my daughter’s room. I have a 140l megaflo tank already so a location for a (larger) tank to go to.
At some point I’d have to splash out for a new condensing boiler and get the rad issues sorted. It may just be cheaper to take advantage of the current subsidy and go down the Heat pump route.
I’ve been paying attention to the results from YouTubers switching over especially as I have microbore. I may get a quote from Octopus and see how much it comes back as.
Hook The thing is that heatpumps shouldn't be the first and last options as per current govt policy - if you can call mindless gibberish a "policy".
Its not that people shouldn't get them - of course they should in most cases - but that shouldn't be the default for all homes. It shouldn't even be close to the majority of homes as the units manufacture uses up a good chunk of carbon savings over the lifespan.
In most urban/suburban areas there's a pretty good system of pipes in place already - the gas network. Its pretty good because unlike water pipes, people tend to notice fairly rapidly when there's a gas leak 🙂
Some pipework may be unsuitable and require lining/replacement but if it holds gas it'll hold hot water, so district heating isn't a build from scratch project with massive country-wide roadworks (and associated carbon costs). Its also a simple system - pumped hot water into a heat exchanger at the premises so cheap as chips (and possibly something even the UK can manage to build itself?).....
Way OT...sorry 🙂
Hook currently getting quotes and we also have microbore. Got one from Octopus last year of £4100 after the sub but they said they would do better if we had a better EPC so I did the required insulation (good idea anyway) and moved up to a B from a D but now they won’t quote! A local quoted £7300 which seems over the top to me for a 3 bed bungalow. Waiting for some more. Something around 4 would probably get the go ahead.
I believe the requirement for 300mm insulation and cavity wall insulation has been removed now as well.
All the roads around where we live are being dug up by Cadent to replace the gas pipes, so I don't think they would be doing that if gas was going away anytime soon. I plan to buy a new boiler just before they stop selling them in 2030 and that will probably last my life time.
Why does everyone only think of a radiator based heat pump system? Why isn't the government also offering incentives for air2air systems.? The advantage of these is that you don't have to run them all the time, just to keep the temperature at a constant. Who needs the heating on when you're asleep - just get a winter duvet!! You put air2air on. when YOU want it. Many systems can be run from a phone app - so you can switch the heating o before you get in from work and come home to a nice warm house. You set each unit separately so you can have different temps in each room just like radiators. It's just like having the old gas fired air central heating. Instant heat when you want it - no waiting for radiators to warm up, and the bonus of air conditioning in the summer - which is a definite plus given the way the climate is changing. Also cheaper to install that air 2 water systems and you can free up wall space because there are no radiators. The biggest disadvantage is that it won't heat your water, but you can now get water tanks with a built in heat pump and in the summer you can use a solar diverter (like an Eddie or iboost). Take a look at this for the pros and cons of both systems
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tStlklv1jcE&t=11s
Because, as you say, they also cool, which obviously means they are for the wealthy elite who don’t care how much electric they use. Burning the planet to a crisp but being nice and chilled.
You are correct, …… the scops tend to better, too. So glad I got mine installed last month it is a game changer!
Oh, and the electric to run mine is solar/battery and because of that I don’t burn Calor gas for my heating as my house is off mains gas.
Win/win.
Hook yeah saw that just after we got the new EPC!
Whichever system at least it’s not a fossil….
We run 2 x A2A external units alongside our solar and batteries. Octopus paid us last year for utilities, including small gas use (mainly hot water), standing charges and charging an EV. At current rates they'll also be paying us again this year. Quite some investment was needed but payback on all of it is still sub 10 years. The financial element is just part of it though.
Turns out my current boiler is 77% efficient. Getting quotes. Makes sense.