This is a direct, non-scientific comparison between two tariffs in two home.
I have a 4 bed home, 3.2kW panels, 5.2kW battery, ASHP and no gas. I am on Octopus Cosy.
My brother in law has a 4 bed home, 3.2kW panels, 3.2kW battery and gas. Full EV car with low usage. He is on Octopus GO.
My bills are running about £2/m different, I import less and export more. As I say, wholly unscientific but shows little variation for similar homes build in the last 10 years.
Roy124 That bears out that the cost of running heat pumps and running gas boilers in a similar property is roughly the same. As each unit of gas is 3 times cheaper than electricity but heat pumps are 300% efficient this is quite understandable.
However over the next decade I fully expect the link between electric and gas energy prices to be broken where we will then see gas prices rise quickly to unit prices half that of electric or even on a parity.
It says that any time now is a good time to replace gas heating with heat pump heating especially if your gas boiler needs replacing.
Windy Miller It says that any time now is a good time to replace gas heating with heat pump heating especially if your gas boiler needs replacing.
And that the current BUS grant won’t be around forever. We’ve already seen the RHI grant (which I got) replaced by the less advantageous BUS grant, and in future years I expect this too will be watered down.
Roy124 I would think both of the homes would benefit from a larger battery, especially in winter to get through the Cosy peak period. Whether the economics of this are good enough is another question
Windy Miller However over the next decade I fully expect the link between electric and gas energy prices to be broken where we will then see gas prices rise quickly to unit prices half that of electric or even on a parity.
...and which govt/party do you think is going to make themselves unelectable for at least a generation by doing this?
Don't get me wrong, it needs doing but you'd triple the heating costs for the vast majority of the country. That's going to kill a lot of people and drive another few million people into abject poverty. Its not just "courageous" (as Sir Humphrey would say), its suicidal.
Just look at the shitstorm caused by proposals to introduce geographical electricity pricing (which again needs doing) and multiply it by a factor of 10.....
geoffreycoan You might say that the need for persuasive grants is reduced once the cost of the equipment drops. This is already happening albeit slowly. The FIT tariff was an early incentive to get people to install solar panels. That went but the SEG can be quite generous from some suppliers if they do your install.
Windy Miller Agreed, that pattern occurred with FIT for solar, there were subsidies for the first EV’s, and now RHI/BUS for Heat Pumps.
And prices have come down. My FIT panels have taken 10 years to pay back, my GivEnergy solar and batteries will take about 6-7. Not a straight comparison because the batteries have enabled smarter tariffs, but the per unit price has dropped from what it was and the same is happening with heat pumps.
I agree with the comments about the need to break the gas and electricity price linkage, and that it won’t be straight forward. Similarly moving the green levies that are on electricity over to gas will be politically difficult but needs to be done
@geoffreycoan more battery capacity over panel capacity is what I had already suggested.
One son in law told me that 8.5kW is approaching optimum.
Whilst I should have a larger battery my age and possible relocation suggest sticking with what we have.
Roy124 I agree with that 8.5kWhr being optimum. It's what I have (actually 8.2kWhr) and currently I'm charging during the day and powering the house all night with the battery. The last 4 nights I've ended the night with 17%, 9%, 11% and 9% charge respectively. The overnight Agile prices are sitting above 16p which for me means I will use hardly any grid energy.