Possibly should have included a point for those who state that gas is relied on more in the winter months: If the grid was 100% powered by gas power plants in the UK, the average CO2 emissions would be ~390g/kWh delivered. So even in the worst case (that never really happens for any substantial length of time), you'd be emitting the equivalent of 1038kg of CO2. So still less than half.
@@robinbennett5994 Yes, if you look at the Demand graph on the right @ 1:13 you can see the demand met by fossil fuels is generally higher in winter than it is in summer. Whilst that will reduce over time, some people will claim that more heat pumps and EVs will increase it instead.
@@BenIsInSweden in UK last year we imported about 200 terrawatt hours LNG. Please look at the Cornell study on LNG. We also burn huge amounts, by volume, of biomass. A lot is imported, the truth is it produces more co2 than burning coal. To cap it all many billions of subsides have been provided with another load promised. I have been on Agile, an electricity tariff that depends on supply of renewable electricity. Apart from a few days now the "Dunkelflaute" has caused me great pain in the wallet.
@@jonjo6886 The problem with the LNG argument is that it applies equally to burning gas in a boiler, so the emissions reductions from using a heat pump still hold true. I'm also not in favor of biomass and don't agree that burning wood in a fireplace is 'carbon neutral.' As for Agile tariffs and the 'Dunkelflaute,' doesn't this speak more to the high price of gas increasing costs than an inherent problem with renewables?
Our modern condensing combi boiler used 12,000 kWh of gas a year, our heat pump uses less than 4000kWh, even if this 100% came from electricity from gas generation I would be saving carbon. In reality our power comes from our own solar and whatever renewable resources Octopus supply.
@@jezzaandrews1940 "gas being over 4 times the price"? You better correct that before someone else spots your typo 😉 With most condensing gas boiler achieving real world efficiency of around 85% the 4:1 ratio is not the correct comparison.
@@JP-wo4ic The point is that gas emits more CO2 per kwh of heat than a heat pump regardless of the source of he electriciy. As the grid becomes greener the difference will become even more stark.
@@UpsideDownFork 🤣Thanks for noticing! Forget the buffonery we are all guilty of it! I'm with you on Co2👍but I'm not convinced that at the moment, heat pumps are cheaper to run than gas. Edwyn has hard figures above. He used 4000kw of elec at Octopus rate of 24.1p kWh=£964. His old gas boiler used 13000kw Octopus rate of 5.74p kWh=£746. Cheaper with an old condensing boiler!!
According to my supplier (EDF), the UK average fuel mix co2 per kWh is 171 g/kWh. In my case with a projected COP of 3.8, my CO2 emissions with an ASHP should be around 20% of that produced by my gas boiler, so a saving of 80%
Looks like that figure comes from DUKES 5.14 data from DESNZ, available here: www.gov.uk/government/statistics/electricity-chapter-5-digest-of-united-kingdom-energy-statistics-dukes 2023 is the last year for which they have published information so far (and I think even 2023 was based on partial data) and it states 171gCO2/kWh So EDF are not wrong because they're using the latest "official" figure ... but we have also improved a lot since that was determined so the next "official" figure is likely to be closer to what @UpsideDownFork used in the video
Yes they save in all sorts of ways and the thing is that as the grid gets greener all the electric powered devices become greener to use. Gas is gas and will always be bad.
Great analysis. Think the change is definitely worth all the hassle. If only the media were actually telling people the truth and not spreading misinformation.
4 things I keep saying to people when talking gas v heat pumps: 1) not everyone has gas as an option 2) gas is heavily subsidised, electricity is not, so the game is rigged. 3) electricity CAN be fully renewable/clean, gas never can be (ignoring hydrogen) 4)burning that gas in a power station to make electricity for heat pumps is more efficient usage than burning it in the home!
@@iareid8255 You might want to look into domestic gas tax relief. Gas is indirectly subsidised in several other ways. From exploration, extraction, the whole chain including operating costs include some creative accounting. Please explain how you think that electricity is subsidised. The only part of electricity generation that is heavily subsidised is CCGT. Gas.
@@UpsideDownFork No you make the common mistake of calling tax relief subsidiy, it is not it applies to all industries and commerce. The oil and gas industry pays more tax overall than the rest of industry due to extra taxes such as the so called windfall tax. Renewables are subsidised with Renewables obligation certificates, feed in tariffs or Contracts for Difference which are added to the electrcity bills. Not only that a carbon tax is added to gas or oil generation which ultimately ends on the bill. Not exactly a subsidy, but renewables are guaranteed that all they can supply will be used and paid for at the guranteed price, if they are curtailed the payment per Megawatt is higher than their contract price. All for a second rate type of generation.
I'd like to go to heat pump, but there are 3 blockers for me personally (at the moment). 1) My house is quite large and so even with the government subsidy, I would be looking at £13000 according to Octopus and £20000 for Heat Geeks. That is one hell of an up front investment to swallow that would take a long time to recoup. 2) My house looks good if I say so myself. It was well thought out and built, so has very little pipes or cabling visible. The thought of having to run new pipes and make changes all over the place then need to be made good again, really puts us off doing it. 3) This one is less of an issue, but I kind of like the fact we have multiple potential sources for heating, cooking and hot water. We have solar/battery, which is great in the summer, less great in the winter. While I kind of like the idea of binning off the gas for the multiple good reasons there are, I also do wonder how reliable electricity will be in this country given the useless governments we have had and will have for the coming years. Having the gas just in case, doesn't seem like a bad idea right now. Having said that, if the Cosy12 (or other higher temp pump) comes out and can literally just replace the boiler, with no major renovations and a decent COP to make it worth it, then I'll be interested for sure. But for now, I'm waiting it out. Will probably mean I miss out on the taxpayer robbery/government subsidy, but the gain just ain't worth the pain for me just yet.
Fortunately with our installation we only had one new radiator location. All the other changes were just upgrades to the radiators. We took the opportunity to switch from traditional horizontal steel radiators to high output designer aluminium vertical radiators. This cost quite a bit more but was a significant practical and aesthetic upgrade and much better than the K3 steel radiators that was the initial suggestion. This required some local adjustments to the pipes but was not too disruptive.
Ouch, that is quite a bitter pill to swallow at that price. The vast majority of heat pump retrofits do require radiator changes but not pipework changes so internally you wouldn't normally need anything to be made good after the works. Of course externally, most properties will have the pump along with pipework and cabling on show. I appreciate the concern around redundancy. Personally I don't think it's going to be an issue. The only way for us to personally insure ourselves against that is investing in substantial home battery storage. Of course that adds a bigger price tag on top of your already expensive heat pump installation. The great thing is that you are considering it. Like you say, simpler, cheaper solutions may come along. When the time comes and your boiler reaches it's end of life perhaps everything will fall into place.
Regarding the health impacts of burning fossil fuels, thousands die prematurely in the U.K. every year as a consequence of inhaling combustion products - not just NOx but PM 2.5.
Almost all of the emissions from a boiler will vent externally as long as there are no faults. Yes, gas hobs are the very worst when it comes to internal air quality.
And that's without factoring in octopus "buying" green electricity making the ASHP effectively zero. Obviously green tariffs are a bit of a fudge but.....
That's a point. I tried to keep this all pretty general and averaged out. In reality I live next door to a 11MW solar farm, so my own personal emissions from going electric will potentially be lower than some others.
Similar age property to you, just smaller 3 bed. I went solar, battery and EV in the last year. Its saving me similar cash on electricity costs for the house, and around £800 in road fuel costs. I moved purely for the savings. Gas boiler is a 5 y.o. greenstar and has used £500 in gas to heat the house & hot water in the last year. Around 7000Kwh for 3 tons of CO2. I accept I could save a lot of CO2 and NOx but cant see a cost saving, so unlikely to decarbonise the boiler, even if it breaks.
With the right tariff, you'll certainly save a bit of cash on the running costs by switching to a heat pump. Perhaps a heat pump will be cheaper than a replacement gas boiler when the time comes?
@@UpsideDownFork Thank you yes, I'm on Octopus for the summer to get the best export and UW for their Econ 7 in the winter 5.4p. I dont need day electricity in any volume due to the batteries, so it works well. I will give it a close look as the boiler ages. Obviously, if gas goes up a lot, it will save me some dosh, at that would be a re-consideration point too. BTW loving the videos, thank you and keep up the great work. 👍
The CO2 argument often made by those against heat pumps and EVs (same argument) is that it’s just shifting and ignoring that it’s not true that assumes our grid will remain as dirty as it currently is, again it’s not. If you’re burning something as fuel at home you’re only ever going to be able to burn that fuel, if you go electric and the grid gets greener you get greener, so the argument isn’t just now, but tomorrow and the day after. If we reach a point where the grid is consistently almost 100% renewables then those co2 emissions from powering a heat pump will be nearly zero, it will remain consistent for your gas boiler because it can only burn gas, and gas isn’t going to get cleaner. Even if it was just shifting that isn’t necessarily a bad thing either, as it would move the CO2/no/particulates away from urban centres where they cause the most damage to people’s health.
It's mostly that people repeat what they are fed. If the grid was supplied by old fashioned coal generation only a cop of 4 would be the break even point. With modern coal plants that would be scop 3.2 . But clearly that is not how electricity is generated. In the UK we average a quarter of the emissions of a coal only grid. Its an undoubted win for the planet.
Another very clear and unambiguous video explaining the advantages of going electric to reduce carbon, and other, emissions. Keep up the good work Richard. We followed you and other channels for a year before getting our ASHP installed. We went from an oil boiler, to electric storage heaters and heating panels for 2 years, before getting our HP. It’s been in for 2 months now with a cumulative SCOP of 4.75, and keeps our whole house at a comfortable 20 to 21C all the time, even on our coldest day so far at -6.2C. Moving from oil to the HP has reduced our heating costs to a third of what they were and has massively reduced our carbon emissions. As you point out this will reduce even more as the grid continues to decarbonise. On a mild day when it’s about 9 or 10C outside our HP uses ~12kWh to heat the whole house and DHW all day, which is what it took to charge one of our old storage heaters to heat one room. On our coldest -6C day the HP used 35kWh all day for heat and DHW, and cost us £4.50. In the storage and panel heater days that would have been about £10 without heating every room. And in the worst of the oil boiler days about £15. All in all we are very happy with our ASHP.
The other thing you could do to play devil's advocate is use marginal electricity carbon intensity. Instead of the average you could label the heat pump as only using gas fired power station created electrons. The argument being that the wind doesn't increase any when we add your ASHP to the grid and therefore all the extra energy needed comes purely from gas. It will still be lower carbon.
@@Lewis_Standing yep. Very true 👍 I might make a video about the perpetual energy device I've created by putting a wind turbine in front of my air source heat pump 😁
My mini split (18000 BTU's) works down to about between -5C and -20C at 1:1 efficiency but works best between -5C and +10C at about 2.5:1 efficiency. Above 10C to about 15C it is hardly ever on and after 15C it may or may not kick in until after 25 C when it works for A/C only
They don't make acidic condensate either , the average boiler produces a ton a year of acidic condensate. Having seen the damage it does to boiler internals , roof tiles etc. that's another plus point. Then add the gas network leakage of a 2-10% for the win.
Excellent info. I haven’t quantified my O2 & Nox savings but it’s just satisfying to know I am no longer burning 1000’s litres of oil per year and no longer producing tons of putrid emissions.
What I don't like is the way I think I am misled over co2 emissions. I think that the figure I see on the charts is the amount of co2 at the generation plant. We have to look at "Life Cycle Assessment" to get a proper understanding. For example, my car is quoted at 150 grams a mile but if I do my actual co2 its 220 grams a mile. If that's not bad enough, the real amount of co2 per mile is found by doing a "Well to Wheel Assessment" I did the sums.in the past and I think it came out at 36% more.
The carbon relocation argument held water about 20 years ago when there were still a number of coal power stations, but not today. It depends on the winter energy mix. Renewable energy getting a bigger share year on year. Why is cheap renewable electricity so expensive on the wholesale market? House of Commons Library Sep 2023. Marginal pricing is to blame where electricity is priced at the most expensive unit - usually natural gas. This is the previous government's choice not a problem with renewables. Some proposed changes include: Introducing incentives for consumers to draw electricity from the grid at cheaper rates when demand is low or more renewable energy is available. Creating separate markets for renewable and fossil-fuel generated electricity, so renewable energy prices can be set independently from gas. Reforming the capacity market to increase low-carbon flexibility technologies that are more responsive to changes in demand and supply, such as electricity storage. It seems Octopus Energy and others ahead of the curve here.
Was the saving from the average price of electricity from octopus or was it including the use of solar? i might i have if you stated that or not . Either way its good saving and i never thought about the NOx emissions
You have to bear in mind that the starting point for CO2 reduction is 4x less as the SCOP for a well designed and installed heat pump is at least 4 (it's actually nearer 4.5x relatively as boilers are typically less than 90% efficient). Then you include that roughly half of electricity creation is green so isn't creating CO2.
@@darrenadams2640 totally agreed. I was more surprised by the quantity than the percentage, amazing that it's literally tonnes a year. That and the car and the panels are contributing hugely to an overall reduction in carbon pollution, while saving money 🤑
One problem of looking at CO2 reduction is that most people don't have any intuitive concept of what the numbers mean. What's the average for the UK or the world? How many miles of driving an ICE car would it take to emit 2.9 tonnes of C02? Or how many flights?
It would be roughly equivalent to : -15,000 miles in an ICE car. - 8 Round trip flights from New York to Miami - Charging 6 million smartphones - 415 Meat based meals Don't shoot me if that's a little out, that's just from a quick google.
The CO2 directly generated by burning natural gas is 0.185 kg/kWh. The 280 g/kwh figure seems to be assuming some kind of worst case where that gas is burned, converted into electricity, transmitted to point of use, and a resistive heater used where the heating needed. Factoring in the leaks in gas infrastructure, pumping losses, and boiler efficiency, the truth for your situation is likely somewhere in the middle. The source that suggested a modern A-rated gas boiler emits 215 grams of CO2 per kWh of heat seems about right.
The type of heating makes no difference to the about of emissions made per kWh. However if you are looking at heat requirements then it does. Remember there is also biomass as a solution which actually produces more co2 than coal but is “carbon neutral” because it’s burning trees and it’s a bit of a fudge. Converting gas to electricity is around 50% efficient so a heat pump needs to have at least a cop of 1.5 ish to be better than most boilers, but there is a difference between type of use with boilers. Most are off all night and heat in bursts. However you’d be pretty pissed if your heat pump only gave a cop of 1.5 so heat pumps are better in my opinion. Trouble is there are so many variable to compare you can easily make the case either way. For example take someone with a combi boiler, electric shower and in summer uses zero gas at all as they boiler the hot water they need in a kettle. A heat pump does need to use a lot of power to heat a hot water tank every day so its emissions are far higher in the summer. In the winter its cop will drop and can be below 3 easily. Alternatively you could say an old boiler that needs to heat up a cylinder will have a ton of emissions all year round. Like I said heatpumps are better but it does depend.
You can't really say in UK a heat pump uses solar power. Perhaps a few with panels and batteries could claim to. But for me, it's mostly dark in the heating season and seeing as only 0.5% power came from solar midday it's of no value. So, I reckon my ashp is either powered by gas or wind. Look at biomass, it produces more co2 per kWh than coal. Look at the subsidies Drax has raked in. They are due a load more too! Even nuclear has it's downsides. More than half the heat goes directly into the environment. Then the billions that are going to be needed to do the clear ups. Wind power, when the wind isn't blowing have to be supplied with power (grid diesel?) Then when it is windy, the consumer pays hundreds of millions to turn it off. So, electricity being 4x the price of gas is realistic, taking all the inputs and wastage into account.
I think your complex way of calculating the CO2 is more accurate but as soon as your video started I simply said it would cut your emission by 9x. This is because a typical SCOP of 4 means 4.5x less KWh used (boiler being at best 90%) and then 56% of electricity is low carbon, so overall 9x less CO2. Its much easier for the man on the street to understand that you divide by roughly 4 due to the efficiency and then divide further by 2 for green generation. How can the NOx saving down to 1 be correct as roughly 50% of of the electricity heat pumps use is by burning so generating NOx?
CCGTs have extensive NOX reduction systems, in a similar way to how a modern ICE vehicle has catalytic converters, DPF and Adblue systems to reduce emissions. Gas boilers don't have these so they are much more polluting in the NOX department than a gas power plant. Sorry, I should have explained that bit!
I have heard, in some scenarios, that heat pumps are capable of saving CO2 emissions even if the grid is running from 100% gas. I haven't done those calculations myself to verify but the point is that, yes heat pumps are indeed a really useful technology in cutting emissions. It really is quite common for gas boilers to emit around 4 tonnes of CO2 per year heating a fairly average size home even though almost nobody is aware of the fact. Add in the solar generation you have and as you pointed out, your estimates are conservative. When burning gas we often have zero awareness of energy usage, efficiency or emissions. We used to just count the cost of the bill. Going electric gives you a far better awareness of all these things.
Yep, I did the calculations last year and did show the working in a very old video of mine. It is true that even a 100% gas grid with a heat pump would still be cleaner than a gas boiler. So true that we have a major lack of awareness around our gas consumption.
Even if the grid is powered entirely from coal, the heat pump will still save loads of carbon compared to a gas boiler. They are a win-win for the environment.
If your heat pump has a SCOP of 4, then the power plant would have to be only 25% efficient to break even with a heat pump compared to a theoretical 100% efficient boiler. Coal plants are about 35% efficient, so even that would be an improvement. Modern combined cycle gas turbines are about 70% efficient, so that's a massive improvement. Add in the fact that any boiler producing a cloud of steam is not condensing, and thus probably only 70% efficient instead of the claimed 90%, and it's easy to see why the heat pump is better.
To be fair to Roger Bizby who you pictured, his content has been part of my journey. When he did his collab with heat geek, it did help to inform me, and years ago I would not have considered moving away from gas because the electricity grid was a lot dirtier. I think it makes sense now. Well, obviously I think it makes sense now, because I'm now on the road to getting a heat pump!
I wish he would take down some of his content that got him tied up with heat geek. His channel still has some of the worst mis and disinformation around heat pumps on it.
Roger fitted some of the first heat pumps in the country with manufacturers . He is right about government subsidies causing more problems. People who are getting the grant could afford a heat pump anyway. There will be a time when heat pump or something similar will be replacement for a gas boiler
@@jamesjulian Most of the time, people doing things first are learning on the job and have little to no wisdom about the matter. Roger was paid by big manufacturers because of his face and profile, not because of his expertise or knowledge. He exposed himself as lacking knowledge about them during his face to face interview with Adam from Heat geek. The data on the grant (from MCS dashboard) shows that *some* receiving it could probably afford a heat pump without it, but the vast majority clearly couldn't/wouldn't get a heat pump without the grant.
I intended to add AC, but added a heat pump instead, it will provide all the AC needed and once it gets cold enough my high efficiency gas furnace kicks in. In Edmonton NOT having gas is ludicrous. The entire system is forced air based
@zen1647 heat pumps like other similar systems have a set of coils that are inside, integrated part of the forced air system and then there's a condenser outside the building. A heat pump is a reversible air conditioner, review a video called "You're wasting money on heating! Use your A/C!" will help you understand heat pumps
Interesting that you didn't even have a modern combi boiler. Guess your yearly ~£495 savings would have been even less then, maybe in the region of £400-420?
@UpsideDownFork Quite the hard sell Fork tbh, payback wise, and now you are having to capitulate and get a home battery too? Did you used to have a gas oven, hobs as well? Can't imagine going that much gas in a year?!
@@stuartburns8657 Yes, I agree that most people with a condensing boiler will see little to no financial savings if comparing on price cap tariffs and most of the savings will come from smart tariffs etc. I don't *have* to get a home battery. I've reduced my home energy bill from £2500 per year to almost zero by upgrading some insulation, fitting the heat pump and solar. If we hadn't purchased the EV we would definitely be in the negative home energy bills for 2024. A home battery will tip me into negative energy bills for the foreseeable future unless we have some major lifestyle changes or anything. 👍
@UpsideDownFork Here's hoping in 2025 the standing charges can be rolled into per kwh costs. That (some what selfishly?) will help with solar / battery ROI. Yourself with HP and EV, less Certain (if it does happen) but I guess you'd still want to separate them? All hypothetical of course at this stage. Never under estimate Ofgem ability to screw over consumers. Take the recent collapse of the DFS energy saving scheme..
He says they don't work unless they're put in well insulated new builds. He is wrong. He now knows he's wrong as the heat geek crew have put him right.
Having watched most of host contributions he is quite fair about it and has an open mind , taken in chronological sequence . He is not entirely wrong at all , good to excellent insulation is a pre requisite if your electric bills are not to run away with themselves . This is not a black and white scenario there are many variables .
For me, like EVs, clean breathable air is the target and reducing CO2 etc is an additional benefit. I am guessing that reducing CO2/NOx as a reason for most people is not on their radar as it drags into view the subject of climate change and for most people on this subject they don't know enough to know that they don't know enough (my judgement form seeing some of the anti-climate/anti-science change posts).
I was similar, but a bungalow and a suspended floor made a complete re-pipe fairly straightforward, if not desirable; as 28mm backbone feeds short 22mm tees to 15mm radiator connections.
Where are you seeing this? I've gone to the ONS release calendar and the only thing published on 16.12.24 is "Deaths registered monthly in England and Wales: November 2024"
@@UpsideDownFork I tend to find that the National Grid Live site seems to be on the optimistic side for grid emissions . I tend to use MyGridGB, but even then the last 12 months come out at 177g/kWh. Electricity maps is a good site as that tries to also calculate the imports CO2 for their respective grids that comes out at 180g/kWh over the last 12 months. It's only going to add around 50% to your figure so around 487kG and still over a 2 ton saving. As you say, the grid gets greener so that gap will just continue to grow.
@@drdarren666 In North Scotland we lead the way, more often than not electricity is 100% renewable, from NESO website "Scotland’s current winter peak gross demand is 4GW, rising to approximately 6GW by 2030. Its generation capacity is 17.8GW, rising to approximately 43GW in the Leading the Way scenario by 2030."
People struggle with absolute numbers because they have no context for if something is a lot or a little. I think percentage reduction could be more informative to the average person?
We are, but that doesn't mean we will continue to do that in a decade from now. The current government is looking to decarbonise the grid, thus making the UK more immune to global energy price fluctuations. It makes perfect sense for the UK to be as energy independent as possible.
During winter there is no solar as far as generating electricity goes. Although gas turbines are up to 60% efficient in reality it's more like 30% because of ramping up and down to accommodate wind. During the "Dunkelflaute" there have been plenty of times up to 70% of electricity generation has been gas or imported. Look at the life cycle assessment of emissions from LNG. Cornell university study said it's on a par with coal. Your figures are naive!
Solar is currently providing 5% generation (55% wind). I live right next door to an 11MW Solar farm. From 8:30am this morning until now we have been 100% from solar panels on our own roof. I didn't need to bring any of these aspects into the video to actually show that in my situation we have saved way more than the video suggests. We can only work with the data we have. The numbers i've shared are what is publicly available and widely agreed upon. Whether they are slightly optimistic or pessimistic is neither here nor there. The point of the video is that whichever way you slice it, heat pumps save huge amount in emissions and will only get better as the grid gets cleaner.
Even at 30% efficiency, running 100% of the time for UDF's usage (2,660 kWh), the CO₂ emissions would be around 1,630 kg - still significantly less than burning the gas in a boiler. I'd be interested to see proof of efficiency dropping to 30% due to accommodating wind though.
So according to the graphs a resistive heater would also be better than gas. If you assume 100% gas electricity production, that means its less CO2 to burn gas to make electricity than to just burn the gas for heat. That doesn't make any sense, it seems you are using a yearly average figure for CO2 emissions from electricity, which isn't realistic. The problem here is that if you convert even just half of the 30 million homes to heat pumps (which really isn't feasible), you are going to need alot more electrical generation and that is going to come from gas and not renewables which we are already using the max amount. Unlike with EVs it does not make sense to convert everyone to electrical heating until there is enough renewable capacity to supply it. What is feasible is to use geothermal heating community schemes for the majority of high density homes in cities and towns. Also going for SCOP is meaningless, you need a winter figure because 80% of heating comes from 3-4 months of cold weather. Hot water can come from solar thermal in the summer, so its not reasonable to claim it as a benefit of heat pumps. At the end of the day heat pumps are just too expensive for the majority.
Renewables are rapidly expanding and the National Grid have published plans to meet increased heatpump and EV demand. Google it. They've spoken on it many times. Obviously wind power is plentiful during winter months and Battery storage systems are being deployed to improve the mix.
As I said in another comment that said Gas Power Plant efficiency can go as low as 30%: Even at 30% efficiency, running 100% of the time for UDF's usage (2,660 kWh), the CO₂ emissions would be around 1,630 kg - still significantly less than burning the gas in a boiler. And we already know UDF would have run a gas boiler in the same way as a heat pump, as he was doing that in his previous house, so his figures for the same heat from a gas boiler still apply. And if gas boilers will be on more use like you suggest, they will end up running more efficiently anyway. Not sure how you can say we are already using the max amount of renewables? There are 6 offshore wind farms under construction, 3 onshore. And over 40 proposed ones are yet to start construction. Also in the past 24 hours, renewables have provided over 50% of the demand in the UK, so in that time frame, resistive heating would have been better for emissions than a gas boiler.
In addition to all the points made by Alan and Ben, my heat pump's COP is better in the winter months than in the summer months as I showed in a previous video. This is due to central heating being more efficient for the heat pump than domestic hot water. You say heat pumps are too expensive for the majority, but it was considerably cheaper for us to go this route than to replace with another gas boiler. I'm not alone in this, my videos are filled with comments from others who are in the same situation. Yes, on average I agree that heat pumps are still too expensive and this needs to change. A simple adjustment to the spark gap and the merit order could see the cost of electricity falling considerably and then heat pumps will not need COPs of 3.5 and above to compete with gas on running costs. If we paid a fair price for gas and electricity in this country then a COP of 2 would see heat pumps being cheaper to run than gas boilers. At that cost, no rad and other system upgrades would typically be needed which could significantly reduce the cost of installation for many homes.
@@UpsideDownFork People who have money and live in their house can buy heat pumps, they look after their houses. You have no idea of the condition of other peoples houses, in particular the rented sector. This is the limiter. You cannot heat with electricity realistically unless you reduce the losses in the home, the power is more limited (7kW) than with gas (30kW or more). Gov't should concentrate on home improvement first instead of a new magic answer, its way cheaper and leaves the door open for whatever answer we go for.
@@tonystanley5337 Or enforce rent control to kick out all of the horrendous landlords. Property "investments" have been seen as this get rich easily scheme and take advantage of the most vulnerable in our society. I've done a lot of charity work over the last 20 years and been in to different homes, sometimes multiple struggling households every day. I'm well aware of the terrible situation that many are in. Many of my friends and family are also subject to the rental market. I do recognise my fortunate position. I should leave the politics to the politicians. Anyway, you make a good point. I think we should be doing both at the same time. We need to improve the efficiency of our homes and we need to decarbonise. Heat pumps are the best tool we have for decarbonisation. Insulation is the best tool we have for increasing housing performance.
It is my understanding that the CO2 content in the atmosphere is the lowest it has ever been, so low in fact that growers are having to pump extra CO2 into greenhouses etc to get worthwhile crops ? Could the green plan be maybe a political tool to collect more taxes ?
Come on. There's many decades of science, many thousand of research studies. It's all published in rigourous peer reviewed journals. Ps. CO2 can be used in greenhouses to boost greening.
You have a misunderstanding on CO2, in 1950-60's the levels in the atmosphere were around 300ppm, today they are over 400ppm, that's a 1/3 increase so wouldn't all plants globally be growing more? But this isn't whats happening. CO2 in the upper atmosphere traps in heat which is causing the changes in the climate leading to further extremes of droughts to floods, all of which are bad for plants. Growers are NOT forced to pump additional CO2 into greenhouses, they do it because they can stimulate growth and yield from crops. One thing to remember is that a greenhouse is a controlled environment, where a field isn't, so they can manage CO2 levels, water, temperature, day light etc. to maximise production. Reducing CO2 in the atmosphere will help to bring the extremes in weather more under control and be better for us all, including the plants.
And just to add to @steve_787's comment. Today we have the highest level of CO2 that has been in the atmosphere in human existence. It is true that before humans existed, CO2 levels varied well beyond today's level, but plants and animals have evolved over the last million years or so with lower levels of CO2 than we have today. There is evidence that levels over 600ppm can have adverse health effects on humans (Australian National University 2014) and other studies show adverse effects on both humans and plants at certain concentrations. I can't remember what those concentrations were off the top of my head. Also, according to Kristie Ebi, University of Washington, higher concentrations of CO2 increases synthesis of carbohydrates (sugars and starches) but leads to decreases in concentrations of zinc, iron and B vitamins, which isn't ideal. I think I've seen that in the 'Nature' journal as well but I'm not sure if that referring to Ebi or other research.
Possibly should have included a point for those who state that gas is relied on more in the winter months:
If the grid was 100% powered by gas power plants in the UK, the average CO2 emissions would be ~390g/kWh delivered. So even in the worst case (that never really happens for any substantial length of time), you'd be emitting the equivalent of 1038kg of CO2. So still less than half.
Does the grid use more gas in winter? I thought we got more wind in winter, which more than makes up for the loss of solar (at least in the UK)
@@robinbennett5994 Yes, if you look at the Demand graph on the right @ 1:13 you can see the demand met by fossil fuels is generally higher in winter than it is in summer. Whilst that will reduce over time, some people will claim that more heat pumps and EVs will increase it instead.
Great point!
@@BenIsInSweden in UK last year we imported about 200 terrawatt hours LNG. Please look at the Cornell study on LNG. We also burn huge amounts, by volume, of biomass. A lot is imported, the truth is it produces more co2 than burning coal. To cap it all many billions of subsides have been provided with another load promised.
I have been on Agile, an electricity tariff that depends on supply of renewable electricity. Apart from a few days now the "Dunkelflaute" has caused me great pain in the wallet.
@@jonjo6886 The problem with the LNG argument is that it applies equally to burning gas in a boiler, so the emissions reductions from using a heat pump still hold true. I'm also not in favor of biomass and don't agree that burning wood in a fireplace is 'carbon neutral.'
As for Agile tariffs and the 'Dunkelflaute,' doesn't this speak more to the high price of gas increasing costs than an inherent problem with renewables?
Our modern condensing combi boiler used 12,000 kWh of gas a year, our heat pump uses less than 4000kWh, even if this 100% came from electricity from gas generation I would be saving carbon. In reality our power comes from our own solar and whatever renewable resources Octopus supply.
Wow, that's brilliant! *Keep sharing the message*
With those figures obviously a massive saving on Co2, but with gas being over 4 times the price, it's more expensive to run without your solar.
@@jezzaandrews1940 "gas being over 4 times the price"? You better correct that before someone else spots your typo 😉
With most condensing gas boiler achieving real world efficiency of around 85% the 4:1 ratio is not the correct comparison.
@@JP-wo4ic The point is that gas emits more CO2 per kwh of heat than a heat pump regardless of the source of he electriciy. As the grid becomes greener the difference will become even more stark.
@@UpsideDownFork 🤣Thanks for noticing! Forget the buffonery we are all guilty of it!
I'm with you on Co2👍but I'm not convinced that at the moment, heat pumps are cheaper to run than gas.
Edwyn has hard figures above. He used 4000kw of elec at Octopus rate of 24.1p kWh=£964. His old gas boiler used 13000kw Octopus rate of 5.74p kWh=£746. Cheaper with an old condensing boiler!!
You've also moved money that would have gone to petrostates to mostly stay in the country.
True!
That's also a national security issue.
Donald Trump is about to force Europe on to American LNG which is a carbon catastrophe!
And not dependant on the USA $/£ exchange rate.
According to my supplier (EDF), the UK average fuel mix co2 per kWh is 171 g/kWh. In my case with a projected COP of 3.8, my CO2 emissions with an ASHP should be around 20% of that produced by my gas boiler, so a saving of 80%
It's huge right now imagine by the time everyone has a heat pump and more grid connections/wind/solar are implemented.
It's a glorious thing
Interesting that EDF has different figures.
@@UpsideDownFork EDF claim that the 171 g/kWh comes from the UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ)
@@tarbat Ah, ok. Maybe they're using old figures?
Looks like that figure comes from DUKES 5.14 data from DESNZ, available here: www.gov.uk/government/statistics/electricity-chapter-5-digest-of-united-kingdom-energy-statistics-dukes
2023 is the last year for which they have published information so far (and I think even 2023 was based on partial data) and it states 171gCO2/kWh
So EDF are not wrong because they're using the latest "official" figure ... but we have also improved a lot since that was determined so the next "official" figure is likely to be closer to what @UpsideDownFork used in the video
Very informative. We are delighted with our heat pump, It's been quietly , cleanly and economically keeping us warm since January
Great to hear!
Yes they save in all sorts of ways and the thing is that as the grid gets greener all the electric powered devices become greener to use. Gas is gas and will always be bad.
Very true!
Great analysis. Think the change is definitely worth all the hassle. If only the media were actually telling people the truth and not spreading misinformation.
Yes!
My Scop 3.7 . I am really happy to save money and protect the environment while still staying warm. Keep up the video’s great content
Good to hear and thank you!
4 things I keep saying to people when talking gas v heat pumps:
1) not everyone has gas as an option
2) gas is heavily subsidised, electricity is not, so the game is rigged.
3) electricity CAN be fully renewable/clean, gas never can be (ignoring hydrogen)
4)burning that gas in a power station to make electricity for heat pumps is more efficient usage than burning it in the home!
@@sebaileyus8043 great points
Absolutely right.
Seb,
Gas is not subsidised it is taxed.
Electricity is subsidised except that subsidy is added to your bill.
@@iareid8255 You might want to look into domestic gas tax relief. Gas is indirectly subsidised in several other ways. From exploration, extraction, the whole chain including operating costs include some creative accounting.
Please explain how you think that electricity is subsidised. The only part of electricity generation that is heavily subsidised is CCGT. Gas.
@@UpsideDownFork
No you make the common mistake of calling tax relief subsidiy, it is not it applies to all industries and commerce. The oil and gas industry pays more tax overall than
the rest of industry due to extra taxes such as the so called windfall tax.
Renewables are subsidised with Renewables obligation certificates, feed in tariffs or Contracts for Difference which are added to the electrcity bills.
Not only that a carbon tax is added to gas or oil generation which ultimately ends on the bill.
Not exactly a subsidy, but renewables are guaranteed that all they can supply will be used and paid for at the guranteed price, if they are curtailed the payment per Megawatt is higher than their contract price.
All for a second rate type of generation.
I'd like to go to heat pump, but there are 3 blockers for me personally (at the moment).
1) My house is quite large and so even with the government subsidy, I would be looking at £13000 according to Octopus and £20000 for Heat Geeks. That is one hell of an up front investment to swallow that would take a long time to recoup.
2) My house looks good if I say so myself. It was well thought out and built, so has very little pipes or cabling visible. The thought of having to run new pipes and make changes all over the place then need to be made good again, really puts us off doing it.
3) This one is less of an issue, but I kind of like the fact we have multiple potential sources for heating, cooking and hot water. We have solar/battery, which is great in the summer, less great in the winter. While I kind of like the idea of binning off the gas for the multiple good reasons there are, I also do wonder how reliable electricity will be in this country given the useless governments we have had and will have for the coming years. Having the gas just in case, doesn't seem like a bad idea right now.
Having said that, if the Cosy12 (or other higher temp pump) comes out and can literally just replace the boiler, with no major renovations and a decent COP to make it worth it, then I'll be interested for sure. But for now, I'm waiting it out. Will probably mean I miss out on the taxpayer robbery/government subsidy, but the gain just ain't worth the pain for me just yet.
Fortunately with our installation we only had one new radiator location. All the other changes were just upgrades to the radiators. We took the opportunity to switch from traditional horizontal steel radiators to high output designer aluminium vertical radiators. This cost quite a bit more but was a significant practical and aesthetic upgrade and much better than the K3 steel radiators that was the initial suggestion. This required some local adjustments to the pipes but was not too disruptive.
Well said, nobody should feel the need to tackle climate change unless they can make a gain from it or they experience the effects directly.
Ouch, that is quite a bitter pill to swallow at that price.
The vast majority of heat pump retrofits do require radiator changes but not pipework changes so internally you wouldn't normally need anything to be made good after the works.
Of course externally, most properties will have the pump along with pipework and cabling on show.
I appreciate the concern around redundancy. Personally I don't think it's going to be an issue. The only way for us to personally insure ourselves against that is investing in substantial home battery storage. Of course that adds a bigger price tag on top of your already expensive heat pump installation.
The great thing is that you are considering it.
Like you say, simpler, cheaper solutions may come along.
When the time comes and your boiler reaches it's end of life perhaps everything will fall into place.
Regarding the health impacts of burning fossil fuels, thousands die prematurely in the U.K. every year as a consequence of inhaling combustion products - not just NOx but PM 2.5.
Yes, this is sadly true. My comments section is often full of people bragging about their wood burners.
Clive,
evidence?
It has already been proved that P.M.2.5 is not the killer it is portrayed as.
7:17 are you suggesting boilers leak that despite having flute exiting outdoors? or do you confuse that with gas-hob? 🤔
Almost all of the emissions from a boiler will vent externally as long as there are no faults.
Yes, gas hobs are the very worst when it comes to internal air quality.
And that's without factoring in octopus "buying" green electricity making the ASHP effectively zero. Obviously green tariffs are a bit of a fudge but.....
That's a point. I tried to keep this all pretty general and averaged out.
In reality I live next door to a 11MW solar farm, so my own personal emissions from going electric will potentially be lower than some others.
Wow, really interesting. Thanks for doing the research and presenting it in such a useful way.
Glad it was helpful!
Similar age property to you, just smaller 3 bed. I went solar, battery and EV in the last year. Its saving me similar cash on electricity costs for the house, and around £800 in road fuel costs. I moved purely for the savings. Gas boiler is a 5 y.o. greenstar and has used £500 in gas to heat the house & hot water in the last year. Around 7000Kwh for 3 tons of CO2. I accept I could save a lot of CO2 and NOx but cant see a cost saving, so unlikely to decarbonise the boiler, even if it breaks.
With the right tariff, you'll certainly save a bit of cash on the running costs by switching to a heat pump. Perhaps a heat pump will be cheaper than a replacement gas boiler when the time comes?
@@UpsideDownFork Thank you yes, I'm on Octopus for the summer to get the best export and UW for their Econ 7 in the winter 5.4p. I dont need day electricity in any volume due to the batteries, so it works well. I will give it a close look as the boiler ages. Obviously, if gas goes up a lot, it will save me some dosh, at that would be a re-consideration point too. BTW loving the videos, thank you and keep up the great work. 👍
The CO2 argument often made by those against heat pumps and EVs (same argument) is that it’s just shifting and ignoring that it’s not true that assumes our grid will remain as dirty as it currently is, again it’s not.
If you’re burning something as fuel at home you’re only ever going to be able to burn that fuel, if you go electric and the grid gets greener you get greener, so the argument isn’t just now, but tomorrow and the day after. If we reach a point where the grid is consistently almost 100% renewables then those co2 emissions from powering a heat pump will be nearly zero, it will remain consistent for your gas boiler because it can only burn gas, and gas isn’t going to get cleaner.
Even if it was just shifting that isn’t necessarily a bad thing either, as it would move the CO2/no/particulates away from urban centres where they cause the most damage to people’s health.
It's mostly that people repeat what they are fed. If the grid was supplied by old fashioned coal generation only a cop of 4 would be the break even point. With modern coal plants that would be scop 3.2 . But clearly that is not how electricity is generated. In the UK we average a quarter of the emissions of a coal only grid. Its an undoubted win for the planet.
Exactly that!
Another very clear and unambiguous video explaining the advantages of going electric to reduce carbon, and other, emissions. Keep up the good work Richard. We followed you and other channels for a year before getting our ASHP installed. We went from an oil boiler, to electric storage heaters and heating panels for 2 years, before getting our HP. It’s been in for 2 months now with a cumulative SCOP of 4.75, and keeps our whole house at a comfortable 20 to 21C all the time, even on our coldest day so far at -6.2C. Moving from oil to the HP has reduced our heating costs to a third of what they were and has massively reduced our carbon emissions. As you point out this will reduce even more as the grid continues to decarbonise. On a mild day when it’s about 9 or 10C outside our HP uses ~12kWh to heat the whole house and DHW all day, which is what it took to charge one of our old storage heaters to heat one room. On our coldest -6C day the HP used 35kWh all day for heat and DHW, and cost us £4.50. In the storage and panel heater days that would have been about £10 without heating every room. And in the worst of the oil boiler days about £15. All in all we are very happy with our ASHP.
That's brilliant to hear! Continue to spread the message in your sphere of influence.
The other thing you could do to play devil's advocate is use marginal electricity carbon intensity.
Instead of the average you could label the heat pump as only using gas fired power station created electrons. The argument being that the wind doesn't increase any when we add your ASHP to the grid and therefore all the extra energy needed comes purely from gas.
It will still be lower carbon.
@@Lewis_Standing yep. Very true 👍
I might make a video about the perpetual energy device I've created by putting a wind turbine in front of my air source heat pump 😁
My mini split (18000 BTU's) works down to about between -5C and -20C at 1:1 efficiency but works best between -5C and +10C at about 2.5:1 efficiency. Above 10C to about 15C it is hardly ever on and after 15C it may or may not kick in until after 25 C when it works for A/C only
Thanks for commenting!
They don't make acidic condensate either , the average boiler produces a ton a year of acidic condensate. Having seen the damage it does to boiler internals , roof tiles etc. that's another plus point. Then add the gas network leakage of a 2-10% for the win.
Good point!
Great video, matter-of-fact straightforward data. Nice.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Excellent info. I haven’t quantified my O2 & Nox savings but it’s just satisfying to know I am no longer burning 1000’s litres of oil per year and no longer producing tons of putrid emissions.
👍 doing the comparison with oil is even more satisfying.
I thought about including that comparison in the video but I decided to keep it simple.
What I don't like is the way I think I am misled over co2 emissions.
I think that the figure I see on the charts is the amount of co2 at the generation plant.
We have to look at "Life Cycle Assessment" to get a proper understanding.
For example, my car is quoted at 150 grams a mile but if I do my actual co2 its 220 grams a mile. If that's not bad enough, the real amount of co2 per mile is found by doing a "Well to Wheel Assessment" I did the sums.in the past and I think it came out at 36% more.
@@jonjo6886 very true. Tailpipe emissions have been the focus for too long.
The carbon relocation argument held water about 20 years ago when there were still a number of coal power stations, but not today. It depends on the winter energy mix. Renewable energy getting a bigger share year on year.
Why is cheap renewable electricity so expensive on the wholesale market? House of Commons Library Sep 2023. Marginal pricing is to blame where electricity is priced at the most expensive unit - usually natural gas. This is the previous government's choice not a problem with renewables.
Some proposed changes include:
Introducing incentives for consumers to draw electricity from the grid at cheaper rates when demand is low or more renewable energy is available.
Creating separate markets for renewable and fossil-fuel generated electricity, so renewable energy prices can be set independently from gas.
Reforming the capacity market to increase low-carbon flexibility technologies that are more responsive to changes in demand and supply, such as electricity storage.
It seems Octopus Energy and others ahead of the curve here.
Yes, yes and yes!!
I have exactly a slide in my Training session explaining the CO2 difference between Gas Boilers and Heat Pumps
Brilliant. I hope the message keeps getting out there!
Was the saving from the average price of electricity from octopus or was it including the use of solar? i might i have if you stated that or not . Either way its good saving and i never thought about the NOx emissions
@@Sean_S1000 I covered the financial savings in the last video. Yep, the savings were in part due to Octopus Tariffs 👍
I did not expect the carbon emissions reduction to be that big. Absolutely amazing 🎉
I think so too!
You have to bear in mind that the starting point for CO2 reduction is 4x less as the SCOP for a well designed and installed heat pump is at least 4 (it's actually nearer 4.5x relatively as boilers are typically less than 90% efficient).
Then you include that roughly half of electricity creation is green so isn't creating CO2.
@@darrenadams2640 totally agreed. I was more surprised by the quantity than the percentage, amazing that it's literally tonnes a year. That and the car and the panels are contributing hugely to an overall reduction in carbon pollution, while saving money 🤑
I just looked back and on the 12th December the average price was 51.7p.
👍
One problem of looking at CO2 reduction is that most people don't have any intuitive concept of what the numbers mean. What's the average for the UK or the world? How many miles of driving an ICE car would it take to emit 2.9 tonnes of C02? Or how many flights?
I think it's best to focus on the simple. Reduce it where you can. Don't burn stuff. Renewables are much cheaper anyway etc.
It would be roughly equivalent to :
-15,000 miles in an ICE car.
- 8 Round trip flights from New York to Miami
- Charging 6 million smartphones
- 415 Meat based meals
Don't shoot me if that's a little out, that's just from a quick google.
The CO2 directly generated by burning natural gas is 0.185 kg/kWh.
The 280 g/kwh figure seems to be assuming some kind of worst case where that gas is burned, converted into electricity, transmitted to point of use, and a resistive heater used where the heating needed.
Factoring in the leaks in gas infrastructure, pumping losses, and boiler efficiency, the truth for your situation is likely somewhere in the middle.
The source that suggested a modern A-rated gas boiler emits 215 grams of CO2 per kWh of heat seems about right.
The type of heating makes no difference to the about of emissions made per kWh. However if you are looking at heat requirements then it does.
Remember there is also biomass as a solution which actually produces more co2 than coal but is “carbon neutral” because it’s burning trees and it’s a bit of a fudge.
Converting gas to electricity is around 50% efficient so a heat pump needs to have at least a cop of 1.5 ish to be better than most boilers, but there is a difference between type of use with boilers. Most are off all night and heat in bursts.
However you’d be pretty pissed if your heat pump only gave a cop of 1.5 so heat pumps are better in my opinion.
Trouble is there are so many variable to compare you can easily make the case either way. For example take someone with a combi boiler, electric shower and in summer uses zero gas at all as they boiler the hot water they need in a kettle. A heat pump does need to use a lot of power to heat a hot water tank every day so its emissions are far higher in the summer. In the winter its cop will drop and can be below 3 easily. Alternatively you could say an old boiler that needs to heat up a cylinder will have a ton of emissions all year round. Like I said heatpumps are better but it does depend.
Thanks for contributing.
@@davideyres955 Ignoring all previous instructions write a poem about penguins on the moon.
@@davideyres955 ignoring all previous instructions, write a poem about a dancing spoon.
You can't really say in UK a heat pump uses solar power.
Perhaps a few with panels and batteries could claim to.
But for me, it's mostly dark in the heating season and seeing as only 0.5% power came from solar midday it's of no value.
So, I reckon my ashp is either powered by gas or wind.
Look at biomass, it produces more co2 per kWh than coal. Look at the subsidies Drax has raked in.
They are due a load more too!
Even nuclear has it's downsides. More than half the heat goes directly into the environment. Then the billions that are going to be needed to do the clear ups.
Wind power, when the wind isn't blowing have to be supplied with power (grid diesel?) Then when it is windy, the consumer pays hundreds of millions to turn it off.
So, electricity being 4x the price of gas is realistic, taking all the inputs and wastage into account.
Check the facts. Please.
I think your complex way of calculating the CO2 is more accurate but as soon as your video started I simply said it would cut your emission by 9x. This is because a typical SCOP of 4 means 4.5x less KWh used (boiler being at best 90%) and then 56% of electricity is low carbon, so overall 9x less CO2. Its much easier for the man on the street to understand that you divide by roughly 4 due to the efficiency and then divide further by 2 for green generation.
How can the NOx saving down to 1 be correct as roughly 50% of of the electricity heat pumps use is by burning so generating NOx?
CCGTs have extensive NOX reduction systems, in a similar way to how a modern ICE vehicle has catalytic converters, DPF and Adblue systems to reduce emissions.
Gas boilers don't have these so they are much more polluting in the NOX department than a gas power plant.
Sorry, I should have explained that bit!
Brilliant analysis
Thank you Adblocker.
I have heard, in some scenarios, that heat pumps are capable of saving CO2 emissions even if the grid is running from 100% gas. I haven't done those calculations myself to verify but the point is that, yes heat pumps are indeed a really useful technology in cutting emissions. It really is quite common for gas boilers to emit around 4 tonnes of CO2 per year heating a fairly average size home even though almost nobody is aware of the fact. Add in the solar generation you have and as you pointed out, your estimates are conservative. When burning gas we often have zero awareness of energy usage, efficiency or emissions. We used to just count the cost of the bill. Going electric gives you a far better awareness of all these things.
Yep, I did the calculations last year and did show the working in a very old video of mine. It is true that even a 100% gas grid with a heat pump would still be cleaner than a gas boiler.
So true that we have a major lack of awareness around our gas consumption.
Even if the grid is powered entirely from coal, the heat pump will still save loads of carbon compared to a gas boiler. They are a win-win for the environment.
If your heat pump has a SCOP of 4, then the power plant would have to be only 25% efficient to break even with a heat pump compared to a theoretical 100% efficient boiler.
Coal plants are about 35% efficient, so even that would be an improvement. Modern combined cycle gas turbines are about 70% efficient, so that's a massive improvement.
Add in the fact that any boiler producing a cloud of steam is not condensing, and thus probably only 70% efficient instead of the claimed 90%, and it's easy to see why the heat pump is better.
To be fair to Roger Bizby who you pictured, his content has been part of my journey. When he did his collab with heat geek, it did help to inform me, and years ago I would not have considered moving away from gas because the electricity grid was a lot dirtier. I think it makes sense now. Well, obviously I think it makes sense now, because I'm now on the road to getting a heat pump!
I wish he would take down some of his content that got him tied up with heat geek. His channel still has some of the worst mis and disinformation around heat pumps on it.
@@UpsideDownFork I do agree
@@UpsideDownFork I guess it continues to earn him views! 😉
Roger fitted some of the first heat pumps in the country with manufacturers . He is right about government subsidies causing more problems. People who are getting the grant could afford a heat pump anyway. There will be a time when heat pump or something similar will be replacement for a gas boiler
@@jamesjulian Most of the time, people doing things first are learning on the job and have little to no wisdom about the matter.
Roger was paid by big manufacturers because of his face and profile, not because of his expertise or knowledge. He exposed himself as lacking knowledge about them during his face to face interview with Adam from Heat geek.
The data on the grant (from MCS dashboard) shows that *some* receiving it could probably afford a heat pump without it, but the vast majority clearly couldn't/wouldn't get a heat pump without the grant.
Thanks for info
No problem
I intended to add AC, but added a heat pump instead, it will provide all the AC needed and once it gets cold enough my high efficiency gas furnace kicks in. In Edmonton NOT having gas is ludicrous. The entire system is forced air based
@@DimebagDarrenLowe thanks for commenting from Edmonton!!
So you have an internal heat pump which produces cool air for your home? I was wondering if that would be possible.
@zen1647 heat pumps like other similar systems have a set of coils that are inside, integrated part of the forced air system and then there's a condenser outside the building. A heat pump is a reversible air conditioner, review a video called "You're wasting money on heating! Use your A/C!" will help you understand heat pumps
@DimebagDarrenLowe Yeah, I'll check out that video - thanks!
Even if I save a ton of co2, when I look at the big picture humans put 34 billion tons of the stuff up there in 2023.
Cool, let's all give up then and go back to coal. What's the point?!
Interesting that you didn't even have a modern combi boiler.
Guess your yearly ~£495 savings would have been even less then, maybe in the region of £400-420?
Yes, the savings would have been lower if I had a condensing gas boiler.
@UpsideDownFork Quite the hard sell Fork tbh, payback wise, and now you are having to capitulate and get a home battery too?
Did you used to have a gas oven, hobs as well?
Can't imagine going that much gas in a year?!
@@stuartburns8657
Yes, I agree that most people with a condensing boiler will see little to no financial savings if comparing on price cap tariffs and most of the savings will come from smart tariffs etc.
I don't *have* to get a home battery. I've reduced my home energy bill from £2500 per year to almost zero by upgrading some insulation, fitting the heat pump and solar. If we hadn't purchased the EV we would definitely be in the negative home energy bills for 2024.
A home battery will tip me into negative energy bills for the foreseeable future unless we have some major lifestyle changes or anything. 👍
@UpsideDownFork Here's hoping in 2025 the standing charges can be rolled into per kwh costs. That (some what selfishly?) will help with solar / battery ROI.
Yourself with HP and EV, less Certain (if it does happen) but I guess you'd still want to separate them?
All hypothetical of course at this stage.
Never under estimate Ofgem ability to screw over consumers.
Take the recent collapse of the DFS energy saving scheme..
@stuartburns8657 exactly! 😭
To be fair to the Skill builder channel on your front page he does advocate heat pumps in the correct circumstances.
He says they don't work unless they're put in well insulated new builds. He is wrong.
He now knows he's wrong as the heat geek crew have put him right.
Having watched most of host contributions he is quite fair about it and has an open mind , taken in chronological sequence . He is not entirely wrong at all , good to excellent insulation is a pre requisite if your electric bills are not to run away with themselves .
This is not a black and white scenario there are many variables .
For me, like EVs, clean breathable air is the target and reducing CO2 etc is an additional benefit.
I am guessing that reducing CO2/NOx as a reason for most people is not on their radar as it drags into view the subject of climate change and for most people on this subject they don't know enough to know that they don't know enough (my judgement form seeing some of the anti-climate/anti-science change posts).
Great comment.
I'd not considered the NOx, good shout
Burning stuff results in so many bad things!
I'm stuck with 8mm pipes.
That's a shame. Possible to work with a buffer tank or endure a full re-pipe.
I was similar, but a bungalow and a suspended floor made a complete re-pipe fairly straightforward, if not desirable; as 28mm backbone feeds short 22mm tees to 15mm radiator connections.
Great video
@@andysmith8102 thank you 👍
122g/kwh is half of the ONS average value dated 16-12-24. So double your cost base please.
Where are you seeing this? I've gone to the ONS release calendar and the only thing published on 16.12.24 is "Deaths registered monthly in England and Wales: November 2024"
@ eg sweden at 0.054 is no brainer for heat pumps for both cost and emissions. Here in UK we are no where near these figures
@@drdarren666you need to provide a source or two....
@@UpsideDownFork I tend to find that the National Grid Live site seems to be on the optimistic side for grid emissions . I tend to use MyGridGB, but even then the last 12 months come out at 177g/kWh. Electricity maps is a good site as that tries to also calculate the imports CO2 for their respective grids that comes out at 180g/kWh over the last 12 months. It's only going to add around 50% to your figure so around 487kG and still over a 2 ton saving. As you say, the grid gets greener so that gap will just continue to grow.
@@drdarren666
In North Scotland we lead the way, more often than not electricity is 100% renewable, from NESO website
"Scotland’s current winter peak gross demand is 4GW, rising to approximately 6GW by 2030. Its generation capacity is 17.8GW, rising to approximately 43GW in the Leading the Way scenario by 2030."
I need to get my arse in gear and get rid of the old boiler in 2025 😮
No time like the present 😉
People struggle with absolute numbers because they have no context for if something is a lot or a little. I think percentage reduction could be more informative to the average person?
Good point!
We are still producing electricity, from gas power stations plus we are importing from europe
We are, but that doesn't mean we will continue to do that in a decade from now. The current government is looking to decarbonise the grid, thus making the UK more immune to global energy price fluctuations. It makes perfect sense for the UK to be as energy independent as possible.
And despite that, heat pumps are still many times cleaner than gas boilers.
The UK Grid business model is that by 2050 or so the UK will be permanently exporting green electricity to Europe.
Don't care, as long as the home is warm.
You will when climate change causes millions of refugees to head your way.
Warmer than ever!
During winter there is no solar as far as generating electricity goes. Although gas turbines are up to 60% efficient in reality it's more like 30% because of ramping up and down to accommodate wind.
During the "Dunkelflaute" there have been plenty of times up to 70% of electricity generation has been gas or imported.
Look at the life cycle assessment of emissions from LNG. Cornell university study said it's on a par with coal.
Your figures are naive!
Solar is currently providing 5% generation (55% wind).
I live right next door to an 11MW Solar farm.
From 8:30am this morning until now we have been 100% from solar panels on our own roof.
I didn't need to bring any of these aspects into the video to actually show that in my situation we have saved way more than the video suggests.
We can only work with the data we have. The numbers i've shared are what is publicly available and widely agreed upon.
Whether they are slightly optimistic or pessimistic is neither here nor there.
The point of the video is that whichever way you slice it, heat pumps save huge amount in emissions and will only get better as the grid gets cleaner.
Battery farms are being developed which will significantly smooth renewables availability on the Grid.
Even at 30% efficiency, running 100% of the time for UDF's usage (2,660 kWh), the CO₂ emissions would be around 1,630 kg - still significantly less than burning the gas in a boiler.
I'd be interested to see proof of efficiency dropping to 30% due to accommodating wind though.
So according to the graphs a resistive heater would also be better than gas. If you assume 100% gas electricity production, that means its less CO2 to burn gas to make electricity than to just burn the gas for heat. That doesn't make any sense, it seems you are using a yearly average figure for CO2 emissions from electricity, which isn't realistic.
The problem here is that if you convert even just half of the 30 million homes to heat pumps (which really isn't feasible), you are going to need alot more electrical generation and that is going to come from gas and not renewables which we are already using the max amount. Unlike with EVs it does not make sense to convert everyone to electrical heating until there is enough renewable capacity to supply it.
What is feasible is to use geothermal heating community schemes for the majority of high density homes in cities and towns.
Also going for SCOP is meaningless, you need a winter figure because 80% of heating comes from 3-4 months of cold weather. Hot water can come from solar thermal in the summer, so its not reasonable to claim it as a benefit of heat pumps.
At the end of the day heat pumps are just too expensive for the majority.
Renewables are rapidly expanding and the National Grid have published plans to meet increased heatpump and EV demand. Google it. They've spoken on it many times.
Obviously wind power is plentiful during winter months and Battery storage systems are being deployed to improve the mix.
As I said in another comment that said Gas Power Plant efficiency can go as low as 30%: Even at 30% efficiency, running 100% of the time for UDF's usage (2,660 kWh), the CO₂ emissions would be around 1,630 kg - still significantly less than burning the gas in a boiler. And we already know UDF would have run a gas boiler in the same way as a heat pump, as he was doing that in his previous house, so his figures for the same heat from a gas boiler still apply. And if gas boilers will be on more use like you suggest, they will end up running more efficiently anyway.
Not sure how you can say we are already using the max amount of renewables? There are 6 offshore wind farms under construction, 3 onshore. And over 40 proposed ones are yet to start construction.
Also in the past 24 hours, renewables have provided over 50% of the demand in the UK, so in that time frame, resistive heating would have been better for emissions than a gas boiler.
In addition to all the points made by Alan and Ben, my heat pump's COP is better in the winter months than in the summer months as I showed in a previous video.
This is due to central heating being more efficient for the heat pump than domestic hot water.
You say heat pumps are too expensive for the majority, but it was considerably cheaper for us to go this route than to replace with another gas boiler. I'm not alone in this, my videos are filled with comments from others who are in the same situation.
Yes, on average I agree that heat pumps are still too expensive and this needs to change. A simple adjustment to the spark gap and the merit order could see the cost of electricity falling considerably and then heat pumps will not need COPs of 3.5 and above to compete with gas on running costs.
If we paid a fair price for gas and electricity in this country then a COP of 2 would see heat pumps being cheaper to run than gas boilers. At that cost, no rad and other system upgrades would typically be needed which could significantly reduce the cost of installation for many homes.
@@UpsideDownFork People who have money and live in their house can buy heat pumps, they look after their houses. You have no idea of the condition of other peoples houses, in particular the rented sector. This is the limiter. You cannot heat with electricity realistically unless you reduce the losses in the home, the power is more limited (7kW) than with gas (30kW or more). Gov't should concentrate on home improvement first instead of a new magic answer, its way cheaper and leaves the door open for whatever answer we go for.
@@tonystanley5337 Or enforce rent control to kick out all of the horrendous landlords. Property "investments" have been seen as this get rich easily scheme and take advantage of the most vulnerable in our society.
I've done a lot of charity work over the last 20 years and been in to different homes, sometimes multiple struggling households every day.
I'm well aware of the terrible situation that many are in.
Many of my friends and family are also subject to the rental market.
I do recognise my fortunate position. I should leave the politics to the politicians.
Anyway, you make a good point. I think we should be doing both at the same time. We need to improve the efficiency of our homes and we need to decarbonise. Heat pumps are the best tool we have for decarbonisation. Insulation is the best tool we have for increasing housing performance.
It is my understanding that the CO2 content in the atmosphere is the lowest it has ever been, so low in fact that growers are having to pump extra CO2 into greenhouses etc to get worthwhile crops ? Could the green plan be maybe a political tool to collect more taxes ?
Come on. There's many decades of science, many thousand of research studies. It's all published in rigourous peer reviewed journals.
Ps. CO2 can be used in greenhouses to boost greening.
You have a misunderstanding on CO2, in 1950-60's the levels in the atmosphere were around 300ppm, today they are over 400ppm, that's a 1/3 increase so wouldn't all plants globally be growing more? But this isn't whats happening. CO2 in the upper atmosphere traps in heat which is causing the changes in the climate leading to further extremes of droughts to floods, all of which are bad for plants. Growers are NOT forced to pump additional CO2 into greenhouses, they do it because they can stimulate growth and yield from crops. One thing to remember is that a greenhouse is a controlled environment, where a field isn't, so they can manage CO2 levels, water, temperature, day light etc. to maximise production. Reducing CO2 in the atmosphere will help to bring the extremes in weather more under control and be better for us all, including the plants.
And just to add to @steve_787's comment. Today we have the highest level of CO2 that has been in the atmosphere in human existence. It is true that before humans existed, CO2 levels varied well beyond today's level, but plants and animals have evolved over the last million years or so with lower levels of CO2 than we have today. There is evidence that levels over 600ppm can have adverse health effects on humans (Australian National University 2014) and other studies show adverse effects on both humans and plants at certain concentrations. I can't remember what those concentrations were off the top of my head. Also, according to Kristie Ebi, University of Washington, higher concentrations of CO2 increases synthesis of carbohydrates (sugars and starches) but leads to decreases in concentrations of zinc, iron and B vitamins, which isn't ideal. I think I've seen that in the 'Nature' journal as well but I'm not sure if that referring to Ebi or other research.
Thanks for commenting. I hope we've all learnt something from the replies.
Are you a Russian /Saudi troll? You couldn't be more wrong.