Expensive heating [image credit: the Guardian]
Because the government can claim, rightly or not, that they’re cheaper to run than gas boilers? Like electric cars, heat pumps are best suited (if at all) for financial and other reasons to certain categories of property dweller, and the rest…not so much.
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An electric heating supplier has criticised the UK’s obsession with heat pumps when it comes to meeting net zero targets, says PropertyWire.
The government offers a £5,000 grant towards installing heat pumps, and so far just shy of 10,000 have been handed out since the scheme launched last year.
Keith Bastian, chief executive of electric heating company Fischer Future Heat, said installing 600,000 a year by 2028 is ‘optimistic at best’.
He said: “There’s no question that heat pumps will play a part in helping us to net zero. But heating homes in the UK is not a one size fits all solution.
“The government needs to put just as much effort into highlighting other forms of zero emission heating – giving consumers greater choice to suit their circumstances.”
Heat pumps can struggle to reach comfortable temperatures in colder weather, while the noise can be an issue due to the outdoor fan which usually placed in the garden.
They’re also very pricey, with purchase and installation costs ranging anywhere between £7000 and £14000 – considerably higher than the £2000 average for a replacement gas boiler.
Fischer Future Heat outlined a number of alternatives to heat pumps:
Electric Boilers
Electric boilers offer high levels of efficiency and produce zero emissions in the home. With no requirement for external flues, and minimal moving parts, maintenance is a lot easier compared to heat pumps and gas boilers.
They are available as a Combi-Boiler which can be swapped directly with a gas boiler to provide heating and hot water. Similar to heat pumps, a well-insulated home is important but installation is relatively straightforward and can be completed in under a day.
Electric Radiators
Modern electric radiators are a far cry from the big and bulky storage radiators of the 1970s and can be an effective and efficient method to provide your home’s heating. The best electric heaters come with individual thermostats which can be programmed to suit the user’s lifestyle and may even help reduce energy use.
Electric Water Heating
Keeping your water heating separate from the heating in your home can prove more efficient. Electric water heating systems have also come on in leaps and bounds in recent years and you no longer need huge water tanks in the loft or airing cupboard to enjoy a long hot bath. The Aquafficient uses phase change material to heat hot water and can fit into much smaller spaces than water tanks.
An electric hot water system can be paired with an electric ‘heat only’ boiler or electric radiators.
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He [Bastian] added: “Mass adoption of zero carbon heating systems can only be achieved if the government push heavily towards people moving to any form of electrical heating. The end result is we’re no longer using fossil fuels in the home which ultimately is what we are all trying to achieve.”
Full article here.
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All these supposed electrical heating solutions will cost 3 times more than a gas boiler to run, on current prices.
So it is a choice of being scalded or burnt! No choice at all.
PH – true, and most of Europe will hit this wall within a decade or two.
I suspect the least worst heating option could be storage heaters that run on night rate electricity. The ones sold now allow more flexible usage than older types.
But then there’s the hot water question to solve.
All those electrical heating solutions presupposes that there is electricity to run them but if the country actually gets to net zero there won’t be. At the moment the UK would be in trouble if it couldn’t get electricity from europe, in fact with all the power stations that have been closed permanently there is no way it could recover from the inevitable blackout – the people would be up in arms.
You can only achieve net zero by not heating your home and using only collected and stored rainwater. Why argue about types of electric dwelling and water heating that can never get to net zero?
Let’s stop all this discussion about the benefits and dis benefits of all this hardware and just focus on the fact that Net Zero is both impossible and futile .
As long as all the main UK political parties agree on net zero targets, and people keep voting for them, we’re looking at unappealing and more expensive home heating options in future, like it or not.