[Han_EONNEXT]

Hey Community-ers 🤠

How is everyone getting on?

I've just came across this article 👉 Energy Efficiency Costs and I wondered what everyone's take on it was? It brought me back to our conversation on boilers when our lovely @meldrewreborn was in the market for one!

I do see both sides, much to ponder 🤔.

What do we think?

[WizzyWigg]

@Han_EONNext

If you haven't had chance to read @P962c Air Source Heat Pump thread, I would highly recommend it. The pros cons and costing.

It may be possible to get a unit for £3000, as long as you are entitled to the £5000 grant! I would question whether that would take into account insulation, possible radiator replacement, possible piping changes, redecorating, etc etc.

https://community.eonnext.com/thread...ll=1#post36615

[meldrewreborn]

@Han_EONNext

It lovely @meldrewreborn here! So this survey tells us that most of the general population doesn't have a clue about energy costs, insulation costs and cost effective upgrades to homes. Of course if the household is renting they have little choice or involvement in the decisions. Even owner occupier of a leasehold flat don't have the ability to make many desirable changes, even if they wished to. I'm always wary of surveys like this because of the false premise that all of the population should know this stuff - its a fallacy.

Those home owners (a dubious phrase when many have large mortgages so really are only part owners) who pay attention to their bills for energy and take active steps to reduce them (like almost all of our top contributors) are very much in the minority. And when there is so much uncertainty about installing electric heat pumps (under the current EPC regime they would probably lead to a worse rating than the same property with a gas boiler) its not surprising that many are not eager to install them - particularly when electricity is almost 5 times the unit price of gas.

As in my own case, even moving from a 35 year old gas boiler to a new more efficient condensing gas boiler isn't worth it in financial terms, so people will stick to what they have until the boiler expires due to non availability of spare parts. Then and only then will a decision on replacement have to be made. In the future electric heat pumps might be the only option (the decision on a cut off date is still in the air).

We are continuously reminded that there's a cost of living crisis. Many will not even consider home upgrades to cut running costs at the moment, and those that are more comfortable will only consider changes when they're pushed - and even then many really don't understand all the issues.

[Han_EONNEXT]

@meldrewreborn I couldn't agree more really, until I started working for E.ON Next I didn't have a scooby about anything to do with energy efficiency (embarrassing really, so don't bring it up again 🙈). I knew that a few people had solar panels but boiler types, heat pumps and installation was just not my thing! Alongside the Cost Of Living crisis (which I absolutely do think has more of an impact than we think!) its just the lack of energy information really.

I've got hope 🤞 for those that a currently in education - I know that now we actively talk about energy saving and solutions in lessons.

[meldrewreborn]

@Han_EONNext
In almost every instance the information is out there and easily accessible IF (and its a really big IF) people really want to research it. And then once they've got the information they then need to make a decision on whether the item in question is what they want, whether its what they need, and whether its affordable. And then go for it - or not. For the reasons I set out earlier, the right decision at the moment for the vast majority is to do nothing.

Of course some people will be so environmentally conscious that they'll go as fully renewable/clean energy as possible irrespective of the cost. They will be very much in the minority.

[DebF_EONNext]

It would be interesting to see how this would compare if they were to do a new survey a few years on. I would love to hear @wizzo227 thoughts on this, I know that when you look at solutions you concentrate more on the co2 saving side rather than the cost saving but do you think they come hand in hand?

[wizzo227]

Originally Posted by DebF_EONNext

CO2 saving, cost saving

Go for the CO2, and that gets your costs down as a useful byproduct.

To go only for £ costs is not always so effective because you might get caught out by any price distortion or temporary gain. For example, suppose that a fraudulent electricity vendor, lets call them "Symbio", decided to spam the market with lower prices and not say anything about how they got their price lower than everybody else's. That would save £ in the first year but they wouldn't last for long. To get permanent improvements, attack the CO2.

My approach has started with the biggest use of energy; heating. I use heating no more than necessary, which saves both CO2 and £ by comparison to the usual always_on approach to heating and thermostatted comfort. If I've not got cold enough to bother to turn on the heating then it isn't cold. Gas use including baths and cooking averaged less than 1 kWh per day since the start of April. Downstairs air conditioning used as an air-air heat pump has also averaged less than 1kWh per day, so at this address, there is not a case to buy a whole-house-heat-pump. I'd not use it enough. I still have a £20 fan heater for cold weather top-up, which gets used perhaps seven days per year.

Downgrading a 0.5kW silent plain old electric heater to 1/8 kW by powering it through a 240V/120V transformer was a useful experiment in the winter. On the very coldest nights of winter, the 0.025kW dehumidifier wasn't quite enough, but a 1/8 kW plain old electric heater was plenty of top-up heating upstairs, with the normally-off combi gas boiler staying off until three-clicks (nine minutes flame) before breakfast and after breakfast. In daytime, the 2kW(peak) rooftop solar panels can mostly provide that small trickle of 1/8kW of steady heat for free or almost-free during a cloudy day in winter. When I use the word "free" I here mean both nil-£ free as well as nil-CO2 free.

[meldrewreborn]

@wizzo227

You are extreme in your energy saving. Good for you. My priority is to live comfortably for the least cost. And even if others have the same objective our homes and definitions of comfortable will be different.

I don’t focus on emissions, just as the vast majority of the population of the earth doesn’t. It would be different if the correlation between emissions and costs was linear, that is reducing emissions also lowered costs. Unfortunately there is also a conversion cost like fitting and adapting to a new system to be taken into account. If the cost savings were more obvious more people would go for emission reductions. But as it is the opposite applies.

[wizzo227]

To get permanent improvements, attack the CO2.
Abstinance costs nothing, and comfort is a state of mind .. with some reasonable limitations, fair enough.

On a different electricity "supplier" biller, from winter, somebody fussy collated the attached with spot areas proportional to each smets2 metered kWh/halfhour and spot colours between raspberry-red for terrible south england carbon intensity to bottle-green for 100% wind+solar+nuclear non-CO2 electricity sources. A straight line diagonal from (0,0) would be cost per kWh proportional to reported CO2 intensity g/CO2 and of course it is overall scarcity, not only renewables scarcity, which directs cost, so points are all over the place. Fat circles only nearest to the lower left and quite green in colour would have indicated perfect user choice to only use low CO2 electricity, which in 2024 wasn't sufficiently available. One does ones' best, and anything red and upper right indicates that I'm not doing enough yet.

1st to 31st December 2024 price vs. CO2 intensity of every half-hour period. spot areas proportional to usage of one energy-saver house, somewhat preferring greener and cheaper electricity when that was available. Aim for less CO2 and get lower prices.

[rwh202]

With regard to using grid energy during periods of low CO2 intensity, it only makes sense when at close to 0 - i.e. periods where there is an actual surplus of energy that would otherwise be curtailed.

During the vast majority of periods, any time you switch on a light, boil the kettle etc. it just results in more gas being burnt (yes, even if you are on a 100% renewable tariff).

The marginal CO2 intensity for any use is up at the 300g level. The best way to reduce CO2 is use less energy. When you use it has minimal impact (unless, as mentioned previously, it prevents curtailment).