electric boiler

[smudger]

Hiya, Anyone have dealings with electric central heating boilers i saw some in BQ, what are the principles and is it costly to drive.Thanks smudge

[RedOnRed]

Good question. With the price of gas is it now cheaper to run an electric boiler? Perhaps slightly easier to install as well.

[Christian McArdle]

Nope. The electricity is made from gas as well, so rises in price too. It will cost about 3 times as much to run as a gas boiler.

Probably, if you already have a 3 phase supply.

Christian.

[RedOnRed]

Are you sure that all electricity is made from gas?

Our nuclear power stations are gas cooled, but then there is solar, wind and electricity produced by coal.

[Christian McArdle]

Enough of it is such that the cost of other forms vary in line as well. Basically, energy costs rise and fall somewhat in unison. Any variation is in the profitability of different forms.

The gas that cools many UK nuclear power stations is carbon dioxide!

Christian.

[Dave Fawthrop]

|> Nope. The electricity is made from gas as well, so rises in price too. It |> will cost about 3 times as much to run as a gas boiler. |>

|>> Perhaps slightly easier to install as well. |>

|> Probably, if you already have a 3 phase supply. |>

|> Christian. |>

|>

| |Are you sure that all electricity is made from gas? | |Our nuclear power stations are gas cooled,

The gas is Carbon Dioxide, you would not get much heat burning *that*.

[Andy McKenzie]

In the UK circa 40% of electricity generation is gas, 35% from coal with the remainder coming from nuclear and hydro. The 'gas' in a gas cooled nuclear power station has nothing whatsoever to do with natural gas (it is actually CO2 in a closed cycle). Predicting future energy prices is always going to be a guess, but it is quite likely that electricity prices will mirror gas, maintaining gase's current advantages. Interestingly a DTI report in 2003 predicted that over the years until 2020 electricity prices would rise by 7% per year, and gas would rise at 13% until about 2010, and then start falling as new supplies came on stream. Will they? If you can be sure that you know, the nice gentleman in the city will happily take your money in a bet on energy futures.

Andy

[John Rumm]

Not all, just most (in this country)

[RedOnRed]

I wouldn't call the only 40% of overall production "most".

[Ed Sirett]

About the only way it can be made to work is to heat a largish thermal store over night using electricity that only costs twice as much as gas (OK maybe not quite that ATM [1]). During use the thermal stores supplies heat for use in an underfloor system.

This will only work if the home is quite small and very well insulated.

[1] It will only be a matter of time before the higher gas prices come through as higher electric prices.

[John Rumm]

Here's a thought: what would be the pros and cons of having an "economy

7" heat pump to fill a thermal store over night?

The lekky may still be twice the price of gas, but the effective efficency of from the reclaimed heat could tip the ballance.

For that matter what about a gas powered heat pump?

[Doctor Drivel]

None, as long as the heat pump is big enough to heat the thermal store, which would need about 2000 litres for the average home, the sources of heat it is moving is guranteed (as using a very large mass of water) and it has a very high COP.

They are used in industry a lot.

The most efficient tumble dryers use heat pumps.

[Doctor Drivel]

The new gas supplies that come on line will be from mainly Russia. It is the political implication of having a hell of lot of your energy supplies in one suppliers basket. The Russians cut off the Ukraine's gas supply over a price argument. Not encouraging at all.

As we are upping nuclear and fuel cell cars are predicated to be on the market, gas will in time probably be phased out, or be the same per kW as electricity. Then electric boilers will be the norm.

Fuel cell cars can act as millions of small generators. Charging up overnight and feeding the grid (turning the meter backwards) too, so less power stations would be needed.

A part of the answer lies in the building regulations and town planning. Have all homes and buildings superinsulated/passive solar design and design towns and cities to phase out car usage. High efficiency appliances should be standard and low efficiency phased out.

The reason we are in an energy crisis is because of Thatcher and her party. She was told to reserve North Sea gas for mainly domestic use, and use coal to create electricity - more advanced scubbers and burning technology was emerging. In her party's hatred of miners, their sport is setting troops and police against miners (using bayonets at one time), she eliminated the coal industry - political spite. Then used cheap gas as the tempter to privatise. We are in this state because of political dogma and gross inepitude.

[Andy Dingley]

That bitch, Thatcher 8-(

[tarquinlinbin]

Im not sure how it could be since electricity is not a primary fuel i.e you have to burn another fuel to produce the electricity which of course adds cost...

Remove antispam and add 670 after bra to email

[Ed Sirett]

Where's the heat going to be pumped FROM.

Like an electrolux fridge in reverse?

[John Rumm]

From "outside" (i.e. same way as a heat pump aircon unit can be used to heat in the winter - stick 1kW of lekky in and get 2kW of reclaimed heat out, plus your initial kW)

Yup!

[Ed Sirett]

I guess many places with air con will use it in reverse for heating. AIUI the capital cost of such an arrangement is hard to justify for heating but if the cooling is necessary then it makes sense to use it for heating as well. However it would seem that some other heating is deemed necessary as you see many restaurants where there are radiators as well as an aircon unit. Even places where the rads have been added after the air con.

[John Rumm]

Not sure... You can buy monoblock heat pump aircon units from around £200 these days... even a bog standard storage heater could cost a similar amount.

Could be a couple of answers to that - it may be they fitted cooling only air con, or their heat pump can only run down to a certain minimum outside temperature and they need to guarentee the ability to heat. It may just be that inspite of the gains from heat pumping it is still not competitive with gas (given the resturants ability to use economy 7 will be limited)

(One of our clients has a reasonable sized shop front (5m x 10m) and all their heating and cooling is provided by a single cassette sized heat pump).

[Doctor Drivel]

Rads in a shop get in the way and look ugly. High level air handlers are more convenient and having them do heating and cooling is more convenient too. It may be more expensive to heat than gas, but in a shop showroom the high cost of heating may be justified. Also the goods being sold may absorb heat. In one carpet shop I knew of, in the coldest of winters the heating never came on.

Depends on the heat pumps COP. Those quoted are usually peak, with averages more like COP 2, which cannot compete with gas. Averages of COP 4 compete with gas. COP is difficult to achieve with and air sourced heat pump.