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Yet governments insist newbuilds to be on electric heating... I was saying this won't be nice for a long time. Example: my house, a 1954 built semi-detached -
by pmlnr 6y ago
Yet governments insist newbuilds to be on electric heating... I was saying this won't be nice for a long time.
Example: my house, a 1954 built semi-detached - the official average unit in England - has a single phase 100A main cutout.
Hob 32A, 2x sockets circuits 2x16A, 2x light circuits 2x6A, oven 16A. That's already 92A at total theoretical capacity.
If I was to add FIR panels, that's bare minimum +32A, plus water heating - let's play it down, +32A, car charger +32A again.
This means I'd need a 3 phase extension. If everyone in the area were to do this we'd literally burn down the system on day one.
- paganel 6y ago> Yet governments insist newbuilds to be on electric heating Not only that, but they insist that almost all vehicle transportation should be electric in maximum 10-15 years.
- AnthonyMouse 6y agoThey should install FTTH while they're upgrading everybody's electrical service. :)
- avianlyric 6y agoNot quite, they’re insisting all all new vehicles will be electric. Even at that point it’ll still be decades before electric vehicles make up the majority of road traffic.
- yostrovs 6y agoDo people really keep their vehicles for decades?
- toast0 6y agoIt doesn't really matter if people keep their vehicle for decades, because people usually sell their old vehicles for use by others when they get a new (to them) vehicle. What you want to know is the average life of a vehicle (or average age of the fleet), not the average period of ownership. I'm sure that varies by country; IIRC Germany has punative taxes on registering old cars, so their average age should be a lot less than in the US where registration tax usually is based on value, so goes down as the vehicle ages. I seem to recall average fleet age of about 20 years in the US.
- alaxsxaq 6y agoThe average age of operating automobiles in use within the US is closer to 12 years. The registration fee (annual renewal, not initial registration) in the US is based on vehicle value in 8 states by my count. On a personal note, me and most of the people I know think more in terms of miles than years. I figure every car I buy is good for 200,000 miles and most of the brands I favor have another 100,000 miles of life beyond that before repairs exceed some loosely calculated rate of return.
- kgermino 6y ago> On a personal note, me and most of the people I know think more in terms of miles than years. I think that partly depends on how you drive and where you live. I'm in a snowy climate: my engine might have no problem going 250,000 miles, but there's virtually no chance the body is drivable after 30-40 years of rust. With that, I tend to buy a car in years, for example: "I'm hoping to have this for the next 6 years".
- pmlnr 6y agoYes. I have a 2004 Toyota Avensis. I fully own it; no loans, no leasing.
- yostrovs 6y agoYou haven't used it for decades yet. Decades start at 20 years. They just start there. If people used their cars for 40 years, then it would apply more honestly.
- yread 6y agoAverage age of a car in the Netherlands is 14 years. So, yes
- yostrovs 6y agoIs 14 years considered decades now?
- gotoeleven 6y agoIf some people have to freeze to death to keep the planet from warming so be it.
- pmlnr 6y agoWasn't the point of the comment.
- formerly_proven 6y ago> Yet governments insist newbuilds to be on electric heating Which governments are those?
- ahartmetz 6y agoIt should at least be heat pumps...
- flal_ 6y agoheat pump are highly inefficient if outside temp gets below ~5 degC and that's what happening right now on most of Europe ( incl. southern europe, I saw spain mentionned here ... )
- cjg_ 6y agoNot less efficient than just using electricity. At -20C you get 1:1 electricity to heat.
- wil421 6y agoMost heat pumps in the US have emergency heating that’s basically the same as electric. I believe even my gas furnace has an electric backup. It should be the same in Europe and it will work in case the temp drops too low.
- epistasis 6y agoHeat pumps are always at least as efficient as resistive heating, but do have less efficacy when the ambient temperature goes below their design parameters. Standard heat pumps these days work great even at 5C, at least any one that I have seen. The H2i line from Mitsubishi maintains 76% of its COP down to -25C (-13F).
- fulafel 6y agoJust the heat pumps sold to warm countries, others do ok in -20C and even below (eg COP 1.5 at -25C).
- 6y ago
- tomatotomato37 6y agoI live in a tropical climate so I'm completely clueless on heating systems but has municipal steam heating been completely abandoned? It seems more efficient than both individual gas or electric heaters once you take conversion loses into account
- cjg_ 6y agoWould say that almost all cities / larger towns in Sweden has municipal heating via hot water. And acc. to wikipedia around half of all housing units in Denmark, Sweden and Finland has municipal heating.
- olau 6y agoYes, steam isn't used anymore, it's too inefficient. The trend is towards lower temperatures in the district heating.
- sorenjan 6y agoThat's strange, here in Sweden electric heating is seen as old and wasteful. In cities most use district heating, others use heat pumps or some kind of bio fuel. At least for new houses, but it's also common as a retrofit.
- ericd 6y agoI kind of assumed they meant heat pump or resistive, mandating resistive heating would be insane.
- pmlnr 6y agoRead on FIR panels; they are pretty new, and, after testing one, highly pleasant to use. EDIT FIR = far infrared, eg. https://www.herschel-infrared.co.uk/ https://www.herschel-infrared.co.uk/
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y agoThat just means that you can't max out all your circuits at the same time. I'm pretty sure that's considered normal. If instead of FIR panels you use a heat pump (isn't that the main point of electrical heating), would you still need 32A? And if you're cooking and baking with 10 kW, would you still need heating at the same time? And a 7 kW heat pump water heater should give you ~10 liters per minute of hot shower water. Seems like any automatic system that could make sure not all high-draw consumers get turned on at the same time would be enough. It does mean that if someone is taking a shower while two people are vacuuming with all the lights on and the kitchen is cooking up a feast, you wouldn't be getting any additional heat or electric car charging, for the hour or so that such high demand can last, but that doesn't seem to be a serious problem (especially as this would only affect older houses). And you said it's required for new construction, so I assume they'd be putting in 3-phase for those. The main power lines for the whole street could be a problem, so yes, this may require some new construction. Might as well put down FTTH while at it. Additionally, if houses add solar, it should reduce typical demand on the grid, as a lot of the current wouldn't have to flow all the way from some substation but would be supplied either within each house or from neighbors.
- pmlnr 6y agoHeat pump is a no, thank you. 10k for air source, noisy, ugly, big; 3x100m deep holes for ground source, don't even want to know the price. EDIT: for <5k I'd have the whole house on FIR panels and electric boiler, then I could spend another 5k on solar.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y agoHow do FIR panels compare to heat pumps in terms of energy efficiency? Are they really able to reach similar comfort levels at much lower temperatures as advertised?
- amluto 6y ago$9k buys a three zone ductless multi split heat pump, installed, in a area with very high labor costs. This heats and cools and can modulate to a reasonable degree. (This price is for a Fujitsu system — I don’t know the price for other vendors.) Maybe you can install a cheaper FIR system, but that system is actually just electric resistance heat. Sure, maybe you can operate in a regime where the mean radiant temperature where you are is enough higher than the actual air temperature to save some power, but that had better be a pretty big effect to overcome the 3-4x efficiency improvement of a heat pump. And did I mention that the heat pump can cool, too?
- srg0 6y agoThe point is that electricity allows to change energy source anytime and be carbon neutral. Yes, the issue is not plugging in some resistance. Infrastructure should be adequate. Hence, it makes sense to do it right in newly built houses. Upgrading existing buildings will also be necessary. It will also solve the EV charging. There's no other way to replace fossil energy but to increase electrical power use. 1954 assumptions about maximum household power and current thresholds are no longer valid.