ENERGY MATTERS

[Big Kev]

The new gas smart meter didn't fit in the same space as the old one, the new regulator is taller and the engineer didn't have time to move all the pipework. Considering he didn't arrive until 5pm, for a midday to 4pm appointment, I wouldn't have been keen on him starting the job anyway, the new meter install at my previous house left us without gas overnight due to them having to move it. I'll see what the back office has to say on Monday.

[Tizer]

`Ovo Energy to pay £8.9m for overcharging customers' LINK

[Big Kev]

`Ovo Energy to pay £8.9m for overcharging customers' LINK

Nowt to do with me, I only look after OVO's connectivity to the DCC

[Stanley]

Never heard of them!

[Tizer]

DCC plc LINK

[Big Kev]

DCC plc LINK

Not that one, this one DCC

[Big Kev]

Never heard of them!

OVO or the DCC?

[Big Kev]

The new gas smart meter didn't fit in the same space as the old one, the new regulator is taller and the engineer didn't have time to move all the pipework. Considering he didn't arrive until 5pm, for a midday to 4pm appointment, I wouldn't have been keen on him starting the job anyway, the new meter install at my previous house left us without gas overnight due to them having to move it. I'll see what the back office has to say on Monday.

They're coming back next Friday to relocate the meter, in the meantime "We’re sorry we did not provide the expected level of service for our appointment that was booked on 24 January 2020. As a result you’re entitled to a payment of £30."

[Stanley]

OVO Kev. I looked it up. My latest BG tariff is 100% green leccy. No way they can make Gas renewable!

[Tizer]

No way they can make Gas renewable!

Cows and sheep?
More seriously, hydrogen will be the answer, made from water by electrolysis.

[Stanley]

Agreed Tiz but to do that you need virtually unlimited cheap leccy....

[chinatyke]

Agreed Tiz but to do that you need virtually unlimited cheap leccy....

We have it in the form of the Sun and energy in the oceans. Did I read that we only need 2% of the sun's energy falling on Earth to power the whole Earth? Most of that energy is still absorbed whether we use it or not, mainly in the oceans. The heat contained in the oceans is enormous and we have the technology to extract it - mega heat pump projects. Extract the heat, produce electricity, produce hydrogen etc. Better than building nuclear or coal fired power stations.

[Stanley]

I suspect you are right China but how long oh Lord!

[Tizer]

I agree with you China but extracting heat on a large scale has the drawback that it's too easily lost during distribution.

[chinatyke]

I agree with you China but extracting heat on a large scale has the drawback that it's too easily lost during distribution.

It's then distributed as electricity or hydrogen. All forms of distributing energy have losses and end up as heat, so in a way you are recycling the energy.

There are demonstration projects which pump warm water from the ocean and use it to evaporate ammonia and the heat is recovered, after which the ammonia is re-cooled by cold water drawn from deeper in the ocean. Hot side is shallow ocean water, cold side is deep ocean water, and heat transfer medium is ammonia. Heat recovered is used to generate electricity. These units can be located on platforms in the ocean.

[PanBiker]

On Iceland which of course has lots of geothermal activity they use every ounce of the superheated water that they tap from underground. I have visited the pumping sites and the water comes out of the ground under such pressure that the ground vibrates violently as it is forced 90 degrees into the feed pipes for the power station. If you stay too long at the pumping sites you feel sick with the vibration. The water runs the turbines to create electricity for the island. It still has enough heat to be pumped around municipal buildings and social housing estates in Reykjavik to provide central heating.

After its central heating roll the water then goes through a network of under road and pavement pipes that keeps them clear of ice and snow. Not finished yet, the Icelandic government did a survey of residents asking them what they would most like to have as a municipal benefit. The consensus was that they wanted a beach where you could take the kids for a paddle and perhaps a swim in the sea! Bit of a problem in Iceland where the sea temperature can kill you in a few minutes and the small matter that it's a volcanic island that has no sand!

Not to be outdone the Icelandic government swapped a container load of fish (they have lots of that) with the Saudi government or some other country in the area who have more sand than you can possibly imagine. They swapped the fish for a container ship full of sand which they used in a small bay to create a proper beach. The water from the street heating is pumped back into the sea at the same point and after a few months this raises the temperature enough so that families can go to the beach build sandcastles and indeed swim in the sea if they desire, only out as far as a red line of linked floating buoys which marks the temperature safety line.

[Pluggy]

On a more down to earth approach, something Germany has been doing for a while and we've just started trialling is using excess wind energy (rather than paying them subsidies to have turbines stood idle when there is low demand ) is to produce hydrogen by electrolysis and then inject it into the nearest gas main. LINK At 2% hydrogen mix it burns like normal natural gas and it doesn't need transporting. Its about 70% efficient with modern electrolysis. It deprives the Daily Mail of doing their shock horror wind subsidy headlines if nothing else.

Back home, I'm seriously looking at going to air to water heat pump to replace gas for central heating. The UK's grid is producing less CO2 per kwh of leccy then burning gas. So from a carbon footprint viewpoint its better to use straight electric heating (£15 quid fan heater) than gas central heating. Unfortunately leccy is about 5 times the cost of gas so it gets silly money very quickly. The heat pump suns at a average COP of around 4 (400% efficient). I have air temperature and gas use figures from my monitoring system and I'm confident its viable considering the big caveat of heat pumps (declining efficiency and heat output as the outside temperature drops and you need more heat not less). They get a lot of flak, usually because they were sized and installed by heating engineers who think they work like gas boilers or by shady salesmen making exaggerated claims about their running costs. Eyes wide open it will cost more to run but the renewable heat incentive LINK will pay for its installation over the 7 years it runs for. Doing the sums gas heating accounts for 65% + of our energy carbon footprint (including the petrol car). Its worth it for the self righteous smug points (and not having a gas bill ) at least. Just need a spare 7 grand or so.......

[chinatyke]

Back home, I'm seriously looking at going to air to water heat pump to replace gas for central heating.

We have air to air heat pumps which we use in winter. Air to water units are available. These are air-con units with valves that reverse (inverters is the manufacturers term) the flow of the coolant, the external heat exchanger becomes the cold side and the internal heat exchanger becomes the hot side. They work extremely well and I get over 300% efficiency (COP >3), output 7kW for an input of 2.2 kW. Be aware that there can be a problem in cold countries because the external heat exchanger can ice up though it doesn't happen where we are. If you live near a stream you can put the heat exchanger in the water!

A good idea because you are extracting free heat from the atmosphere and simply redirecting it indoors with no emissions, what could be greener, especially if you generate your own leccy?

Stephen, mine cost under £600 including installation. They shouldn't cost a lot because they are simply a mass produced air-con unit consisting of 2 heat exchangers, a compressor and a few valves and circuit boards! Look up A O Smith heat pumps on Google.

[Stanley]

"Eyes wide open it will cost more to run but the renewable heat incentive LINK will pay for its installation over the 7 years it runs for."
Will I live that long?

[Tizer]

Perhaps the air to air heat pumps have got better now. When we were considering building a house 6 or 7 years ago some people here were trying them but there was often disappointment because they didn't live up to the promises.

[chinatyke]

Perhaps the air to air heat pumps have got better now. When we were considering building a house 6 or 7 years ago some people here were trying them but there was often disappointment because they didn't live up to the promises.

You have much lower ambient temps in winter than we do and maybe that is why the units aren't as efficient. There are heat pumps available for cold climates, see this article. http://wepowr.com/technology/ashp/cold-climates Maybe the wrong type was installed?
Our ambient temperatures aren't as low as yours are in winter and we don't get frost but it feels very cold because of the high humidity. We also have to cope with temps up to 40C at other times of the year.
In my bedroom (32m² x 2.8m high) I have a smaller vertical air-con unit which moves up to 930 m³/h and is designed for 5730W of heating or cooling for 2400W electric input. It also has a 2100W electric heater boost which we have never used. It's fantastic and heats or cools our room very quickly. I'm a great fan of these units and every room is fitted with the same system, sized accordingly, although some units hardly ever get used.

[Pluggy]

Air to air are much cheaper and are quite easy to 'reverse' to make them cool. In the UK cooling would be nice the 2 days in July when it gets warm, the rest of the year its a waste of time. There is no real market for air con for houses so no body bothers importing them. The air source heat pumps here are a bit more involved since they have to defrost usually by dumping the hot gas from the compressor directly into the evaporator and stopping the fan. And they use different refrigerant and gizzards to make them a beter fit for our climate. On the water side a large heat store (basically a hot water cylinder) is recommended to reduce the cycling on and off to improve efficiency. AKA lots of involved plumbing. It also helps the heating to come on quickly as the heat pump takes tine to start and get settled, having a load of water already hot helps a lot.

Air to air is popular for fitting to new build social housing, Cheap to put in but can be problematical especially if they are a bit on the small side (almost goes without saying with low cost housing) and they are supplemented with straight electric heating which costs a fortune to run. Many, many negative vibes on't interwebs.....

A heat pump is about as descriptive as 'a heater' as there are many ways of using them. If I had a lot of money and a large garden a ground source to water would be better (much digging of earth to lay pipes in the ground) or if I had a stream, river or lake handy water source would be the way to go. But as it is air source it is, The heat pump on its own tend to start around £800 quid here. Getting the RHI puts the price up.And lots of UK rate labour Beers are about 50p a pop in China by chinatykes assertions so think 1200 - 2000 beers.

[Big Kev]

Awaiting attempt number 2 to fit the gas smart meter, 08:00 - 12:00 arrival time. We'll see how that goes.

[Stanley]

Good luck with it Kev!

[Big Kev]

That went well, not.

I've come to move your meter.
Move it where?
I don't know, it just says 'move the meter' on the job ticket.
You're not fitting a smart meter then?
No.

Engineer then takes a look in the cupboard.

The pipework needs to be moved down a couple of inches to get the new regulator on top but if I move it down the existing meter won't fit.
I know this, that's what the last engineer said. Did you not bring a smart meter with you as this would fit?
No, it's not on the ticket...

Update

I've spoken to a real person and arranged a meter move and a smart meter install on the same day. Sounds ominous but it's actually the same engineer doing both jobs. Why this wasn't organised for today I have no idea, perhaps it's because I left it to the people who are supposed to be organising these things