New type of boiler

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Not when stationary in a traffic jam - and this is when AC is often needed most. Although many cars have an extra electric fan to cool the existing heat exchanger in this event.

[Jim]

It's going to be fun when cars go electric and everyone has to wean themselves off of aircon again.

[Bruce]

of this new British-developed technology will be done by Germany, China and Japan, with no benefit whatsoever to the UK?

[Adrian]

Jim gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Umm, why would they need to do that?

[Jim]

Hmph. I misrembered the story, as it turns out - sorry.

The problem is actually the opposite one: it's quite expensive in electricity to heat an all-electric car when the exterior temperatures are very low and you don't have an ICE kicking out waste heat.

[YAPH]

Assuming "economical" == "efficient":

Efficiency = useful heat / total heat * 100%

Current generation boilers are about 90% efficient i.e. useful heat / total heat ~= .9

20% of .9 is .018, so a 20% more efficient boiler would be one that is 91.8% efficient.

Big deal.

[Andrew May]

Que? Surely 20% of 0.9 is 0.18 so a 20% more efficient boiler would be one that is 108% efficient.

Andrew

[John Rumm]

Careful, you will have Dribble along in a moment claiming its possible ;-)

[ARWadsworth]

But imagine the saving if you installed two boilers:-)

Adam

[The Natural Philosopher]

It probably is. With a heat pump ;-)

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Think you've added a '0' there somewhere...

I took it to mean a 20% reduction in energy use.

[Doctor Drivel]

Not quite. Absorption refrigeration system. They are making it smaller. It appears the COP has improved as well. An electric heat pump at COP 4 is the equivalent to gas to run as gas is about

1/4 of the price of electricity per kW. A heat pumps can give out 4 kW when consuming 1kW (COP4). A seasonal average what is needed.

Now if this absorption unit is smaller and has say COP 2 running on gas then it looks good. They can heat a house or hot water. At COP 2 using gas means the equiv of COP 8 using an eclectic heat pump in running costs.

This means the inefficient air-to-air heat pumps run by cheap to buy gas are quite cheap to run indeed. If COP 2 is maintained gas heating bills for the average house will be more than halved.

Install these into highly insulated homes and the heating bills will be very low indeed.

That is air-to-air. Have a water or ground sourced system and the heating bills are lower again maybe to a 1/4 or less of current gas bills.

It is all to do with the cost of gas vs electricity per kW.

[Doctor Drivel]

Insulated bodies are being developed by the big makers. Renault are big in this. Using the technology available right now in electric motors, batteries, brake regen, supercapacitors, insulated bodies, reflective glass, etc, if all engineered into a complete car, heating and cooling it will not be a problem.

[Doctor Drivel]

Quite wrong.

[Andy Burns]

And the price of this new wonderboiler will no doubt reflect the savings it would make ...

[Doctor Drivel]

You don't know the price yet, so stop making things up. It could also cool as well.

[YAPH]

Why bother?

doesn't - from his heatloss calcs he reckons he'll need 700W to heat the entire house at -3C outside. For that sort of requirement you might just as well leave a few lights and a PC on and you'll be cosy.

[Doctor Drivel]

Interesting. Interseasonal store? Look at this. No gagetry and cheap to build:

Look at:

house in Scotland by Deveci costing no more to build than others. Figure by the university, so no arm-waving.

Looking at it, it can be improved even more.

[Andy Burns]

If it was built 10 years ago, have they done a follow-up study to see if the "zero heating" projections were borne out?

[Andy Dingley]

There's also a new-build estate going up in Belfast, all without C/H (not sure how "heatingless" they are otherwise).