Energy Bills

[cyrusr]

9 hours ago, blandy said:

The prices of m’fish, chips and gravy have rocketed I’ve noticed.  My Friday treat is now a tenner, up from £7.45. 

Best way to reduce the cost? Drop the gravy. You know its for the best  

[sidcow]

As a by the way I've been spending at lot of time on YouTube and t'internet learning about Heat Pumps, Heat Batteries. Electric Boilers, Solar Panels, Battery Storage and everything in between. 

I am genuinely interested in this stuff and ultimately we're going to have to bite the bullet and take this on board.  I'd rather do this from a position of a little knowledge. 

Problem is (as always with tech) that massive improvements are just around the corner in a lot of these things.  Plus nothing is being properly mass produced yet except solar panels, so jump now and you're an early adopter probably paying a higher price for a soon to be outdated product.  But then if you always wait you'll never jump. 

The price of power just isn't ever going to come back down to where it was so all these things make more and more sense. 

[blandy]

28 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said:

A lot of air-conditioning units can operate in both directions - remove heat from the building and put it into the atmosphere, or remove heat from the atmosphere and put it into the building.

I am not sure how much heat they can extract from the air if it is minus 10 degrees, but it would seem unlikely it could manage to heat a house to 25C.

At what temperature would the heat pump use more energy than it extracts?

I gather they are recommended to supplement heating rather than replace it.

It needs some maths bod to calculate the volume of air in a semi, and then calculate how much heat (choose your own units) it would take to heat the whole house to 25C.

Anyone know the specific heat of air and does it change with density/temperature?

Putting a jumper on looks like a simpler solution.

They’re basically like fridges in many respects, but obviously designed to heat a house or building. Like with fridges, the size/heating capability needs to be appropriate for the space to be cooled/ heated.

The specific heat capacity of air depends on temperature and humidity, so “it depends”. Colder denser air has a higher shc, IIRC.

The thing with heat pumps is the need to have a draught proof and well insulated building, because they are a bit feeble. But they are designed to be the sole heat source for buildings. Jumper plus heating seems the best solution

[Xela]

20 minutes ago, a m ole said:

Tinfoil hat theory - chances the government are letting household builds soar intentionally to force more people to return to the office?

Erm, I don't think so. Even with increased energy costs, i still save more money WFH compared to the cost of trains and all the beers I'm forced to have after work when I go into the office! Thats just my situation though. 

Other people drive and are saving those fuel costs by WFH.

[blandy]

2 minutes ago, sidcow said:

As a by the way I've been spending at lot of time on YouTube and t'internet learning about Heat Pumps, Heat Batteries. Electric Boilers, Solar Panels, Battery Storage and everything in between. 

I am genuinely interested in this stuff and ultimately we're going to have to bite the bullet and take this on board.  I'd rather do this from a position of a little knowledge. 

Problem is (as always with tech) that massive improvements are just around the corner in a lot of these things.  Plus nothing is being properly mass produced yet except solar panels, so jump now and you're an early adopter probably paying a higher price for a soon to be outdated product.  But then if you always wait you'll never jump. 

The price of power just isn't ever going to come back down to where it was so all these things make more and more sense. 

Me too. I’m getting all the old doors and windows replaced, which should help. The optimist in me says “wait” for solar panels and stuff, because it just seems common sense that the next government will be financially encouraging homeowners to do that stuff and like you say the tech will get better and maybe also cheaper.

[blandy]

13 minutes ago, cyrusr said:

Best way to reduce the cost? Drop the gravy. You know its for the best  

Went for peas today

[trekka]

1 minute ago, blandy said:

Went for peas today

Well done!

 

[sidcow]

For anyone interested these channels are good 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I recommend you subscribe and have a look at some of their videos if there is a technology you are interested in. 

[Xela]

10 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

Cant see how families are going to be able to afford holidays or any other luxuries with these rising costs.

Furthermore i think your going to see crime go up as people will be desperate as they cant pay their bills

They won't. Back to the old days where a foreign holiday was a pipe dream for people. 

[tinker]

46 minutes ago, sidcow said:

As a by the way I've been spending at lot of time on YouTube and t'internet learning about Heat Pumps, Heat Batteries. Electric Boilers, Solar Panels, Battery Storage and everything in between. 

I am genuinely interested in this stuff and ultimately we're going to have to bite the bullet and take this on board.  I'd rather do this from a position of a little knowledge. 

Problem is (as always with tech) that massive improvements are just around the corner in a lot of these things.  Plus nothing is being properly mass produced yet except solar panels, so jump now and you're an early adopter probably paying a higher price for a soon to be outdated product.  But then if you always wait you'll never jump. 

The price of power just isn't ever going to come back down to where it was so all these things make more and more sense. 

Car manufacturers are in the same dilemma with battery technology, new technologies are being introduced on a yearly basis.

LiFePO4 batteries seem to be the choice for home users , I have a 4 cell 200ah battery that I have been using for about a year. It's light worlds away from lead tech but at the end of the day if lead is cheaper and easier to manufacture (per Ah) and weight isn't a factor (in vehicles it is)  then lead its good enough, at least at the top of the tech.

Basically theres no excuse to not invest , once you done the research. Further improvements will just drive the price down long term for each usable AH . 

Edited August 26, 2022 by tinker

[blandy]

1 hour ago, sidcow said:

recommend you subscribe and have a look at some of their videos if there is a technology you are interested in. 

They’re the ones I’ve looked at too!  Kryten’s taken on a more human appearance.

[MakemineVanilla]

11 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

Thats what im hoping.

Cant see how families are going to be able to afford holidays or any other luxuries with these rising costs.

Furthermore i think your going to see crime go up as people will be desperate as they cant pay their bills

What with inflation and sky-high heating costs, I think many sectors of the economy are going to be devastated.

It looks like we've all been conscripted into the battle with the Russians, whether we wanted it or not.

The politicians secure their seats at the top-table of global affairs, and we get screwed, all so the jingoists can delude themselves that Britannia means a damn.

Every government is voted in on promises they don't keep, and then claim they have a mandate to fight wars, or sanction countries the Americans tell us to.

They call it democracy and talk of sovereignty - both are delusions.

Amazingly people still claim voting matters.

 

[Genie]

Are the energy bills in America rocketing up at a similar rate?

[Davkaus]

20 minutes ago, Genie said:

Are the energy bills in America rocketing up at a similar rate?

There's some considerable anger about the surge in US energy price increases.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-23/can-t-pay-utility-bills-20-million-us-homes-behind-on-payments-facing-shutoffs

Edited August 26, 2022 by Davkaus

[Genie]

11 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

There's some considerable anger about the surge in US energy price increases.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-23/can-t-pay-utility-bills-20-million-us-homes-behind-on-payments-facing-shutoffs

About 17% year on year change? Similar with petrol (gas), they don’t know how good they have it.

What’s the reason the UK has such a large spike? We don’t even buy our gas from Russia. I know it’s a global price but you’d think if anything we’d be better off than the Euro zone.

[Davkaus]

2 minutes ago, Genie said:

About 17% year on year change? Similar with petrol (gas), they don’t know how good they have it.

What’s the reason the UK has such a large spike? We don’t even buy our gas from Russia. I know it’s a global price but you’d think if anything we’d be better off than the Euro zone.

The other major western nations generate more of their own power, in one way or another, be is France with their nuclear power stations, Germany with its coal, or Sweden with loads of hydroelectric generation.

We rely on gas more than most other countries, and took the decision not to bother maintaining storage facilities, so poor investment in infrastructure has **** us from both ends leaving us far more reliant on short term market pricing than other nations.

We also saw a damaged interconnector limiting the amount we can buy from France.

Then there's the reluctance of the government to do a damn thing about it, while France is taking the opportunity to fully nationalise EDF, and Spain have rolled out a tax on the energy companies

[Vive_La_Villa]

35 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

There's some considerable anger about the surge in US energy price increases.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-23/can-t-pay-utility-bills-20-million-us-homes-behind-on-payments-facing-shutoffs

What happened to all the shale??

[sidcow]

51 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

What happened to all the shale??

From what I can gather shale is a bit of a sham.

Relatively expensive to explore identify and open up a field that then get exhausted pretty quickly so they have to move on to the next one. 

It's not like normal gas fields where they find one, drill down then have a few years worth of gas to extract. 

[one_ian_taylor]

11 hours ago, blandy said:

They’re basically like fridges in many respects, but obviously designed to heat a house or building. Like with fridges, the size/heating capability needs to be appropriate for the space to be cooled/ heated.

The specific heat capacity of air depends on temperature and humidity, so “it depends”. Colder denser air has a higher shc, IIRC.

The thing with heat pumps is the need to have a draught proof and well insulated building, because they are a bit feeble. But they are designed to be the sole heat source for buildings. Jumper plus heating seems the best solution

Bit of a myth with  heat pumps that you need to have the building well  insulated. While ot might be better to do so, it's  possible to make a heat pump run well in any building if it's designed and run properly. 

Most heat pumps are designed to run at a lower temperature, which may mean you need bigger radiators and the right sized  pipework (ironically new build homes can be some of the most difficult to retrofit because of microbore pipework). Where heat pumps have failed in the past, this has often been down to poor sizing of the heat pump itself and design of the system. A good heating  engineer will tell you how they would be able to make a heat pump well in any building 

The very niche and nerdy BetaTalk podcast goes into a lot of this at length. Good episodes to start would be "5 common mistakes  with heat pump installs" and "Can every home have a heat pump". 

There are a few issues though -first one is the relative price of gas to electricity (roughly 1:3 ratio), so even if a heat pump is working at 270% efficiency (1 unit of electricity in gives you 2.7 heat) compared with a likely 85% (or more realistically 75%) efficient boiler, you are still better off doing practical draught proofing and insulation to bring down running costs and help improve system  efficiency. Cost is another one, disruption of installation (e.g. for those new builds with microbore pipes), and siting of the heat pump/planning. Most heat pumps will also require a hot water tank - we got rid of most of ours with the switch to combi boilers and space now needs to be found. 

There's  been some coverage recently of boiler  efficiency/optimisation. Amazing it has made it into the news. But it feels  like gas boilers get a bit of a free ride when in fact many of them aren't  working to the stated efficiency.  Partly  because they are running too hot (set up to 70 degree flow temp when 55 would use less energy  and create  less wear and tear), pump speeds are set too high, and the heating system (controls, radiators) are not set up/maintained  as they should. There's  a terrific amount  of wastage from boilers not running properly,  particularly  from condensing boilers  never getting into condensing mode. 

 

[one_ian_taylor]

12 hours ago, blandy said:

Me too. I’m getting all the old doors and windows replaced, which should help. The optimist in me says “wait” for solar panels and stuff, because it just seems common sense that the next government will be financially encouraging homeowners to do that stuff and like you say the tech will get better and maybe also cheaper.

You'll  be waiting a long time for support for solar PV - after removal.of the feed in tariff,  I don't  think there will ever be support for PV again apart from possibly  changes to the smart export guarantee. The payback on PV is probably better than it ever has been right now (excepting the early  days of the feed in tariff), though it depends on how much of it you can use at home.

Batteries help you use more obviously, but I'm  not sure they are quite there yet. A hot water tank  like a mixergy would be another option to make the most of PV - would basically mean free hot water during the summer, but most homes  don't  have hot water tanks