We’re publishing a guest post by Guy de la Bédoyère, historian and long-standing contributor to the Daily Sceptic about the exorbitant cost of installing a heat pump. He reckons that if you factor in set-up costs and running costs, it would cost him around £40,000 over the next 10 years.
Listening to someone who has just had a heat pump installed and is banging on like a religious zealot – as I have done – is like coming across a man dancing for joy because he has just had his wallet stolen and lost his life savings.
Several years ago we started investing in a solar panel system. It was a no-brainer. We had the money earning nothing in the bank and we are fortunate enough to live in a suitable house with a large outbuilding on which the (nominal) 4KW system was fitted. It cost about £5,000, having dramatically come down in price as soon as government grants were ended. Fancy that?
We noticed the reduction in electricity bills immediately and to that we could add the Feed-In Tariff (FIT) which is, sadly, no longer available to new installers. Under its terms, you get paid for the power you generate, whether or not you’ve used it yourself. In 2020 we added two batteries because, after all, a solar power system without batteries is like filling the bath without the plug in. That cost about another £3,000 (including the additional inverter and wiring), but we have since added a third (£900) and will have a fourth fitted next month. That represents a practical limit to our setup.
The bottom line is that the system is paying for itself. The annual return on the capital is about 16% so most of the outlay has been recovered. The electricity is free and – crucially – harvesting it is free too. The system runs the house for nothing most of the day, as well as diverting spare power via a special device to heating our water and charging the batteries. We can now run all evening and most of the night for free as well. Even better, the higher electricity prices rise, the more we’re saving.
Heat pumps are, as it turns out, an entirely different story, but the way some politicians and journalists bang on, you could be forgiven for thinking they’re going to save the planet and your bank balance by using all that free energy from Mother Nature. No, they won’t and I’m not even going to discuss how well they heat a house.
I’ve just had a quote for a heat pump, in this case an ‘air source’ version. It would cost us £11,000 for the pump, topped up by a government grant of £5,000 to cover the full price of £16,000. That does not take into account potential extra costs for enhanced insulation to make up for the relatively low heating capability of the system, and possibly having to replace the radiators.
And then there’s the cost of running it, something most people do not realise. The estimated power consumption of our putative heat pump was to be just over 10,500 KWh per annum. That’s just under 29 KWh per day, or about £7–£8 at present prices (factoring in that daily use in winter would be far higher). You can work that out from your electricity bill, but in my case that represents a 400–500% increase in my bill by £3,000 per annum on top of what I already pay.
Although the heat the pump extracts from the atmosphere is ‘free’, the pump requires a huge amount of additional power from the grid to run the system, unlike a solar panel setup, and there’s no feed-in tariff of any sort – obviously, because it isn’t generating any new power. The system was to be guaranteed for 10 years which therefore means at current prices you are looking at around £40,000 over that period (running costs + initial outlay).
I might add that our solar panels are on a roof and don’t get in anyone’s way. One of the inverters is in the outbuilding and the one for the batteries is in the utility room. An air source heat pump, by contrast, is a large appliance that looks like an air conditioning unit suitable for a small block of flats being parked outside your house and connected with large pipes. A ground source pump means ripping up quite a lot of your garden (if you have one).
Now, it’s pretty obvious that the oil we are using for our existing boiler has gone up hugely in price and it may get worse. But I can’t see any basis for dumping an existing system that works perfectly well for one that costs just as much (or more to run) and might cost me as much as £15,000 to install.
And let’s not forget: manufacturing all these new heat pumps comes with its own massive carbon footprint. But apparently, heat pump fanatics are perfectly happy to overlook that, as well as the gigantic Ioad that heat pumps will impose on the grid and all the installations and infrastructure necessary to cover that as well as to charge all the electric cars we’re being encouraged to buy. To put it into perspective, I’d have to have four times as many solar panels and batteries as I already have just to run the heat pump if I was to cover its needs myself.
As so often with government initiatives and especially Net Zero, one just has to wonder: how stupid do they think we are? I’m all for saving energy, but I’m not going to change my heating system for one that replaces being ripped off for oil by being ripped off for electricity and paying out well over 10 grand for the privilege.
The difference in the maths between the solar panels and the heat pump is enormous. One makes sense because it pays for itself, cuts bills, and ends up returning a profit, but still depends on having the room and the funds. The other under present circumstances is lunacy – unless, and only if, you are having to replace the heating system anyway. But it will still cost far more than a conventional replacement.
This may be settled in the future. Heat pumps are at an early stage of development. The most likely prospect is that they will become far cheaper and far more efficient. The worst thing that could happen now is millions of people being coerced and rushed into installing, or convincing themselves to install, existing inefficient and costly systems and then being obliged to scrap them in favour of newer, ‘greener’ heat pumps in a few years.
Or could that be the plan all along – to empty out people’s savings on the latest moral crusade? The moment one understands the Net Zero cult to be just as much about making money and futile gestures as anything else it all finally makes sense.
If we rush into this, it’s almost inevitable we’ll make things worse and then we, like most past generations, will be cursed by our descendants.
I sent some of this to Roger Harrabin, the soon-to-retire BBC’s Energy and Environment Analyst, whom I used to know when I worked there. He told me he’d “filed it”. Hmmm. I bet he did.
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I’ve got bog standard central heating which for the most part I don’t use, when i grew up you only got heat when the living room fire was lit which tended to be in the evening.
Used to marvel how jack frost would decorate the inside of my bedroom window. peace. x
It’s worth noting that only about 35% of the energy in the gas used to supply a power station actually reaches your home due to losses in producing and transmitting the electricity.
A good rule of thumb is that an air source heat pump operates with an average coefficient of performance of 2.5. ie 1kW of electricity will produce 2.5kW of heat in your home.
So 1kW of energy in the original gas becomes .35kW at your house multiplied by CoP of 2.5 gives 0.875 kW of heat in your home. ie the entire system (power station, transmission grid and heat pump) is about 87.5% efficient.
Using a modern gas boiler, 1kW of gas puts about 0.93kW of heat into your home so is 93% efficient.
By my maths 93% is better than 87.5%.
Why not burn the gas in your own home and save money on supply and save money on installation? Also, if you combine an air source heat pump with a smart meter you have handed the Government the power to turn off your heating at their will. It will happen. I promise you.
The problem with heat pumps isn’t the lack of efficiency. Thermodynamics tell you that they are much more efficient than heat engines (in practice 200 – 300%). Yes they are effectively fridges. But in a fridge, the bottom temperature is fixed. Once your fridge/freezer reaches a specific temp the pumping stops. The fridge is also well insulated so it takes a long time to warm if turned off. However, with a heat pump it is the upper temp that is fixed. If your house is very well insulated then yes it should stop pumping, but heat losses tend to mean that it will lose heat over night. So you need to pump heat from your ground source to your house for a period of time. During that time the temp of your heat source will drop. The amount of electricity needed depends on the temp difference. The greater the difference, the more work required. Still 300% efficient but needing a lot more electricity. The assumption for heat pumps is that heat will flow in from the surrounding soil to replace the heat that’s been taken out. Unfortunately soil is a very good insulator which means heat doesn’t flow easily through… Read more »
Heat Pumps are just split air conditioners that work in reverse. They have been around for 80 years. Although efficiencies have improved they are about as good as they will get. There will be no drastic transformations. And as the AC units have shown, most are high maintence items that have a 12 to 15 year life limit.
One correction. Heat pumps are *not* new technology with scope for large reductions in capital and operating costs. In 1991 I lived in a house in Washington DC heated (and cooled) by a heat pump though it wasn’t particularly warm in winter. They have been widely used in the US, Scandinavia and elsewhere for 3 decades. In all cases they are primarily used where electricity prices are low and for new-build properties with good insulation and (usually) heated by warm air systems rather than warm/hot water systems. ASHPs are basically derivatives of aircon systems that have been installed and refined for decades.
I think heat pumps have been used in the Scandinavian countries for decades, but they seem to have wood burners for heat, and triple glazing and very well insulated houses to keep the heat in. My terraced is a bit different.
the gigantic Ioad that heat pumps will impose on the grid and all the installations and infrastructure necessary to cover that as well as to charge all the electric cars we’re being encouraged to buy
29 million properties at the absolute fantasy minimum figure of just 2kW per property is 58GW of new load on the grid. Add another 10GW or so for electric vehicles (200 billion vehicle miles at current best electric vehicle efficiency).
As I write this, Gridwatch reckons that the total national grid load is 38.2GW, residential, commerce and industrial. Wind is (at best) supplying 1.21GW of that.
On cold, dark, still winter mornings when everybody’s heating comes on at much the same time, and there’s negative[*] wind and solar, we will either supply that demand with gas, coal, nuclear, hydro (already capped out for locations) and tidal, or we won’t.
If we don’t, then it becomes an existential question of who gets heating and lights and their cars charged and who doesn’t.
Surely to God there must be some actual adults involved in this process who will call a halt to this literal act of national suicide.
[*] When the wind isn’t blowing just right, bird… Read more »
We had an air source pump fitted along with 4kw solar panel system about five years ago. The whole system cost just under £20,000 including the large radiators. Admittedly this was fitted to a new build house and we did increase the insulation, which you do need to do. But the system does work well in is cheap to run. But I agree it would be very costly to try and retro- fit it to older properties.
I feel compelled to note that once you’ve done all the insulation, that you’d see reductions in the bills for a gas boiler.
It’s also telling that even the newest build homes still aren’t coming with sufficient insulation.
Those Insulate Britain eco-loons do actually have a point, even though they’re putting it across like angry infants.
‘Heat pumps are at an early stage of development’
Not true! They’ve been in existence since the late 1800’s. As they are basically the same as a fridge they are highly developed and as close to maximum efficiency as they’ll ever be. The laws of thermodynamics simply won’t allow much more improvement.
Yet another part of the Kintyre peninsula in Scotland is about to get a wind farm. It’s at the stage where objections will be considered. Considered and then ignored. It’s a done deal. The visual impact will be noticeable from the Cowal peninsula and Arran but hey, ho it’s all for the good of the people.
I live in New Zealand where heat pumps are the main source of heating. Generally pretty effective here they have one major drawback as far as the UK is concerned – they don’t work particularly well in cold temperatures. When temps get to around -3C they tend to cut off quite regularly to prevent the unit from overheating. Good luck guys.
If one lives in a flat; or a terraced house with a tiny back yard or a back-to-back terrace with no back exit – just a front door – where are the heat pump monsters going to be situated? It’s bad enough trying to find space for the many multi coloured – brown, grey, blue, green – recycling dustbins.
Ten new houses are being built on a former paddock next to the village hall: 7 for nice people and 3 tiny ones for riff-raff shipped in from elsewhere.
No sign of heat pumps but no chimneys either: detached new builds have always had chimneys until now.
What we need is some lucky town to be nominated and to have these things installed across all the building types in that town and to see how they get on over the course of a few years.
My guess is the endeavour will be considered to be crap by the victims.
Don’t suggest it to your MP. Or mine!
Stroud should be nominated… it’s where the XR nonsense seems to have originated. They should be first in line to practice what they preach.
Brighton seems like an obvious victi- I mean, candidate.
Beneficiary of this liability.
These units are really only suited to highly insulated modern buildings that also have integrated ventilation systems per habitable room to avoid the building ‘sweating’ and causing damp to form.
As they are expensive to fit anyway, even on new builds, they are hardly economic on existing homes, even newer ones.
Retrofitting may often require bigger radiators because the system water temperature in winter is significantly lower than that of a traditiional gas or oil-fired boiler.
These systems are really suited to underfloor heating to get the highest efficiency out of them, especially to avoid using any direct electric heating boost, which is VERY expensive. They have to use high-powered electric heaters to provide hot water to the taps because the system isn’t anywhere near powerful enough to cope.
They are better at heating older-style indirect hot water cylinders, which means they are far better suited to properties with the space to house them as well as the ‘boiler’ bit.
With that in mind, air-water heat pumps really aren’t suited to flats (even newer ones) because of the lack of space for a hot water cylinder and because of the noise and space, planning and maintenance requirements for siting the… Read more »
Houses in the UK are generally built inside out, meaning most of the thermal mass (stone, brick) is on the outside, with a layer of insulation, then materials with low thermal mass on the inside (plasterboard, wood panel).
The best houses (Norway) do it the right way around – meaning thermal mass on the inside, then insulation on the outside which is protected from the elements by a thin layer of shiplap. The result is a cool home in hot weather, and a home which is a lot easier to keep warm in cold weather.
Many are like that, but not all. My house is built with heavy concrete block walls, brick on the outside + insulation between. Quite different thermally compared with another common structure with timber framing inside plus brick outside walls. On hot days in the Summer, my place is much cooler than outside. On the negative side, because it’s quite stable, it’s hard to vary the temperature a lot. It has some old fashioned electric storage heaters for some rooms (zero maintenance cost for over 35 years), and a gas fire as well. Thus the night rate charged heaters are used to maintain a reasonable minimum 24/7, with gas used to top up when needed.
Eco energy is super expensive and you can’t change that.
But you can make eco energy look good if you artificially force up the price of carbon energy.
Got it in one, MrTea!
It’s not about being green, it’s about all the green (money) it’s transferred to.
Basically establishment land-owners.
PV in the U.K. is ultimately a complete indulgence. there are many better places on the planet that the same panels could be placed and be a far more effective use of resources.
Yeah, but those locations tend to be much warmer (more sun overhead), and thus do not need so much energy for heating. PV panels, like BEVs, only exist because greenwashing governments mandate their production (aside from a few niche applications, like monitoring equipment that does not need a lot of power in very remote locations without grid).
We are currently using 3 electric heaters to heat a reasonably large 50s detached house due to price of heating oil. Costs about £6 a day to run in the evenings and get its nicely up to around 19c. Instant targeted and efficient heat. Air source heat pumps may work on a at best 3 to 1 ratio output/input but the running times will be much longer to increase the temps. Would it cost less with a heat pump i dont know, maybe with a good installation. But it sure wouldnt justify the cost of installation. Ground source on a constant(ish) 4 to 1 would work quite well imo if installed correctly in a well insulated house with underfloor heating especially, but again the cost cant be justified vs gas/oil at reasonable prices.
19° is bloody cold in our house.
19c at the thermostat but the rooms that the heaters are in are much warmer and the heat convects around the house quite nicely. We usually have the ch set at 19.5c anyway as its in the coldest room.
I read an investigation of a retrofitted heat pump which was (of course) under-performing and over-costing, and the engineer reckoned that when the temperature dropped below 10C that they might as well use direct electric heating in individual rooms as needed.
Still not cheap, but less pointless than sloshing 30C water around the whole house at a COP approaching 1 anyway.
I’m not convinced there are enough firms out there that can install a heating pump system and get it working properly so it doesn’t cost a small fortune to run.
We have ASHP in conjunction with underfloor heating, and it’s a constant battle to get the heating levels comfortable. That is partly due to the design of the house, ie two large sets of patio doors that are South facing. The temperature within the house is highly dependant on how sunny it is. We can have the room thermostat set to 20.5C, but the actual temperature can frequently reach 25-26C. The underfloor heating takes hours to heat up (ie, overnight), so it’s ok first thing in the morning, but as soon as the sun hits, the temperature goes up, and it takes hours for the floor to cool down, just in time for the evening when the sun sets and it’s cold.
The bathroom radiators are a law unto themselves. They’re set to maximum, and that’s not changed during the winter, but it’s completely random as to how warm they get, and they rarely get hot.The
If the system is calling for heat for the underfloor heating, the… Read more »
Badly designed system. They are supposed to work with a thermal mass (concrete floor) to keep the building at a constant, acceptable temperature by running 24/7.
Personally, I would invest in blinds or curtains to keep the sun out.
How do you tax the sun and the wind?
Google the part you need just to heat the water for shower or bath it does not come off the heating central equipment it will require its own room in the house,
Heat pumps are always described as like a fridge freezer in reverse. So I say to any zealots who are contemplating one, “Turn your fridge freezer round so the motor is pointing into the kitchen and see how much heat you get”. The usual reply is “But then I won’t be able to open the fridge door”. To which I reply, “Don’t worry, you wont ever need to”.
I was unable to fit sufficient solar panels to my roof to make the commercial installation sensible, so I self-installed a coupe of panels on my garden shed, with an inverter in the kitchen simply plugged into a convenient mains socket. It auto-synchronises with the mains supply and supplements the grid supply. They generate enough (about 1/2kW peak) to power the regular users of power like fridge, freezers, electronics and during the summer it is good to see the power meter remain on the same reading.
The cost me about £500 and took a couple of hours to fit. I calculated the payback of the investment at less than 2 years.
Surplus power is donated to the grid.
Is your insurer aware of that inverter? They’re a major source of fires in Australia now, although granted when placed on roof tops and exposed to the elements.
As a fun twist, fire brigades there are getting hesitant to go near live systems during the day – you can’t shut off the sun.
https://theconversation.com/solar-panel-fire-season-is-all-year-round-and-its-getting-more-intense-in-australia-150751
What???? electricity from the grid is currently what? 17p per kWh so your £500 would buy 2941kWh. Your panels produce 500W peak. Even if the sun shone brightly for 8 hours EVERY DAY you would be generating 4kWh per day….. that’s 735 days to break even… that’s 2.01 years. Now, I’m guessing you are not blessed with 8 hours of glorious sunshine every day of the year and your average daily power generation will be something under 1kWh per day over the year so your break even point will be (like everyone elses) in the realm of 8 to 10 years.
Don’t forget to keep your panels clean and prey your GTI doesn’t go bang. (ask me how I know).
Solar hot water can repay itself – without the public dolling out money to you – in a couple of years. That’s why the PV sharks needed and got obscene amounts of governments grants. It also tells us that PV systems don’t actually produce more energy than their total energy costs. In other words, if you want to virtue signal, buy an apple tree (or solar hot water) … it’s greener
“PV systems don’t actually produce more energy than their total energy costs.”
That ceased to be true about 10 years ago.
How much does disposal cost?
Are you factoring in exploration, mining, refining, construction, distribution, installation, maintenance, and disposal?
Oh, and the energy requirements of all the meat needed to perform those processes.
It’s that last part that seems to be the hardest nettle to grasp, but if you don’t, then what’s the point of them?
Can someone please explain how I am supposed to heat my home from the heat in the air when, for six months of the year, there isn’t any which is why I wear a coat when I go out, a jumper in the house and have proper heating on at 21 degrees?
It is a heat pump — that’s what it does.
Do you have the same problems understanding how a freezer stays cold when there’s no cold in your house to keep it cold for 12 months of the year?
I’ve tried explaining the principles of heat pumps to friends who were considering them. At the mere mention of CoP their eyes glaze over.
‘Yeah, whatever. But will I save money?’
There is always heat in the air, almost no matter how cold it is.
For example, how can you reduce the temperature of a domestic freezer from -18C to -24C without removing heat?
At 0K there is no more heat in the air. But then there is no air, either 😉
Not an expert, Rich, but they’re essentially the opposite of fridge freezers.
A freezer compresses a medium with an electric pump. The medium is squeezed through a tiny hole whereupon it decompresses rapidly, leading to a sudden drop in its temperature (adiabatic expansion). The contents of the fridge pass their heat to the medium, which then flows to a radiator on the outside of the fridge, where the heat is dissipated into the room.
How much heat does a decomposing rat produce?
Genuine enquiry
Many years ago I worked on a project which was intended to measure how many active bacteria were in a sample by the temperature rise they produced when multiplying. It was accurate to millionths of a degree.
What is the coverage (m² please) of your photovoltaic setup providing “4KW”, Guy?
I’ve got a heat pump. It is okay most days, in that the cost isn’t far off from the oil that we used before.
The big problem is on the very cold days/nights, where efficiency falls through the floor. At exactly the same time, it is on the very cold days that most heat is lost from the building and you need it most.
What’s worse is that very cold days/nights are associated with still air (windy days are usually warmer, even in winter) and they always occur in winter when there’s less sun — thus the demand for electricity (heat pumps) is at exactly the same point in time as when there’s least renewable electricity generated. While nuclear can provide a decent base generation of electricity, the remainder will be generated by expensive reserve capacity power stations.
However, the main problem I have with heat pumps is cost. They’re not a particularly expensive technology to produce, but because of the ‘incentives’ the actual cost of installation has become huge (margins to the installers, mainly). The £15k install seems enormous, given that the heat pump itself might cost $2k, and there aren’t the same requirements for expert installation that you… Read more »
Oh, and there’s also maintenance to consider — I put it in about 15 years ago. It has required zero maintenance since then.
Come on! Basically the same unit as A/C units, and they need annual maintenance unless you want them giving up in mid summer/winter. Its always condensers.
Yet it has had zero maintenance. Perhaps I’m just lucky, but I don’t see what maintenance I could do — there’s nothing to maintain.
It’s the same as a fridge..how often do you maintain your fridge?
What maintenance would you do…Fans, compressors, heat exchangers, pipes, pump. They work til they don’t/
Myth. Its like an A/c Unit. And if you lived for any time in a climate that needed A/C to work you make sure they are serviced at least once a year.
Ditto heat pumps.
Grants can only be supported for a short time to get some market uptake. In reality, the grant becomes extra margin for the manufacturer/installer. Once there is some traction grants reduce and so must the end customer price.
The actual manufacturing/install cost should not be too high, once volumes ramp up.
You are living in fantasy land.
Uptick for “should”, but the reality is that the people having heat pumps installed now at those for who the costs are low, i.e. they don’t need a lot of extra insulation, or new pipework.
Once those houses are done, the amount of work required on the remaining housing stock will rise sharply. For example, I have partially insulated walls which every cavity wall installer has run a mile from, plus microbore pipework that will all have to come out. It’s not far off a rebuild.
As noted elsewhere in here, this is thanks to the UK’s building policy of “throw it up as cheaply as possible, someone will figure out how to solve it later”.
Nice thinking Guy. Missing you from Time Team by the way!
You state ‘The most likely prospect is that they will become far cheaper and far more efficient.’. I believe the laws of physics will prohibit this, with margjnal improvements at best.
Those fitting these stupid systems will be poor and unhappy.
The bottom line is that the system is paying for itself. The annual return on the capital is about 16% so most of the outlay has been recovered. The electricity is free and – crucially – harvesting it is free too.
The extra cos, which is certainly there, is being paid by the rest of the country’s taxpayers. it is the cost of having an unstable and unpredictable grid. Off-grid energy generation makes the grid power demand unpredictable, and means that we have to keep back-up sources spinning inefficiently at high cost.
You are making poorer people pay for the advantage you are gaining….
Reminds me of when the mass murderer Blair and his cohort told us Diesel was the future.
What’s worse, is that at the time we were just staring to gain traction replacing petrol with cleaner burning LPG. If we’d have stuck with that policy we’d have had cleaner cities and wouldn’t have had all the mess we currently have with ‘clean air zones’ etc.
This would have made an excellent stepping-stone to electrification.
I note that the current fetish for electric cars is biased to those that have long distance commutes; electric cars really makes sense for these people, and much less sense for those that do few miles per year. I just don’t understand why we’re subsidising these people to continue commuting, rather than encouraging them to drive less, and using policy to force those that drive fewer miles off the road. It seems backwards to me.
Instead of electrifying all the long distance commuters, it would have made far more sense to leave them with fossil fuels and use taxation to force them to drive less, and use far more subsidies for commercial traffic in the short to intermediate distance category (20-100 miles per day, perhaps); we’re in the ludicrous position where the guy down the road is given a subsidy to maintain his lovely… Read more »
Engines of Mass Destruction?