British Gas has thrown a large spanner into the Government’s Net Zero ambitions by stating that it will refuse to install heat pumps in millions of homes where they won’t make it warm enough. Ross Clark writes about the intervention in the Telegraph.
British Gas has come out this week and stated what has doubtless been obvious for a long time to some homeowners who did take the plunge: that a standard heat pump runs at water temperatures which are too low to heat many properties. From now on, says the company, it will only agree to install a heat pump if it is convinced that it will succeed in getting the property up to a target temperature on the coldest days. If any of the heat pumps it installs fail this test, it says it will refund the money.
Fair enough, but that will mean millions of homes cannot have a heat pump installed by British Gas. There are eight million homes in Britain which have solid walls and which, as a result, are hard to bring up to required insulation standards at a reasonable cost. If other companies follow British Gas’s example, the Government will have no hope of achieving its target of retro-fitting 600,000 homes a year with a heat pump by the end of this decade. British Gas has just thrown a very large spanner into the Government’s Net Zero ambitions.
I don’t want to sound negative. I would much rather heat my house with an electric heat pump than its existing, smelly oil-fired boiler, and I would have made the switch years ago if I could be convinced it would keep the property warm. But to judge by the experience of many people, the air-source heat pumps being marketed en masse at the moment simply aren’t up to the job. They are an effective way of raising the temperature in your home when you don’t really need it to be heated, but if you live in an old property, and you have no other form of heating, you are likely to find yourself shivering on the coldest days.
Ross concludes that “British Gas’s intervention this week should sound a warning to the Government – it is never a good idea to set targets before you are sure that technology is sufficiently advanced to allow them to be met”.
Worth reading in full.
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I doubt it will make a blind bit of difference to the zealots, but at what point is someone in power going to wake up to this horseshyte net zero not going to work. Or is that the point. End us as an industrial power as they are rushing to do in Germany. Then what.? The more I see of this ‘plan’ the less sense it makes on any level unless it is driven from China and Russia, and we just lost WW3.
Yes – that’s the point. The aim is no energy to reduce industrial activity to 18th Century levels.
I get that JXB, but this folly only seems to be badly affecting the Western and English speaking world and the rest of humanity is ploughing on like nothing happened. I just can’t rationalise it, and who wins in the end game when Europe and the US is reduced to the status of third world countries. Its too easy to just say, ‘the elites, of course’. But are they not part of the system that they are collapsing..? Where is the ‘Elite line’ drawn anyway.? What sort of net worth? Million plus..? A billion plus? 10 billion plus? What level of wealth do you have to have to become insulated from complete financial and societal collapse of Western Europe and the States.?
Here’s your answer.. planned years ago. The total destruction of the West under the guise of saving the planet..
Good on you for posting George.
I doubt many people have a clue about our predicament.
I know Hux.. and its really frightening that what’s taking place is only noticed by a few..
With respect George, and I’ve seen this, and I’m reasonably well read on the Club of Rome too, I still to get a proper grip on what they imagine the world will be when all of this folly is complete. How many people are there.? I’ve heard the Malthusians talking about 700million. Can a modern world function with 10% of the population.(I’m guessing here that the proles can live horrible lives but the elite will still want lobster and Ferarri’s). But its not 10%, is it, because outside the EU and the English speaking world this really isn’t a thing at all. What is the qualifying level for Elite anyway.? Who will be above the line, and who below, and how would you judge that. I appreciate these may be strange questions, because most of the world doesn’t want to think about this at all, and here I am looking for how the practical reality could come about. Anyone want to have a guess.?
Not strange questions at all Neil. They had 500 million as a target on the Georgia Guide-Stones that were blown up.
Who knows, I certainly don’t, but what I do know is the likes of Maurice Strong above was a Rockefeller- cronie – billionaire- eugenicist who brought the IPCC into being and openly talked about major depopulation.
Given who he and his cronies was/are, I take note of what they say, because what’s happening now is a script of Agenda 21, something matey boy Maurice and his UN chums was responsible for, and if you read it carefully there will be no modern society.
The little creep Yuval Harari (Klaus Slob’s Advisor) has stated on numerous occasions that the masses aren’t needed any more because they have AI now. Yes he’s an odious little creep, full of self importance, but I take notice of what he says because I know damn well he means it.
Will they be able to pull it off. Who knows, but I’ve a horrible feeling there’s a lot more to come yet. They’re doubling down, they’re not going to stop. A massive cyber attack crippling an economy’s banking sector alone would lead to massive upheaval, panic, and ultimately death. That’s just one arrow in their quiver and its already been discussed at Davos. They’ve war gamed it for sure.
Deagel was predicting massive death across the western world. Certainly not a lightweight website, has ties to both the military and intelligence services. Did I take notice of what they were predicting.. yes.. definitely. I’d be a fool not to. It may well be just a spook, a fear campaign.. it may not..
it is not about money but power and the re-introduction of slavery. The middle classes are the main threat to halting this in the West so they are the target. China already pretty much has complete control over its citizens. The only other threats of resistance are India and Russia.
The elites can live like the old pharaohs with no democratic chance to overthrow them and social scoring to keep the little people in line if they don’t want to go hungry, if they are lucky.
The green guff makes no difference whether it works or not. It is the centralisation of power that is the key.
Are some places in the u.s. clamping down on ‘grow your own’ or is that a myth ?
Anything that makes you independent will be frowned upon.
Any institution that protects our culture will be under attack.
Good post.. I’m in agreement with all your points made..
“The aim is no energy to reduce industrial activity to 18th Century levels”
...with a population size to match.
Yes.. this is the major point to take on. We’re going third world if these wretched people get their way.
There’s no levelling up.. its the direct opposite.. levelling down..
As even the Bosch heat pump biz CEO said, they are totally unsuitable for much of the British housing stock.
Same in Germany, where the government is even more intent upon and draconian in trying to enforce them.
Most existing houses always need roof and wall insulation plus underfloor heating to make them feasible.
The cost for that can easily run into 100k+, in Germany and the UK.
But wall insulation is also damaging the property in many cases, especially in the UK and its Victorian properties, and exterior one will be righteously prohibited anyway in many of them here.
And underfloor heating is technically unfeasible in most of these Victorian properties as well, due to the still prevalent underlying wooden structure there.
In summary: in the UK, it’s just a terribly bad idea and an often just technically impossible to realise racket, in Germany, it’s a terrible idea, a huge racket and the undisguised expropriation of many existing homeowners.
Property prices are already tumbling in Germany since the government announced its draconian plans, so are its parties polling numbers.
Btw, the CO2 reduction effect of all properties switching to a heat pump just equals the equivalent reduction by just one (now switched off…) nuclear power station.
https://reitschuster.de/post/100-mal-billiger-als-waermepumpe/
The people who are promoting these ridiculous energy and ‘climate change’ policies have either a solely financially driven agenda, or they suffer from a lack of ‘order in their head’ as one commentator going through some basic numbers concluded in an article on a related topic, mega batteries.
https://www.achgut.com/artikel/honig_im_kopfmegabatterie_im_turm
“order in their head’ ”
It’s a cracker. I’m having that.👍
And they are noisy, particularly at night when they have to work harder.
My neighbour has one & the blast of cold air that comes from it is really noticeable along with the racket.
“I would much rather heat my house with an electric heat pump than its existing, smelly oil-fired boiler”. Do you think he re-reads what he has written, clearly not. His article is about how heat pumps don’t work. He seems to be suffering from cognitive dissonance which has affected his judgement.
Haha.. agreed 🙂
It’s clear from the sentence later that starts ‘But’ (and the rest of the article) that he means he would rather use an electric heat pump IF it worked well, eg in theory he’d rather…
It’s also clear from the article and the rest of the as yet discovered world that heat pumps don’t work well enough to heat a large proportion of the housing stock. He could just as easily be talking about heating his house with a single candle. That wouldn’t work either. Maybe he should be writing about using a heat pump as an anchor for his boat. That might work. If he had a boat.
He should replace his oil-fired boiler with a new one if it’s smelly. Problem solved.
My high efficiency oil fired boiler doesn’t smell, although the oil tank in the garden does when you open the filler cap to fill the tank once a year for about 5 minutes. And even if it did smell I would prefer that to a heating system that didn’t work.
There is no reason for a well serviced modern oil fired boiler to be smelly, ours certainly isn’t. We find ours quite economical too (but we come from a hardier generation who is more used to putting on more clothes when cold, rather than fannying about in a T shirt all winter and running the heating 24/7!)
they always have to put the weasel words in to sanitise themselves amongst the holier-than-thou bunch. Very common when complementing Trump on anything.
As with all the new regulations for insulation etc.. here in France, we are also are being pressured with smart meters and heat pumps too.
What this is really about of course is making it virtually impossible to live in an older house. Mine’s a 200 year old cottage with cob walls and a woodburner. Woodburners, like LPG gas cookers give independence, so they must be got rid of.
Not being able to comply with all the new rulings will first stop any letting of the property, and a little later on you will not be able to sell either. When this happens your house will then be classed as a ‘Stranded Asset’.. and from what I can gather you will then not be allowed to live in it.
How did it go.. by 2030 you’ll own nothing ???? but of course you’ll be HAPPY 🙂
or DEAD !!!
Hmm….a bit of reverse thinking…
Has the declaration by British Gas covertly paved the way for the government to declare millions of homes “Net Zero Non-Compliant?”
Not that I am suggesting that British Gas have been bought you understand.
Hmmn I wonder if you’re onto something there Huxley..
Neil Oliver’s aphorism – “it’s never about what they say it’s about,” is invaluable these days.
I think this is mainly about passing the liability buck.
I am sure BG would gladly sell and install any useless crap, if they got the same liability waiver as e.g. the gene therapy manufacturers got for theirs.
If one has to have electric heating, surely it would be more sensible to have night storage heaters. I know they are also very expensive to run, but at least they work, with the added advantage of a long period of residual heat, which will be handy in power cuts. I have read that heat pumps play up if the power is suddenly cut to them – don’t know how true this is. Is there some specific reason why night storage is not suggested as an alternative to gas and oil?
This is an odd interpretation of a British Gas campaign to increase heat pump sales by reassuring customers they will be warm. The unsuitable houses are not so much those with solid walls as those with microbore piping.
I will go along with this once the entire government and civil service have installed these in their properties and lived with them for several years.
Those lovely Islington villas should be prime targets, with their very traditional building methods.
Yes.. and they better make sure they keep all the windows open to let the dreaded Convid out in case it should make a sneaky return.. 😉
Setting targets without any understanding of how they can be achieved or concern if they’re not achieved is a perfect description of how Government works
This applies to everything remotely classed as GREEN————–Inferior and more expensive. ——–And in the end won’t save the planet anyway, because the planet does not need saving. It is the people who need saved. Saved from the Eco Socialists.
I’m surprised British Gas along with many commentators below are unaware that heat pumps with CO2 as the refrigerant provide very hot water over 70°c. Japan is full of them, look up Ecocute on Wikipedia, Sanyo are the biggest manufacturer.
We fitted a heat pump to replace the oil fired boiler to our solid sandstone walled old cottage in Northern Scotland. It’s not as bad as this very polarised debate implies though we did insulate most walls, the loft and a lot of the floor., doing this ourselves. We have a wood burner in the lounge which is usually the only room we keep really warm in the winter. It consumed 40 units on Hogmanay when we kept the whole house really warm all day and it was cold outside. Currently it’s consuming about 4 units a day though the solar panels heat the tank at this time of year.
Today on GB News Grant Schapps (Energy Minister) was asked if heat pumps will be as good as gas central heating. ———-He replied he is having one fitted in his house so he doesn’t know yet. —–WHAT? Are you kidding me? He is part of the whole Net Zero garbage that wants to force us into green impoverishment and Heat Pumps but he doesn’t know if they are any good. He might tell us if they are any good once his one is fitted into his house. ——–This is preposterous. Well folks it looks like we will all have to wait and see huh? A diabolical disgrace. What a total prat that man is.
Net Zero Heat pumps don’t work
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