With new builds I believe that they will not be provided with a mains gas supply hence no CH via natural Gas.
Unless you live in a (rural) area where there has never been a gas supply the alternatives to electric heating are likely to be just as expensive. In rural area that have never had a gas supply the delivery of oil, lpg and logs (in bulk) is commonplace. In a new build urban area this alternative infrastructure is unlikely to be in place and delivery of such commodities more expensive.
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A quick google
New builds in the UK will not have gas supplies starting in 2025:
New legislation: The Future Homes Standard bans gas boilers in new builds from 2025.
Alternative heating systems: New homes will have to use alternative heating systems, such as heat pumps, electric heating, or biomass boilers.
Phase out natural gas boilers: The Heat and Buildings Strategy plans to phase out natural gas boilers entirely by 2035.
I'm not sure that biomass* is common even in areas without a mains gas supply and there may also be a problem in areas designated smokeless.
Logs are common and some coal in dual fuel log burners.
The grid is managed and does not "need your protection" :-)
If I am the grid operator, and there is a shortfall of supply, I just turn off the power to your street for three hours. Then I turn off the power to the next street for three hours, and turn your power back on.
By means of "rolling blackouts", I can maintain the grid for the majority of people, and inconvenience a minority of people.
Smart tariffs offer an opportunity to save money... as far as the punters are concerned. They don't have to worry about operation of the grid, because that's well in hand.
Grids become unstable, when there is a domino event, more than one policy was violated by the equipment, and the situation is too dynamic for humans to react fast enough to compensate. That's how my grid dropped here once for three days, and all the reactors scrammed. And the twits did not seem to have a plan for a black start (since the reactors were added years before that). The three days was spent reviewing the plan to restart, to make sure there were no issues with attempting to restart.
If too many people turn on their electric fires at the same time, then a "rolling blackout" will solve the problem. And signal to the people, that a limit has been reached :-)
Paul
It probably does in the UK - already too much unreliable renewable generation. Wind can produce 30% of our demand but often it only produces less than 5%. Government policy is to build more wind generators and this is in a part of the world where we have dunkelflaute, a German word indicating that the wind isn't blowing and usually for the whole of Northern Europe and for maybe a week or more.
When this happens in winter weather demand starts approaching generation capacity. The UK has energy links with France, the Netherlands and Norway but when we start running out of generating capacity the rest of Europe has has similar problems, especially where they are investing heavily in renewable wind energy.
What happens first in the UK is the big industrial users are asked to switch off or reduce usage. A warning was given to industry a few weeks back that this may happen but fortunately the weather wasn't as bad/cold as forecast. It does however show how close we will be to demand exceeding generation capacity, and we are not even approaching the worst of winter weather.
Although there is a large peak period in the UK of around 2 hours a day the main problem in the winter is that with wind producing a bigger share of our needs the problems last weeks and not just for a few hours.
No electricity to household means no heating. Although 70% (ish) houses have natural gas central heating the boilers need electricity to work as do the pumps circukating water in the radiators.
Yes this correct. With smart meters it is possible to save money but mainly if you can shift your usage to off peak periods. Ideal if you have a EV or whole house battery.
There have been small scale experiments in the UK to pay people to not use electricity at certain times, usually during the peak daily hours. in one of these periods the grid paid the equivalent of around £4.00/kWh (in the UK electricity cost around £0.25/kwh)
That is not the only problem. The net zero energy policy means that demand is growing, road transport going from petrol/diesel to electric and the 70% of UK households will change from gas to electric. If the green lobbyists have their way all of this in the next 6 to 10 years. There is a good chance in the next 20 years we will not have any more nuclear and gas generation will be immediately out of favour and no more gas generators build. We will end up with a lot more intermittent generation sources probably built in remote locations with little chance of them being connected to the grid in a timely manner.
Perhaps it will require a long blackout period for people to wake up and not smell the bacon cooking!
I often wonder how we might cope if we had another severe winter like
1963, anyone remember that;!...I think Gemini got a bit carried away?
is *expected* to
As long as you used natural gas for heating, and not a lot of electric fires, you would be fine.
*******A nice winter would be good for you :-)
Look what you have to look forward to. Are your skates ready ? :-)
Four layers of clothing for upper body. Lined pants. No long underwear (the hairs on your legs are just as good as long underwear). For the skates, two pairs of socks. The skates should have a bit of room for your socks.
And this is for people who still have blood circulation in their feet. Don't try that if your feet are "white slabs". You'll freeze out there. Once the blood starts circulating in your feet, the two pairs of socks are enough. Some of the synthetic (plastic) skates are warmer than the leather skates I wore.
The perfect temperature for a skate, is -10C. Below -18C the skates do not glide well. At 0C and with a thin skin of water riding on the surface, there's no kick and excellent glide. Which can be a problem for some. That's why the in-between temperature of -10C is perfect. A little cross-breeze across the sheet, won't hurt you. If the entire trip is with a 30MPH breeze in your face, why... that sucks. I've done that. More than once.
It's early morning. The sun is barely up. It's 0C. There is water on the surface. You have practically the whole surface to yourself. Give a kick. Huge glide. Sliding across a featureless reflective watery mirror. Now that's living.
Paul (a former skater)
yes, I do.
Me too.
Where I lived then was on the same circuit as a hospital, so we never had any power cuts.
Even better, the snow was thick enough to deter drivers, so the coffee-bar hangout a few miles away was the province of those with a motorcycle and those who could walk up from the mid-wars housing estate, which was mostly girls <vbg>.
Yes I do. I lived in Surrey and worked at ATV's Elstree studios and drove there and back every shift day - it was hairy in the snow!
I can remember that year going down to see the sea frozen. One of the local fish and chip shops had for the following 20+ years photos of the sea ice hung up on their walls.
On the rare occasions that we get snow here in the South East of England I find it not too bad driving in it. What is scary is driving on black ice, especially when initially thinking (erroneously) that the gritting lorries had done a good job :(
Anyone with a brain would have gone to Lidl or Aldi, or in your case blagged a free-parking blue badge
I grew up in Barry, on the Northern outskirts, on a ridge with no protection from northerly winds.
The metal water pipe supplying the house was frozen solid for 6 weeks, the roads (lots of steep hills in Barry) were sheet ice. The school buses did not run, so we walked the 2 miles to and from school (in short trousers).
Some of the snow drifts were up to the gutters of 2 story houses.
They pretty much are I think.
But given the strict regs on insulation, for a modern 4 bedroom hutch its almost adequate...
C'mon Milband would ban sex on the grounds that humans are destroying the planet.
Whaddya think all this LBGTQ crap is about - to make kids so insecure about their sexuality and so afraid to touch the opposite sex for fear of being accused of microaggression ...
Just like South Africa and any third world country .
What a f****ng mess.
Might well be this winter...
The point is that none of this is necessary. Net zero will achieve absolutely nothing climate wise, and will simply destroy the UK economy instead, while India and China laugh at us.
We would be cattled* me old china.
*(cattle trucked= ...) >
They don't have anything I want to buy. I have wandered round them in the past and thought 'not quality and not cheap either'
Do you recall seeing any proposals for offsetting all the CO2 breathed out by humans and animals? I don't recall any. Do they expect us to go round wearing a carbon capture helmet? :)
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