All new gas appliances to be banned in UK.

[2987fr]

Not with a kettle they don?t except with the amount of water you heat and few kettles do a minimum amount of water very well at all.

[RJH]

Well yes, I do as it goes. I've got one of those one-cup water heater things, and tea definitely tastes different with the c.90C water it dispenses. But fine for herbal teas, instant coffee, minor washups.

[NY]

Yes, I suppose as long as you have space in your house for a really big cylinder then you can heat the water overnight, keep it hot with relatively little loss which the heatpump can replenish, and hope that you never use all that water before the next time it can be heated (cheaply).

The house that I was mentioning earlier with the heatpump and whining air duct in each room had the largest cylinder I've ever seen: about 6 feet tall and 2'6" diameter. Hell of a volume of water there!

[2987fr]

Not if there still is a significant spike when the ads come on TV.

[NY]

Our kettle, a cheap one from Lakeland or somewhere, is quite happy heating up 500-750 ml of water - just enough for a *large* mug of coffee. It has the heating element embedded in the metal base of the kettle, so there is no curly element within the water which has to be completely covered.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Christ! harry is thick.

[Harry Bloomfield]

NY pretended :

If the element is 100% efficient, which an electric kettle is - the longer it takes to boil, the more heat lost whilst waiting for it to boil - the more energy lost. Reduce the Kw input enough and it would never boil. Larger Kw = higher efficiency.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Its clear that they are not.

I had a freind who got extremely upset if I filled his kettle more than necessary to make a cuppa.

Let's look at the numbers.

A pint is what? 450ml? So maybe I added an extra half pint of cold at let's say 10C. 225ml of water to be raised by 90C.

20.25kcal A staggering 23 Wh.

Lets say I do this 4 times a day 365 times a year.

at 20p a unit its over £6!!!!

yeah right. And at least 50% of that is discountable against heating anyway.

Average heating bills on a typical house are around 2-3kW CONTINUOUS averaged out over the year.

When you do teh sums ist pretty celar waht is genuine energu savings (insulation, heat pumps, running the house a bit cooler) and what is utter bollocks virtue signalling designed to sell product (kettles and hoovers, diesel cars etc etc).

[Harry Bloomfield]

2987fr used his keyboard to write :

Our kettle, Morphy Richards jug type - has no visible element, flat bottom and the water gauge's lowest level is far too high. I normally put in a bit more than I need, but still not enough to show on the sight level. SWMBO just fills it every time and it is constantly on the boil. I rarely drink tea, I mostly drink coffee, either from a coffee machine or 50/50 milk and water heated in the cup, in the microwave for

1:30.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Yep. Sulphur and other trace pollutants.

Yup.

It is very very marginal. With a heat pump. CCGT at say 50% and a 3:1 uptick gets you '150%' efficiency...in terms of gas to heat. stuff that down a 80% transmission networl and that goes down to 120%, so pretty mnear break even.

Except when you have a nuclear power station you dont really care. The fuel is so cheap..

France runs on nukes and direct electric heating very happily.

[Harry Bloomfield]

harry explained :

The difference so far as the supply network is concerned and it's peak load - between 2Kw for one minute and 0.5Kw for four minutes is...?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Sadly in my case it goes towards heating the vented attic :-)

[The Natural Philosopher]

That is about standard for a family house.

I think I have a 220L as well.

[Harry Bloomfield]

2987fr submitted this idea :

So the TV broadcasters need to be encouraged to stagger their ad break times. A modern TV which can use a HDD to pause a program helps to ease the network load peaks.

[The Natural Philosopher]

so what? First of all we dont all watch te same channels anymore. Secondly we build Dinorwig to cater for exactly this proble, A short term peak.

Ther are 20 million households. If all of them simultaneoustly switch on a 2KW kettle thats 40GW! So waht? even if they weer 500W kettles thats still 10GW.

The fact is they simply dont. They are staggered. and the net effect of

20 million 500W kettles staying on longer is identical to the effect of 20 million 2KW kettles staying in shorter.

Ther is no rational cases to be made for reducing kettle power. Indeed there are rational reasons for increasing it, to save electricity.

[Max Demian]

There'll be new "smart" TVs that enforce variable delays, different in different households. And advertisers will "lobby" for the elimination of advert skipping. It's the Internet of (rubbish) Things!

[Robin]

that is where concealed element kettles win

[charles]

enough for a decent bath.

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

Well not a problem then is it?

AB

[Max Demian]

Just shove it through the existing pipes. Convert everyone like from coal to natural gas. Coal gas contained a lot of hydrogen anyway.