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The pain is in the form of a far higher monthly bill. In the UK, gas is ~ £0.03 per kWh whereas electricity is ~ £0.13 kWh.

andruby 7y ago
Additional data point for Belgium: €0.04 KWh for gas and €0.30 KWh for electricity. You'd need a COP of 7.5 in order for a heat-pump to be at cost parity of natural gas.
ZeroGravitas 7y ago
And yet, the Energy Saving Trust suggests that it can save 100 pounds a year even compared with a modern gas system, and much better against all other alternatives. I'm not sure if those numbers include government incentives but if they do then they're still a good proxy for the actual costs with a reasonable carbon tax included to internalize externalities.
- reallydontask 7y ago
  > And yet, the Energy Saving Trust suggests that it can save 100 pounds a year even compared with a modern gas system, and much better against all other alternatives By switching to a heat pump system?
  - ZeroGravitas 7y ago
    Yep. https://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/renewable-energy/heat/air-source-heat-pumps https://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/renewable-energy/heat/a... See the section headed: "Potential annual savings of installing a standard air source heat pump in an average sized, four-bedroom detached home:" Also details the carbon saved, which some people might consider important as well, depends on the relative weight you place on "saving money in the near future" vs "causing the end of civilization as we know it".
    - mikorym 7y ago
      What is the principle at work behind a heat pump?
      - ZeroGravitas 7y ago
        It's a fridge running backwards. Gasses expand soaking up heat, then you compress them and it ejects the heat. Then you repeat the cycle. You dump the heat outside if you're cooling (fridge or AC) or inside if you're heating. The slightly unintuitive bit is that you can still extract heat even from something that would feel "cold" to a human as long as there's enough of it. Making a big volume slightly colder can make a small volume much warmer (or vice versa).

andruby 7y ago

Additional data point for Belgium: €0.04 KWh for gas and €0.30 KWh for electricity. You'd need a COP of 7.5 in order for a heat-pump to be at cost parity of natural gas.

ZeroGravitas 7y ago

And yet, the Energy Saving Trust suggests that it can save 100 pounds a year even compared with a modern gas system, and much better against all other alternatives. I'm not sure if those numbers include government incentives but if they do then they're still a good proxy for the actual costs with a reasonable carbon tax included to internalize externalities.

reallydontask 7y ago
> And yet, the Energy Saving Trust suggests that it can save 100 pounds a year even compared with a modern gas system, and much better against all other alternatives By switching to a heat pump system?
- ZeroGravitas 7y ago
  Yep. https://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/renewable-energy/heat/air-source-heat-pumps https://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/renewable-energy/heat/a... See the section headed: "Potential annual savings of installing a standard air source heat pump in an average sized, four-bedroom detached home:" Also details the carbon saved, which some people might consider important as well, depends on the relative weight you place on "saving money in the near future" vs "causing the end of civilization as we know it".
  - mikorym 7y ago
    What is the principle at work behind a heat pump?
    - ZeroGravitas 7y ago
      It's a fridge running backwards. Gasses expand soaking up heat, then you compress them and it ejects the heat. Then you repeat the cycle. You dump the heat outside if you're cooling (fridge or AC) or inside if you're heating. The slightly unintuitive bit is that you can still extract heat even from something that would feel "cold" to a human as long as there's enough of it. Making a big volume slightly colder can make a small volume much warmer (or vice versa).