Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?

#341

Post by Throwaway984332 » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 2:01 PM UTC

systemtest wrote: post #327

dgacmu wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heating with an electric heat pump is quite efficient in most environments. Electric resistance heat is inefficient.

That is correct, but a heat pump requires a big unit placed outside the home that makes noise. Given our lack of space, closely grouped homes and apartment buildings, that is a challenge. Also a heat pump is not able to heat the water to 70 degrees, which is why you need to isolate your home even more for it to work. Electric resistance heat is inefficient but it's a plug-and-play replacement solution for gas heaters…

"but a heat pump requires a big unit placed outside the home that makes noise."

Old ones maybe. We've installed a Mitsubishi mini-split that can heat a 1900 sq ft. mediocrely insulated home in Appalachia (this morning was -6C). Never mind, the indoor spits (As to footprint, the compressor is tall and wide (about 1m). But it's only 25 cm thick, so it doesn't take much room at all along the wall.

Really, Europe has no reason at all not to go all in with splits.

Re: Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?

#342

Post by dharma1 » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 2:03 PM UTC

raverbashing wrote: post #282

dharma1 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best way to heat homes IMHO is geothermal energy. It is clean and renewable. There is an element of electricity consumption, but far less than with direct electric heating. There is a shift in Finland to geothermal, chosen for most new builds now, and district heating systems are exploring deep geothermal for heating whole towns and cities.

Geothermal is very geography dependent. If you have it available, great! Otherwise, it is not viable.

Luckily in Finland it's very widely viable.

Article in Finnish- but the W/m geothermal potential illustration is in English

https://www.gtk.fi/geoenergian-ja-geotermisen-energian-poten...

Re: Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?

#343

Post by lispm » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 2:04 PM UTC

GuB-42 wrote: post #337

lispm wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Newer: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/g... Fossil fuel usage is significantly going down and adding gas power plants for very agile backup for renewable makes sense, too. Keep in mind that the Energiewende is a long term project for rebuilding the whole energy landscape in an industrialized country of more than 80 Million people and one of the larger economies in the world. The time scale…

Wow, 2019 is impressive. I wonder how they managed to tackle the duck curve[1]. Imports? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve

Germany has massive overcapacity in electricity production capabilities - even though a bunch of nuclear power plants have been closed. Many gas power plants were not profitable and were idling. This has changed a bit and coal got more expensive, so it was increasingly leaving the market.

Whenever renewable is available, it pushes a lot of other sources out of the market. In the current months there were a lot of days where wind was the major source of electricity for the whole of Germany. For example in the windy days from Tuesday 28th Jan until Saturday 1st Feb the wind electricity share climbed from 47% on Tuesday to 61% on Saturday. Other sources either leave the market or more gets exported.

Re: Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?

#344

Post by throw0101a » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 2:09 PM UTC

systemtest wrote: post #276

jillesvangurp wrote: post #186

Interestingly, most of Finland heats with electricity. I used to live there before I moved to Germany. Unlike Germany, Finland does not use a lot of natural gas. So, Germans subsidizing Finnish heating with clean energy is not necessarily a bad deal for Finland. I'd say it's a better deal for the planet than Russia subsidizing gas usage in e.g. Belarus, which is currently negotiating a new deal for this with Russia (…

Phasing out gas heating is going to be a very, very big job in the Netherlands. Replacing an energy source is easy, just place a nuclear power plant / solar field down and phase out the coal power station. Done. However, almost all homes in the Netherlands are heated by gas directly from the source. The gas is used to heat up water in the home and pump it through radiators on the wall or in the floor. A highly effici…

> However, almost all homes in the Netherlands are heated by gas directly from the source.

Given the climate of NL is relatively mild, averaging between 0 to 25C,[1] would something like a heat pump be ideal for the area? There are units that can operating down to -20C.

There seems to be a desire to move off of gas:

* https://energypost.eu/a-revolution-the-netherlands-kisses-ga...

Not everyone is enthusiastic about the idea:

* https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2018/03/heat-pump-installation...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands#Climate

Re: Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?

#345

Post by anon4242 » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 2:13 PM UTC

lispm wrote: post #330

anon4242 wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are good energy efficient solutions to heating that use electricity. Here in Sweden the most common solution for new houses is the downhole heat exchanger [1]. If you want a cheaper initial investment an air heat pump can be used. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downhole_heat_exchanger

Sure, there are. But houses need to be insulated. Consumers need not waste energy by just using it -> for example don't open the window to cool down, instead of lowering the heating, etc. etc. Standards need to be defined for new houses. Also provide solutions for existing houses. Provide business models. To create that market and to make some impact means that we are talking about decades.

I keep forgetting how hopelessly after on the insulation central Europe is compared to us in the north. A friend of a friend built a house by Swedish standards in the UK a while ago and all her neighbors pitied her because the snow remained on her roof during winter.

Re: Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?

#346

Post by kaybe » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 2:17 PM UTC

dspig wrote: post #170

DoreenMichele wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. But how do you hang wet clothes and not ruin your floors? Sorry if I sound stupid. American apartments aren't set up for this and I would rather handle it this way and I've had challenges.

Unless I put too much in the washing machine that it can't spin properly, most things don't drip when they are hung up. And for thick wool jumpers that do drip we have a mesh thing to lay them on over the bathtub, and anyway the floor is tiled.

If you put a towel underneath you can dry them flat on top of the drying rack. No dripping observed so far.

Re: Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?

#347

Post by kaybe » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 2:25 PM UTC

devmunchies wrote: post #6

fishmaster wrote: post #3

I don't heat because I want it cold. It's hot enough in summer, in winter it's finally cool.

There was an article I read on that solar powered website that's been shared on HN a few times that changed by view on heating. https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/02/heating-people-not... Basically, just wear a sweater and long pants in the house in the winter so you don't have to heat it so much. And if you need to, put a heat source near you, but there's no need to heat the whole house.

Mhm, sounds good. But when your walls are too cold and your humidity too high (cooking, showering, breathing, plants...) you run into mold issues fast, so it's not that easy.

Re: Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?

#348

Post by wokkel » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 2:39 PM UTC

dharma1 wrote: post #237

jillesvangurp wrote: post #186

Interestingly, most of Finland heats with electricity. I used to live there before I moved to Germany. Unlike Germany, Finland does not use a lot of natural gas. So, Germans subsidizing Finnish heating with clean energy is not necessarily a bad deal for Finland. I'd say it's a better deal for the planet than Russia subsidizing gas usage in e.g. Belarus, which is currently negotiating a new deal for this with Russia (…

The best way to heat homes IMHO is geothermal energy. It is clean and renewable. There is an element of electricity consumption, but far less than with direct electric heating. There is a shift in Finland to geothermal, chosen for most new builds now, and district heating systems are exploring deep geothermal for heating whole towns and cities.

It's clean but renewable not so much in two ways: they are planning one here at a depth of 2.5 to 3km. They expect it to last 30 years before the underground has cooled to much to be of use. Regenerating that heat (i.e. spreading the other heat to this area) will take a few hundred years they expect. And secondly: there is a limited amount of heat available in the earth. It's a lot of heat, but there is no meaningful amount of new heat coming in so it's just as renewable as our current oil supply.

Re: Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?

#349

Post by lispm » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 2:40 PM UTC

anon4242 wrote: post #345

lispm wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, there are. But houses need to be insulated. Consumers need not waste energy by just using it -> for example don't open the window to cool down, instead of lowering the heating, etc. etc. Standards need to be defined for new houses. Also provide solutions for existing houses. Provide business models. To create that market and to make some impact means that we are talking about decades.

I keep forgetting how hopelessly after on the insulation central Europe is compared to us in the north. A friend of a friend built a house by Swedish standards in the UK a while ago and all her neighbors pitied her because the snow remained on her roof during winter.

We have that, too. But highly insulated houses have new problems: air quality can be bad and houses need an extensive fresh air supply system. Moisture needs to be removed from the air, too. But if coal&oil, now gas and future electricity would be cheap, there would be little incentive to develop working solutions. There are also concepts like 'virtual power plants': a virtual power plant consists of a bunch of renewable electricity producers (solar, wind, ...) and a gas power plant for back up. The gas power plant would then also provide the heat for homes in a centralized fashion. The efficiency of such a gas power plant could then very high. This would work for residential areas. The gas could also in the future be produced from local renewable energy sources.

Re: Why Germans won’t heat their homes even with free electricity?

#350

Post by marcus_holmes » Fri, Feb 21, 2020, 2:49 PM UTC

lispm wrote: post #304

marcus_holmes wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creating more renewable energy is pointless unless it reduces/replaces the use of fossil fuels. Having more energy than we need is useless, and there's an environmental footprint to even the greenest wind farm. The point the article is making is that because of the way the renewable industry is being funded (from taxes on electricity consumption), consumers are opting to continue burning fossil fuels rather then use…

> Creating more renewable energy is pointless unless it reduces/replaces the use of fossil fuels. It does. > The point the article is making is that because of the way the renewable industry is being funded (from taxes on electricity consumption), consumers are opting to continue burning fossil fuels rather then use electricity. No, it doesn't. Renewable energy has a systematic preference and its share in electricity…

>> Creating more renewable energy is pointless unless it reduces/replaces the use of fossil fuels.

>It does.

Maybe read the article before commenting? There's a whole section in there explaining why this isn't happening (for heating)