Green energy powered by bullsh!t

glasshouse

Member
Location
lothians
Wood is a crop, like straw. Yes it takes longer to grow but it’s part of the carbon cycle. Surely even with your mindset you can see that 😜


I think rates can be set by local government now So for them it’s easy money.

now that we have to be carbon neutral but 2035 instead of 2050, the government needs to say yes to any renewable project possible if they are to have a vague hope of getting threre!
So is it a good thing felling every tree in sight?
And planting more on good farmland?
 

HatsOff

Member
Mixed Farmer
what about the Electric it consumes, ?
for when I considered air source, my heating engineer advised too expensive on the electric it used,
I can't agree with your heating engineer on that one. As an example using slightly pessimistic figures:

1kWh of electricity (at 17p/kWh) nets 3kWh of heating so you end up with 5.66p/kWh delivered heat.

1 litre of heating oil is 50p and gives 10kWh of heat. Boiler efficiency of 80% so you end up at 6.25p/kWh of delivered heat.

This is a simplification - you might have more expensive electricity or a more efficient boiler if you run it at a lower temperature. But my actual numbers for the year just gone is a COP of 4.2 (so 4.2kWh of heat for every 1kWh of electricity used) and was paying 15p/kWh so my real figure for last year was 3.57p/kWh delivered heat.

This next year won't be so good but I've got a 17p/kWh deal for 12 months, assuming they don't go bust.

Again, the caveat is if its a straight swap and using it as you would a gas or oil boiler, then it might not work. Also you can see the number above cannot compete with mains gas.

Edit - just had a look and fuel oil is now 63p/litre round me.
 
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BrianV

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Dartmoor
I can't agree with your heating engineer on that one. As an example using slightly pessimistic figures:

1kWh of electricity (at 17p/kWh) nets 3kWh of heating so you end up with 5.66p/kWh delivered heat.

1 litre of heating oil is 50p and gives 10kWh of heat. Boiler efficiency of 80% so you end up at 6.25p/kWh of delivered heat.

This is a simplification - you might have more expensive electricity or a more efficient boiler if you run it at a lower temperature. But my actual numbers for the year just gone is a COP of 4.2 (so 4.2kWh of heat for every 1kWh of electricity used) and was paying 15p/kWh so my real figure for last year was 3.57p/kWh delivered heat.

This next year won't be so good but I've got a 17p/kWh deal for 12 months, assuming they don't go bust.

Again, the caveat is if its a straight swap and using it as you would a gas or oil boiler, then it might not work. Also you can see the number above cannot compete with mains gas.
That's all well & good but you have to calculate the additional set up cost above any alternative over it's lifetime & add that amount onto your yearly running costs to have a fair comparison!
 

BrianV

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Dartmoor
RHI makes that simple... Zero!
So you are saying an air source heat pump is the same price as a gas or oil boiler when this RHI is taken into consideration after all your radiators have also been upsized to provide adequate heat?
Average heat pump around £6,000 plus upgrading all your radiators. Average gas or oil boiler replacement £2,000.
This RHI must amount to a lot of money
 
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HatsOff

Member
Mixed Farmer
So you are saying an air source heat pump is the same price as a gas or oil boiler when this RHI is taken into consideration after all your radiators have also been upsized to provide adequate heat?
Average heat pump around £6,000 plus upgrading all your radiators. Average gas or oil boiler replacement £2,000.
This RHI must amount to a lot of money
Yeah as I said earlier, I can't make a like for like comparison as we didn't have proper central heating beforehand. But two things... To get maximum efficiency from a condensing boiler, it should be run at a similar temperature to a heat pump, so radiators should be comparable if you want to get maximum out of your fuel. And in my experience the extra over cost of the heat pump vs a conventional boiler was only a few thousand.

Like I say, they're not always suitable but I wanted to counter the curmudgeonly 'oh but sometimes they're not perfect' attitudes you sometimes see here with my positive experience.
 

grainboy

Member
Location
Bedfordshire
I can't agree with your heating engineer on that one. As an example using slightly pessimistic figures:

1kWh of electricity (at 17p/kWh) nets 3kWh of heating so you end up with 5.66p/kWh delivered heat.

1 litre of heating oil is 50p and gives 10kWh of heat. Boiler efficiency of 80% so you end up at 6.25p/kWh of delivered heat.

This is a simplification - you might have more expensive electricity or a more efficient boiler if you run it at a lower temperature. But my actual numbers for the year just gone is a COP of 4.2 (so 4.2kWh of heat for every 1kWh of electricity used) and was paying 15p/kWh so my real figure for last year was 3.57p/kWh delivered heat.

This next year won't be so good but I've got a 17p/kWh deal for 12 months, assuming they don't go bust.

Again, the caveat is if its a straight swap and using it as you would a gas or oil boiler, then it might not work. Also you can see the number above cannot compete with mains gas.

Edit - just had a look and fuel oil is now 63p/litre round me.

No RHI payment in normal household that I’m aware of,
Plus upgrade of pipe work to 22mm, cost of unit and installation.
Little change out of £12 k plus
It doesn’t add up financially viable,
Plus we don’t have gas available in the village, so I’ll stick to oil.
 
can't agree with your heating engineer on that one. As an example using slightly pessimistic figures:

1kWh of electricity (at 17p/kWh) nets 3kWh of heating so you end up with 5.66p/kWh delivered heat.


You're talking about a heat pump of some description.

So depending on solution that's £8K to £20K+ plus maintainance costs of £2K+ every 7-10 years plus another outlay of £30K+ for insulation.

And the efficiency of heat pumps goes down as the outside temperature goes lower. Eventually they either don't work or are worse than an electric heater.
 

HatsOff

Member
Mixed Farmer
No RHI payment in normal household that I’m aware of,
Plus upgrade of pipe work to 22mm, cost of unit and installation.
Little change out of £12 k plus
It doesn’t add up financially viable,
Plus we don’t have gas available in the village, so I’ll stick to oil.
Domestic RHI is running until March 2022.

Yeah that's comparing changing what you have now, whereas I was looking at a fresh install for oil/gas /heat pump. From memory, Oil was about £8.5k (trenching oil line, tank, hwc and outdoor boiler) vs heat pump (monobloc unit, electric connection, hwc) at £11.5k - all covered by a grant. Didn't look at lpg tank/gas in detail because I didn't want to be tied to a single supplier.

As previous, the central heating system was all new and you get most out of oil and gas condensing units by designing at 50C anyway so I don't view that as an extra over cost.
 

HatsOff

Member
Mixed Farmer
You're talking about a heat pump of some description.

So depending on solution that's £8K to £20K+ plus maintainance costs of £2K+ every 7-10 years plus another outlay of £30K+ for insulation.

And the efficiency of heat pumps goes down as the outside temperature goes lower. Eventually they either don't work or are worse than an electric heater.

Yeah I've covered those points. I don't think we got to a COP of 1 this year, which was pretty cold here (-10C). But you need to look at the averages - the COP was 4.2 this year. Amazing stuff really.

I'm only a few years in so don't know about maintenance. But air conditioning units last 20 years or so. Insulation I'd have done anyway because lower energy costs from whatever source will pay for itself before I die, and I'll be able to live in more comfort in the mean time.
 

steveR

Member
Mixed Farmer
You're talking about a heat pump of some description.

So depending on solution that's £8K to £20K+ plus maintainance costs of £2K+ every 7-10 years plus another outlay of £30K+ for insulation.

And the efficiency of heat pumps goes down as the outside temperature goes lower. Eventually they either don't work or are worse than an electric heater.
Got to be GSHP to make the systems work well year round...;)

My system is 10yo now. Not been cheap in some ways... Heat exchanger replacement was costly, constantly blowing the soft start is a PITA, but still under warranty! PCB went after 4 years but swapped out as a warranty, as a bad batch.

But the +ve side is a 4 bedroom house heated and DHW year round for a reasonable price. COP is around 4 I believe over the time its been installed.
 
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Got to be GSHP to make the systems work well year round...;)

My system is 10yo now. Not been cheap in some ways... Heat exchanger was costly, constantly blowing the sift start is a PITA, but still under warranty! PCB went after 4 years but swapped out as a warranty, as a bad batch.

But the +ve side is a 4 bedroom house heated and DHW year round for a reasonable price. COP is around 4 I believe over the time its been installed.


I think GSHP is gong to be a rarity in towns and cities.

TBH Nuclear seems as though it's the only option. I don't like it but it's becoming the only option.
 

brigadoon

Member
Location
Galloway
what is your point? turbines can be built at sea with no subsidy and produce electricity at sensible prices
They sell freely into the electricity market previously at around 5p per unit the same as I do and the gas turbines etc.
At present the market is on a high and prices have been up to 25p but have now settled back to around the 10p I think ( not looked for a few days as all mine are on long contracts.
Many of the gas generators receive a payment to turn off when the wind is blowing as do some of the Northern turbines. This though is often about imbalances in the National Grid which has insufficient capacity to handle it all
I do not believe we have any gas turbine power stations in the UK - we have gas powered generation - which is not the same thing at all
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 80 42.3%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 66 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.9%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,292
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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