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The biggest heat pumps

bbc.com

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Re: The biggest heat pumps

#41

Post by mrmlz »

looofooo0 wrote: post #35
moooo99 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a German, I find the popularity of heat pumps in the nordics especially amusing. In Germany heat pumps were an incredibly political topic and people were pushed by some media outlets to really hate heat pumps. One recurring topic was that heat pumps can‘t work at German temperatures.

Well Norway (Hydro), Sweden (hydro and nuclear) and Finland (Nuclear Wind Hydro) all have cheap electricity which seems to be the main driver for adoption.

Hrm. It might be cheaper than in Germany but its not cheap in Sweden except for the most nordic parts (hydro).

South Sweden - i think the prices are more on par with germany.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#42

Post by looofooo0 »

Germany at its best, instead of keeping its 20GW+ nuclear power running and get district heating pipes installed to them, they engineer this solution at x times the cost. In this case a 30km pipe from Philippsburg NPP would have done the trick.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#43

Post by wkat4242 »

Ekaros wrote: post #36
jack_tripper wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not for entire apartment buildings since most of them run on oil or gas burning here. I only saw heat pumps on apartment buildings built after 2020 or the single family homes in the affluent areas.

Yeah, here they are used for AC in apartments. Unless for some weird reason they are electric heating... And even then for some reason we do not like them visible so they need to be hidden on balconies and like.

That's another problem in Holland too. The government mandates people moving to heat pumps for new houses (and existing ones in the longer term) because they don't want Russian gas dependencies and they want to close the national gas fields (they cause earthquakes).

But then neighbours start complaining about the look of the outdoor units and causing hassle with court orders etc. Really if they want people to move they should make it easy and cheap, so invalidate cosmetic complaints automatically.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#44

Post by stefanfisk »

lnsru wrote: post #38
moooo99 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a German, I find the popularity of heat pumps in the nordics especially amusing. In Germany heat pumps were an incredibly political topic and people were pushed by some media outlets to really hate heat pumps. One recurring topic was that heat pumps can‘t work at German temperatures.

Nothing amusing. Germany is not really rich compared to nordics. And now let‘s do so math! Electricity: 0,3€/kWh and gas 0,1€/kWh. I need ~3x more gas to get same temperature in my room. And gas heating costs €10k while heat pump €40k without subsidies and probably raw €15k material cost if I install it by myself. So why should I pay more by €30k to install experimental thing for a decade when my low cost gas heating…

What is the calculus behind 40k? I just checked some Swedish vendors and here they calculate 12k for hardware and installation of a fairly large heat pump.

https://www.polarpumpen.se/kunskapsbanken/varmepump-kunskaps...

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#45

Post by jcsager »

DrScientist wrote: post #37
hexbin010 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the PDF at your link: "Heat pumps are more efficient than gas boilers and become competitive when the electricity price is lower than around three times the gas or oil price" Sweden seems to have quite high domestic gas rates (highest in EU I think?), around £0.18/kWh, with electricity at £0.23/kWh so I can definitely understand the adoption of heat pumps with gas being so high. In the UK we have lower heat pump…

Electricity prices are certainly a factor, and retro-fitting can be very expensive to nigh on impossible. The real scandal in the UK is how the updates to building regulations to bring in higher energy efficiency have been delayed and delayed - presumably due to lobbying by UK house-builders. Given the big push to build large numbers of new houses it seems madness not to have the higher standards in place.

Planning rules conflict with building regs in the UK. Planning means that most new houses are little boxes made of little more than ticky-tacky. So adding insulation to the walls makes them even smaller inside.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#46

Post by supersparrow »

hexbin010 wrote: post #30
wkat4242 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes heat pumps are expensive and you need different radiators and more insulation than with traditional gas central heating. That's why it's an issue in Holland too. Not many people have the investment for all that. It's mainly worth it when you have solar panels but that requires another big investment. I'm lucky to live in Spain where it's not that cold so I just have one little plug in radiator I use a few months…

Ditto UK. Gas is relatively cheap, and a replacement boiler is £1,500 to £3,000 and will last ~10 years and there'll be no doubt about whether it can sufficiently heat the home or produce enough hot water etc . Lucky you living in Spain though lol

A boiler should actually be lasting more like 20 years. I recently replaced my 20 year old one purely because if anything went wrong, it’d become an expensive/long job to fix as parts were hard to find, otherwise it was still running perfectly at its manufacture specified efficiency. Running them for 20 years isn’t uncommon.

I had a quote for a heat pump - £20k, plus the cost to replace 13 radiators, plus cost to replace pipework to support heat pump rads.

Pretty sure the government ‘incentive’ was £3k at the time. Doesn’t come remotely close!

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#47

Post by looofooo0 »

mrmlz wrote: post #41
looofooo0 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well Norway (Hydro), Sweden (hydro and nuclear) and Finland (Nuclear Wind Hydro) all have cheap electricity which seems to be the main driver for adoption.

Hrm. It might be cheaper than in Germany but its not cheap in Sweden except for the most nordic parts (hydro). South Sweden - i think the prices are more on par with germany.

Well in the south you might need to factor the gas cost in (vs Germany) and also the network effects of heat pump being the main form of heating in sweden.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#48

Post by Maledictus »

looofooo0 wrote: post #42

Germany at its best, instead of keeping its 20GW+ nuclear power running and get district heating pipes installed to them, they engineer this solution at x times the cost. In this case a 30km pipe from Philippsburg NPP would have done the trick.

Guess who supplies all the nuclear fuel? Russia, and we don't want to buy from them anymore. The same is true for pretty much all nuclear power plants.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#49

Post by asplake »

mrmlz wrote: post #40
hexbin010 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ditto UK. Gas is relatively cheap, and a replacement boiler is £1,500 to £3,000 and will last ~10 years and there'll be no doubt about whether it can sufficiently heat the home or produce enough hot water etc . Lucky you living in Spain though lol

UK houses are really interesting.. Single-glass windows, poor insulation etc. And plumbing on the OUTSIDE(!) :) Are the boilers typically connected to water-radiators?.. I assume so based on the word "boiler". There are heatpumps that are used to heat water so it would be a slot in replacement..

Brit here. Your first pragraph describes older housing stock, not anything built in decades. Not that the quality of our quality of our stock couldn't be improved, or that our (very real) energy standards for new builds couldn't be stricter, but things aren't quite as grim everywhere as the picture you paint.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#50

Post by supersparrow »

mrmlz wrote: post #40
hexbin010 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ditto UK. Gas is relatively cheap, and a replacement boiler is £1,500 to £3,000 and will last ~10 years and there'll be no doubt about whether it can sufficiently heat the home or produce enough hot water etc . Lucky you living in Spain though lol

UK houses are really interesting.. Single-glass windows, poor insulation etc. And plumbing on the OUTSIDE(!) :) Are the boilers typically connected to water-radiators?.. I assume so based on the word "boiler". There are heatpumps that are used to heat water so it would be a slot in replacement..

I’ve lived in the UK for 35 years and lived in various properties built in every decade from 70s-10s. Some much older and less loved ones did have single pane windows but have never seen plumbing on the outside. Maybe on much older houses? Certainly not on anything remotely new. A lot of new builds here have solar, heat pumps and insulation has been excellent for at least 20 years.
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