FES & Peak Demand Scenarios
By Paul Homewood
This is a follow up to yesterday’s post on peak gas demand.
About 40% of natural gas consumption is for residential heating, which accounts for most of the peaking in winter months. Another third goes to electricity generation, which in our Net Zero world will not be needed.
As homes switch to heat pumps, gas consumption will fall and electricity use will rise. However, heat pumps are more energy efficient than gas boilers. Typically air source heat pumps will use a third of the energy of a gas boiler to produce the same amount of heat.
Both this factor and the issue of CCGT plants mean that electricity demand will not increase as much as gas will fall – similarly with peak demand.
To see what this means, I have analysed the National Grid’s Future Energy Scenarios (FES), published in July. They have four scenarios, but the most relevant one to this topic is Consumer Transformation (CT):
Other scenarios assume more use of hydrogen.
Their modelling for 2035 shows that gas consumption will fall from 878 to 402 TWh by 2035:
Numbers are based on the following heating mix:
Note that there are an extra 10m heat pumps, but 15m gas boilers remain. There will be 3 million of the more efficient ground source heat pumps, which sounds wildly over optimistic, given the cost and lack of garden space in most homes.
Also FES assume that homes will be 20% more energy efficient, again a highly unlikely scenario, unless hundreds of billions are spent insulation.
Finally it is assumed there will be 26 million electric cars on the road by 2035.
When these assumptions are all built in, FES reckon that electricity demand will peak at 87 GW, compared to around 50 GW now. However this is not peak at all, only the peak in an average winter. A more realistic projection would be 100 GW.
Untangling the FES workings, it would appear that FES have assumed a heat pump efficiency factor of 400%. But at the coldest times, a figure of 250% at best is more likely. Plugging these more realistic assumptions in would mean that those 10.2 million heat pumps will add approximately 35 GW to peak demand, about 10 GW more than FES projects.
Exclude that 20% energy efficiency saving, and you can add another 10 GW on.
All in all, we are probably looking at peak demand for electricity as high as 120 GW by 2035. And it will be much higher still if homeowners, who cannot afford heat pumps, opt for conventional electrical resistance heaters.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
I have had air heat pump for a few years, but you need auxiliary heat on cold days and every day for hot water. The piddling Mini Split Ductless Heat Pump Units may warm one or two rooms only. They do not heat or temper the hot water and will definitely need electric aux heat for comfort and hot water.
So a second heat pump to heat 3-4 rooms. There must be a fair number of households where they have 3+ rooms to heat. That should add a bit to these calculations s will turning on additional heating, even if it is some of the magical stuff being advertised at the moment
My high temperature air source heat pump heats domestic hot water, single storey 4 bed bungalow with underfloor heating plus one bedroom above garage with radiators. Last year I used 16,300 kWh, solar panels generated about 2700 kWh. The previous year 18,553 kWh used, about 2900 kWh generated. Chilly today so system working hard to try to keep up. I also have 2 American fridge/freezers and an upright freezer.
You must be very rich. Your energy consumption is massive.
At my current tariff of 48.88p/kWh allowing for the 2,900 self-generated that amounts to £7628.90.
OK for some…
I wrote the comment to give an example of the high costs of running a heat pump. Sold a house in SE England, used all the proceeds to buy a house in Wales that happened to have a heat pump installed. My current tariff is about 33p per kWh. No, I’m not rich. Although I suspect that I would be better off with a gas boiler, if only we were connected to mains gas.
In the Consumer Transformation box is the heading “Consumers willing to change behaviour”, which gives an indication of the National Grid’s attitude towards its paying customers.
Better wording would be: “Customers’ requirements”. But, of course, that would run counter to the whole Net Zero mentality.
Friends of mine who have a ground source heat pump always seem to have a roaring wood fire going. Heat pumps are just for background temperature I suspect.
Finally it is assumed there will be 26 million electric cars on the road by 2035.
A decimal point in the ’26’ would at least look less absurd.
Signs that people are going off EVs with rising costs…
Electric car demand falls for first time since pandemic as electricity prices soar
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/12/13/electric-car-demand-falls-first-time-since-pandemic-electricity/
“If homeowners opt for conventional electrical resistance heaters”
How are we supposed to “Opt” for something that’s hideously expensive to run? I’ll just have to freeze to death, which is what Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates, David Attenborough, and others really want…
“…air source heat pumps will use a third of the energy of a gas boiler to produce the same amount of heat.” They don’t actually produce heat, of course, but extract it from the air. The cooled air is then returned to the atmosphere.
I wonder what the effect would be on a high-rise block of flats, on a cold calm night such as this, with cooled air from multiple air-handling units sluicing down the face of the building. Pity the occupants of the ground-floor flats, particularly….
Most gas boilers are around 30kW rating, so the heat pump would have to have a 10kW power (motor) with the 3 to 1 ratio. I have always assumed a 5 kW heat pump would be the norm. Improved insulation making up the difference. A 10kW heat pump is just not possible in single phase homes, the wiring and the local substation is just not capable of supplying that amount of energy. Is there a plan B.
I don’t believe the 3 to 1 ratio (CoP) but I think that the power rating of the heat pump can be less than 10KW because it will be running 24/7 as opposed to the gas boiler which comes on and off as necessary? It is going to make living in flats and terraced housing very noisy…let’s hope the company Fluid Dynamics Ltd manage to develop their stirling heat pump…
I have wondered exactly the same thing but have never found a scientific answer. As others say, even assuming insulation is carried out it is likely ancillary heat will be needed which has not been factored in.
Most properties don’t have the internal space for the water tank and these things can be quite noisy.
Anyone know where the various types of heat pumps are made?
A lot of assumptions (guesses), the 15 million gas boilers in 2035 makes me question why fracking is so out of favour. As by 2035 there is no electricity generated by gas (highly unlikely), we can look forward to various ministers blowing up the existing plants to signal our green credentials, it is also not very encouraging to see total wind and solar generation in 2035 listed as Error 511. In short the document is laughable, but it would fool our dumb politicians.
“All in all, we are probably looking at peak demand for electricity as high as 120 GW by 2035. And it will be much higher still if homeowners, who cannot afford heat pumps, opt for conventional electrical resistance heaters.”
So we would need to build 90 GW of new dispatchable capacity (ignoring the local grid upgrades for moment) by 2035 – has anyone looked at how this can feasibility be done with current technology (let alone economically without some kind increased capacity payment system due to the low operating hours) I would guess most of this capacity would be OCGT & reciprocating engines (see South Australia – https://www.energycouncil.com.au/analysis/barker-inlet-a-new-technology-responding-to-the-market/ & https://www.wartsila.com/energy/solutions/engine-power-plants/wartsila-50df-multi-fuel-power-plant & https://www.power-technology.com/projects/barker-inlet-power-station-adelaide/) running on natural gas & distillate are not the 60%+ thermal efficiency possible with new CCGTs.
I’m personally curious to know why natural gas (engine) heat pumps are not really being researched as in theory if it has a COP of just 1.5 it would reduce residential gas heating demand more than electric heat pumps using grid electricity from gas.
“There was some good news, however, with 2021 the most successful year in history for electric vehicle uptake as more new battery electric vehicles (BEVs) were registered than over the previous five years combined. 190,727 new BEVs joined Britain’s roads, along with 114,554 plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), meaning 18.5% of all new cars registered in 2021 can be plugged in. This is in addition to the 147,246 hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) registered which took a further 8.9% market share in a bumper year for electrified car registrations, with 27.5% of the total market now electrified in some form.” (SMMT)
The registration of EV’s seems a tad optimistic if less than 200,000 BEV’s were registered in 2021 yet 26 million EV’s are expected to be on the road by 2035 when all PHEV’s and HEV’s will be banned as well as the ban on ICE vehicles in 2030.
People will cling to PHEV’s and HEV’s in my opinion so we will likely see a lot of them registered in the years approaching 2030. Therefore by 2035 there will be an awful lot of second hand ones in the marketplace only 5 – 7 years old which I suspect will be clung onto until they are literally scrap. Personally, I’ll be buying a good quality ICE in 2029 to see me over the next ten years or so by which time I’ll be in my 80’s, assuming I make it that far.
There answer of course will be to shut petrol stations en mass to force people into EV’s. Good luck with that as I have no off road parking, in common with 45% of the country, and at 80+ years old I won’t be inclined to spend hours at a public charging point paying way over the odds for electricity.
Perhaps my last car will be a diesel I can run on vegetable oil.
“Perhaps my last car will be a diesel I can run on vegetable oil”
You’d better start looking for an old one with mechanical injection, and put in storage for now – modern “Common Rail” diesels won’t run on used cooking oil…
Presumably the govt will need to charge electric vehicle for the loss of fuel duty as they will still use the road infrastructure and as they are heavier will cause more damage. A licence fee of £1000 or more a year plus exposure to congestion charging will make people realise there are cost consequences
If you have a few hours to waste, try buying a new car today, stipulating that you want a non-hybrid petrol or diesel.
I can assure you, with most manufacturers, you will likely struggle and face long delivery times. That was certainly the case when in June I thought it prudent to replace my 5 year old, low mileage, excellent Mitsubishi, as the latter has pulled out of the European market.
Best SUV I could find was available end of September and even that was a “mild hybrid”. Others “maybe January with luck and if they haven’t gone all plug in by then”.
Try Seat or it’s performance offshoot Cupra. Both have petrol only SUV’s including the new Formentor which goes up to a 310BHP 4 wheel drive beastie. If you want a bigger SUV they and Seat do the Ateca.
I lease my cars and I can have one delivered by February, no worse than I’ve ever waited for delivery.
The SMMT love their percentages as that can hide a lot of inconvenient facts such as the shrinking of car sales in the UK over the last couple of years and that in terms of the vehicle fleet the sales of battery cars is still tiny. With hybrids, a lot of them will be company cars due to the tax breaks where the charge cable can usually be found in its original bag untouched.
I tried to analyse the FES report and gave up in disgust, so well done to have dug-in so well. The reports seemed like a kid with a spreadsheet gone mad to me, and were written for themselves not others to read.
I wonder if the National Grid’s Future Energy Scenarios (FES) account for power outages. I’m not a UK resident, but the UK is not Bermuda.
Older heat pumps in cold regions likely have resistance rods or coils.
There is a chart and explanation here:
The wording suggests the supplemental heat comes from a boiler. In my case – a 20 year old heat pump – the electrical resistance heaters are part of the system. New units will work at near freezing outside temperatures. If the power goes off then a different sort of heat is needed. I have a modern catalytic burner (converter) wood stove. I also have trees and cut the wood I need.
My hot water is from a separate electrical heated 30 gallon tank. That means it has nothing to do with the heat pump.
For a fun exercise, search “images” with the string:
old-time vintage kitchen trash burner
This diagram provides a neat explainer of the problems with heat pumps in cold weather.
The required heat input increases as temperature goes down. Heat pump efficiency declines as the temperature goes down. A point is reached where the heat pump can no longer provide adequate heat, and has to be topped up with other heating. Still its own efficiency is declining. Effectively at cold temperatures it becomes useless.
Remember the good old days when we could decide for ourselves:
What to eat
What to drink.
What car to drive.
What fuel to buy.
How to heat our homes.
How to cook our food.
Whether or not to live in a democratic country.
Who to let in to our country.
It is too depressing to continue.
What about extra capacity for renewables backup? 36GW and 147GWh seem totally inadequate.
I suppose that wind and solar will br the main sources of original electricity used to fill the energy stores. These will still have the same issues as they do now. Alternative/Additional sources like wave, tidal, geothermal, hydro and the rest suffer from the same same issues or lack suitable locations.
So some substanial backup and long term storage is required say a week every fortnight during the summer and winter quarters, the electricity mainly created in the Spring and Autumn quarters.
My guess is you could add an additional 50% to the maximum demand
Yes, this is the elephant in the room as far as battery storage is concerned.
You will need to double up the renewable generation capacity to recharge the storage after a wind drought in winter.
Nowhere is it ever discussed when proposals are made for the future supply of electricity from renewable sources, I.e. solar and wind.
The other elephant is how are we going to produce the replacement renewables that will be needed in 15-20 year’s time?
What is the CO2 output when producing these renewables and batteries?
I can’t see them being produced using renewable electricity, and no doubt the Chinese will love to get the business, but isn’t it hypocritical to go down that route given their majoring on coal fired electricity generation.
IF you want to go there, then nuclear seems to be the best option for the future. It is often claimed that nuclear is too expensive, but what will be the cost of the current proposals?
Assuming:
a) you can afford the £trillions for the batteries, and
b) there are any materials around to make the batteries in the first place
This is the suicide note the West leaves for China.
Reblogged this on Climate Collections.
Firstly “averages” are non existent mathematical constructs that are “arithmetically meaningless” Ever seen point four of a child as per the “average” family size of 2.4 children?
Air source heat pumps only produce on a 3 to 1 basis when the outside temperature is 7°C above zero to supply inside water temperature at 35°C.
So when it is not particularly cold outside they produce barely more than luke-warm water.
Today here in Kent the outside temperature barely broke zero.
These sorts of FES are so meaningless and pathetic they are frankly a waste of internet storage capacity… and electricity. But it keeps incompetent people in jobs for whatever that’s worth
“Typically air source heat pumps will use a third of the energy of a gas boiler to produce the same amount of heat.”
Really…
On 29/09/21 my electricity tariff was 16.63p/kWh, my gas 2.81p/kWh.
So electricity was 5.91 x the price of gas per kWh.
On 21/10/22 my electricity tariff was 48.88p/kWh, my gas 14.05p/kWh
So electricity was 3.47 x the price of gas per kWh.
So even with the huge increase in tariff, a heat pump would not make sense, and when the price of gas drops – which IMO it will – will make even less sense.
“Typically air source heat pumps will use a third of the energy of a gas boiler to produce the same amount of heat.”
That comparison ignores the efficiency of the gas-fired power station which will, almost certainly (in the UK), provide the incremental power for a new heat pump: it will be 60% at best. Then there are losses in transmission, transformers, etc, so 1 kWh of gas at the power station will provide ~0.5 kWh at the property.
At a 3:1 CoP – if achieved – the heat pump will provide 1.5 kWh which is only about 50% better than a modern condensing boiler. In colder weather that will likely drop away so the heat pump offers little or no advantage in terms of overall gas consumption.
Then you have to add in that an ASHP will not get stored hot water anywhere near the minimum recommended 60°C to kill Legionella so a resistance heater required for a 25°C ΔT of about 120litres.
And then you have to add the peak rate electricity for the uprated circulating pump running about 10 hours a day, every day, longer than a gas system.
And then you have to add the cost of the de-icer heaters to clear frost from the unit in cold weather.
And then you have to add in the cost of auxiliary heating when the temperature outside gets cold.
And then when you realise that the 3 to 1 CoP was actually a marketing con derived from running the system when the outside temperature is 7°C ABOVE zero and the water temperature inside is only reaching 35°C …….you realise that you have been well and truly shafted.
Don’t forget about natural gas heat pumps (absorption or engine based) which have not really being researched as in theory if it has a COP of just 1.5 it would reduce residential gas heating demand more than electric heat pumps using grid electricity from gas in a ideal scenario.
Also isn’t the plan to improve the thermal efficiency of Britain’s building so the outside temperature when the heat pump is need will reduce. What we should be asking is what is the COP at – 20ºc and at different flow temperatures – 35ºc, 45ºc, 55ºc, 60ºc.
Gas fridges used to be very common a few years ago.
See my comment at the bottom of the thread, Zed.
The “homes” population increases by 6% (1.7million) whereas I’m sure I have seen recent estimates showing a decline?
And will 9million homes get rid of their gas boilers in the next decade? And can we install 1million air or ground source heat pumps *every year* from now? We’d need another 20,000 trained plumbers.
“And can we install 1million air or ground source heat pumps *every year* from now?”
Just inspect the progress with installing the vastly easier to fit “smart meters”, the fitting of which in most cases involves simply four cables for the answer to that!
Easy!
Force the gas boilers to be scrapped by making them illegal, buy new heat pumps from China on borrowed money, and use Rumanian/Albanian plumbers to install them….
I ran a normal 2000w electric heater in my garage today which I dont normally do. It used 4 units over a roughly 3hr period, ignoring my standing charge my Kh rate is 45pence, so if I am correct that hs cost around £2.70 have I got that right?
If I am correct that means over a month if I used it for 6 hrs a day that appears to be around £162 per month, for one heater.
2kW * 3h = 6kWh
Each kWh costing 45p
Cost is 6kWh * £0.45 = £2.70.
Over a month at 6h use:
2kW * 6h * 30d = 360kWh
Cost is 360 * £0.45 = £162.00.
My sums agree with yours. The cost may be less, depending if/how often the thermocouple trips out when it gets warm enough.
If you ran your heater for 3 hours and only used 4 kWh(units) then you cannot have had 2kW output. You heater most likely has a thermal cut out to prevent overheating. Your cost would have been 4 x £0.45 = £1.8
Thank you so much for that! I’m not great with maths so its good to have another pair of eyes!
So its not cheap then! which was my thought, and thats just one small fire that is useless anywhere other than a small room with doors and windows closed.
I’m glad my wood burner puts out a more respectable 18Kw!
To quote from the main section of the post:-
“Typically air source heat pumps will use a third of the energy of a gas boiler to produce the same amount of heat.”
This is completely wrong and misleading. It appears to be so if you use electrical units as a basis for comparison, but the energy to provide that electricity is substantial and as a ball park figure probably equal to or less than a modern gas central heating boiler for the same heat output particularly when the outside air temperature is low.
Then there is the effectiveness of the heat from a heat pump due to it’s lower output temperature.
Yet another report that is a deliberate insult to your intelligence.
Let’s invoke GangGreen’s beloved “Precautionary Principle” and trial their proposals so the actual costs and the real benefits can be measured and analysed rather than force everyone to participate.
That could be done geographically, say for Brighton, Islington and wherever it is represented by Wee Krankie the fish.
Include all the twats implicated in this rubbish report. And tell them that if the results are not within 5% of their wild-ass guesses, they will never receive a groat of public money for the rest of their miserable lives. And have targets fixed to their backs.
For those of you thinking about heat pumps or EV’s you might like to have a look at this video by professor Simon Michaux. He does a brilliant job of highlighting the materisl that will rbe required to production the first generation of renewables and EV’s based on the premise that there will be nothing to recycle yet. All the materials will need to be mined or processed. The quantities are vast and I think he has been conservative. There is also a paper of 1000 pages which is a pretty good effort. Well worth the read.
Sadly most of the politicicans and CC groupie are too dumb and stupid (includes most politicians) to even get past the executive summary.
This puts the FES to shame.
I have been doing some modelling on car life as part of may job. The fear is that gasoline demand will decline. It won’t this decade. But things are changing, mainly driven by emission targets for 2025 and 2030. Diesel light vehicles are just about dead. By 2025 it will be very hard for a diesel or pure gasoline engine to meet emission targets. The new rules state that the vehicle must be compliant from start. There will be no warming up period; no taping joints, no over inflation of tyres and representative passenger weights. In 2030 the target reduces again, efectively making the fuel consumption something like 1.7Ltr/100 kms for gasoline and slighlty less for diesel. This can only be done with a hybrid and diesel hybrids do not work well. Post 2025 I see very few diesels, a declining number of gasoline only and mainly HEV’s. I cannot see EV’s growing to the level expected due to cost and availability of raw materials, and then there is the charging issue.
Petrol and diesel *MAY* decline in parts of the densely populated West but it won’t decline in much more sparsely inhabited countries like Africa and Australia – even some parts of the USA – because of the problems of the spacing of the charging points and supplying them with electricity.
How many times would an Australian road train crossing the Outback need to be recharged and how many thousand miles of cabling and associated substations etc. will that take?
Prof Kelly(?) of Cambridge U in a talk to the Irish ICSF reckoned the Irish grid would need to be 3x its present size so you figure of 120 GW for UK looks bang on. Experience has shown me these things all rely on over optimistic assumptions.
Can anyone explain why absorption heat pumps such as were used in gas fridges and even considerably larger installations went out of favour?
A small flame no larger than that of a cigarette lighter kept the inside of the fridge cold enough to make ice.
I had one years ago, it was totally silent and cheap to run, no electrics at all. It was based on sodium bromide as the working fluid. It occasionally needed a kick to keep the mixtures moving but was really good. Scale up may not be too easy, but there are some very large industrial units in use.
I believe absorption heat pumps went out of favour in post war year as electricity was declining in cost in many places and
compressor fridges became more efficient (although they normally run on electricity while absorption uses heat by the direct burning of some kind of fuel so it likely more complicated than that if you look at primary energy) and operates more consistently at a wider range of temperatures. Then in the 1970s (probably 1960s as well) at least in the United States price controls caused shortage of interstate natural gas (there was plenty in producing states) which lead to curtailment of commercial & industrial demand to protect households.
They have made a comeback in parts of North America where particularly commercial (peak) electricity has increased in cost (& decreased in reliability – so reduces the size of the backup generator) vs natural gas.
https://www.socalgas.com/sustainability/technology-and-investments/natural-gas-air-conditioning
https://gasairconditioning.com/
But on this subject I have always wondered why instead of the botched promotion of condensing boilers without making sure they were actual used so they actually condense I would have looked at natural gas heat pumps (absorption based, engine based or combination of 2) have not really being researched as in theory if it has a COP of just 1.5 (vs probably 90%/0.9 for a condensing boiler) it would reduce residential gas heating demand more than electric heat pumps using grid electricity even if CCGT operating at 60%+ efficient (which isn’t realistic both economically or technically with load following and the need to fit renewables – I would guess most of this capacity would be OCGT & reciprocating engines (see South Australia – https://www.energycouncil.com.au/analysis/barker-inlet-a-new-technology-responding-to-the-market/ & https://www.wartsila.com/energy/solutions/engine-power-plants/wartsila-50df-multi-fuel-power-plant & https://www.power-technology.com/projects/barker-inlet-power-station-adelaide/) running on natural gas & distillate)
https://lochinvar.ltd.uk/optimus-gas-absorption-heat-pumps/