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?

#391

Post by Zenst » Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 7:19 PM UTC

slashdotdash wrote: post #160

usrusr wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> alas they loaded it onto the standing charge that is a flat rate per day for having a supply. Not true, source: my electricity bill. A standing charge exists, but the vast majority of what we pay is per kWh. The part that you misunderstood, I think, is that the EEG is fixed per kWh and not per euro paid (just like most of our fuel taxes, even if crude doubles or halves in price our price at the pump only shifts a l…

> In reality, it's impossible for a households to get a contract that follows market rate, you always pay the same per kWh no matter if it's Sunday or Monday, windy or calm. In the UK you can use the Agile tariff from Octopus Energy ( https://octopus.energy/agile/ ) which has half hourly dynamic pricing per electricity kWh. The next 24hrs worth of prices are released each day around 4pm and follow market cost. There’…

Thank you for that, very very useful and good to see the smart meters with some consumer benefits.

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

#392

Post by mtrower » Sun, Feb 23, 2020, 5:59 AM UTC

scbrg wrote: post #262

nickysielicki wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s crazy. I use Griddy in Texas and my price has been generally below $0.02c/kWh the past two months.

"$0.02c" - does this notation mean 2 cents? Honest question, not American and never seen this format before. Is it considered more clear than just "$0.02"? I'm guessing it really can't mean 0.02 cents. See also: Verizon Math :-)

Correct; this doesn't make any sense.

$0.02 - two cents

2c - two cents

0.02c - 1/50th of a cent

$0.02c - does not compute

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

#393

Post by mtrower » Sun, Feb 23, 2020, 6:06 AM UTC

unishark wrote: post #84

reaperducer wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony is that dryer sheets promise "spring breeze" scent and have pictures of clothing hanging on a line outside.

Nature provides both the ideal outcome (great weather and lovely-smelling laundry on the clothesline) but also a lot of much-worse scenarios that drive the use of technological solutions. Like a long humid rainy season where hang-dried clothes does not come out smelling nice at all.

Or a long, cold winter season where the clothes won't dry and may well freeze =(

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

#394

Post by johnr2 » Sun, Feb 23, 2020, 10:49 AM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #69

johnr2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Electric heating via heat pump is ridiculously efficient Strictly speaking that's "electrically assisted" heating. What most people refer to as electric heating is the conversion of electricity directly into heat, eg. by a resistive element.

You're claiming that when mostly people say "electric heating" they are specifically excluding heat pumps? Do you have something to back that up?

> You're claiming that when mostly people say "electric heating" they are specifically excluding heat pumps?

No, just pointing out the usual definition of electric heating. A heat pump doesn't necessarily even use electricity. The mechanical power for the compressor (assuming a refrigerant based heat pump) could come from anywhere.

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

#395

Post by m12k » Mon, Feb 24, 2020, 11:17 AM UTC

Subsidies for those who don't pollute seems like such a backwards solution compared to taxing those who do pollute. If you want people to stop dumping trash in your backyard do you think it's saner to punish those who do or to reward everyone else in your neighborhood who gets rid of their trash in other ways?

The atmosphere and its ability to contain a limited amount of carbon is a public good, and we should stop giving away the right to dump stuff in it for free.

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

#396

Post by patrickk » Mon, Feb 24, 2020, 3:29 PM UTC

xnyan wrote: post #247

aftbit wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you do solar preheat as a retrofit to an existing electric (or natural gas) hot water heater? Coil some flexible water line in a plywood box, spray paint it all black, put a plexiglass lid on, caulk it up, and lay it out in the sun. Feed cold water through it before it hits your hot water heater. It probably would not be as efficient as a commercial solution, but it would be very cheap. Don't forget about water s…

I think you are right and there are gains to be had with a hybrid system. I’m handy with plumbing and I think it is something I could figure out but the problem is, as always for everyone, I have so many other things going on I that don’t have the time to figure out a DIY system.

If you ever get time, there a tons of videos on Youtube showing how it's done:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sc78nueDQ64

More pipe = more heat of course, so you can size it up according to your needs. If I had a pool, I would definitely do this.

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

#397

Post by Retric » Mon, Feb 24, 2020, 9:37 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #384

endorphone wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not quite getting your point, and honestly it seems like you're digging deep to stick with what you originally stated. The climate I live in is colder than the majority of humans. Maybe the vast majority. I have a very efficient heat pump (I've been using it for 8 years now -- it's well proven to me by now). Ergo, any notion that heat pumps only work in balmy conditions has no bearing on reality -- yes, those sup…

My point is solar hot water heaters are generally the better option for home heating as I have been saying. You may assume I am referring to a specific case but this is very general advice. Including arctic through tropical climate, sea level or extreme altitude, detached single family homes through skyscrapers, building on bead rock vs oceanfront silt. In the tropics at high altitude you can use cheap systems for do…

I assume there is zero chance of you reading this, but just felt the need to clarify something.

When the efficiency of a heat pump decreases it’s producing less heat for the same energy (when running) rather than the same heat using more energy. As you need more meat output as the temperature drops that quickly becomes a problem. This means you quickly need either a larger heat pump or a backup resistive heating element in the worst conditions. That’s rarely an issue for ground source heating, but is a huge issue than means a heat pump may theoretically be much more effect looking at a chart than what actually happens in practice.