Pompeyexile Our neighbours just had an Air source heat pump fitted about four months ago. First they had to have wall insulation pumped in (1982 built house didn’t have them) and then two week later the air source heat pump fitted which not including the price of the insulation cost about 12k. Will be interesting to see what they think of it by the end of this winter both efficiency and cost wise.
The problem is they will have made it into the renweable heat incentive…RFHI which means their electricity is well subsidised as they get a payout for every kW of heat they generate. e.g. below shows the rate for a 3 bedroom house. If they use 17,000kWh per year, they get £1844 back, the RHI is capped at 20,000 kwH
So by their examples a 3 bed semi will be £3230 of electric heat generated, but they will pay you 1844 for the kW you generated, making the bill only £1386 (if you generated it at a 1:1 cop , these are the current rates, people who got in years ago get much higher rates".
So far this sounds great 8p per unit, even better when the COP is about 3 ish, as the payment is based around what you generate, not what you consume to generate it. So it actually works our at 8/3 pence per unit….or 2.66p per unit true cost.
This is absolutely fantastico, because gas it about 3p per unit. It’s also why when they got a grant for the system and a few years ago were paying virtually nothing, some people even made money, they are all bloody evangelists.
Now reality needs to kick in, The RHI stops in April 22!!!!!
To heat tht 3 bed semi will take 17000kWhr for the year, with a COP of 3 average, that’s 5667 units of electricity required at 19p per unit current prices this comes to £1077 to heat your house, vs £510 for gas.
So those who got in a few years ago are super enthusiastic, the truth is that for the rest of us, it will cost considerably more and I have not included water heating costs, which will be far higher, or the fact that you have to have the systems on all the time in case…whereas gas can be reduced if it warms up.
It doesn’t include the very high installation costs for most homes (much higher than quoted and iot certainly doesn’t include the CAP, for larger or less efficient homes using 20,000kW per year!!!
https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/renewable-heat-incentive/article/renewable-heat-incentive-rhi/rhi-costs-and-earnings-auJtQ4P32RWW
