Face The Facts, Lord Callanan–Nobody Wants A Useless Heat Pump
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
Heat pumps will still cost households thousands of pounds each even after they have used the Government’s troubled voucher scheme, a minister has admitted.
Lord Callanan, a junior energy minister, said some consumers would pay “as little” as £2,500 for the eco-friendly heating systems after a grant of £5,000 was taken into account.
His admission comes after critics blamed the high cost of heat pumps for the “embarrassingly” low uptake of the £150m-a-year boiler upgrade scheme.
Official figures show that fewer than 10,000 households have taken advantage of the grants since its launch last May.
A typical household will end up paying between £7,000 and £13,000 to install an air source heat pump before any voucher discount is applied, according to the Energy Saving Trust.
In a letter to peers, Lord Callanan said the Government will review the maximum grant level and could still increase it, leaving the door open to even more support being offered.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/04/26/heat-pump-vouchers-energy-bills-households/
Does this silly man think money grows on trees?
It is surely clear even to him that nobody wants to instal these useless things, even if the government paid the full cost, including radiators and insulation, which the Energy Saving Trust dishonestly excludes from its costings.
At a figure of say £15000 each, the target of 600,000 heat pumps a year would cost the government £9 billion, money which it has not got.
The embedded poll in the Telegraph makes this clear:
https://cf-particle-html.eip.telegraph.co.uk/82cbcbea-1132-404d-af7b-075944365bba.html
And I suspect most of the Yes voters are not aware of the costs and other multiple disadvantages of heat pumps.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
No. Period.
Get your noisy expensive underpowered government sponsored heat contraptions here. Come along now, don’t be shy…what’s the matter with everyone? 🙄
The inexplicable paradox is that the smart meter rollout is only fitting 60 Amp cut outs to typical house which will not be able to power a heat pump and recharge your new electric car.
Obviously a rip roaring success.
I suspect the incoming cables to the house and its neighbours could not cope with a much greater load than 60amp so the entire infrastructure will need to be expensively upgraded with enormous disruption
Rishi managed to do it.
I wonder which media has the courage to make similar polls about the entire “climate”, “green” and “CO2” scams.
‘Climate Scepticism on the Rise Throughout the World’ [21st. April 2023]:
https://dailysceptic.org/2023/04/21/climate-scepticism-on-the-rise-throughout-the-world/
Finally, some good news on the Climate Hoax front: People are beginning to realize it’s called WEATHER. Bad news for the CCP, Al Gore, the chubby teenage scold, et al.
The heat pump business may end up like the “new bathroom” business, and to a lesser extent like the upvc window business, i.e. a business driven by salesman commissions and with relatively unskilled fitters and many cowboy outfits, encouraged by govt subsidies, regulations, mandates and ridiculous virtue-signalling deadlines.
Oh you cynic. Don’t you remember how well the government cavity wall insulation scheme went?
Amazing success! Loads of botched jobs in the initial installation phase and even more in the attempt to rectify the problems. In many cases it was the same companies who did the initial botching that got on board to do the rectification. Estimated 4m legal cases still outstanding.
No need for ‘heat’ pumps because of course March was the warmest on record…BBC, funnily throughout April the BBC have been very quiet regarding temperature as its been ruddy cold, tuesday this week saw a sharp frost in N Wales. Well the good old climate not playing ball with the propaganda merchants of doom.
Yes, the cet was I think 7.2 for March but only 3.6 in Scotland, a much bigger gap than the usual 2 degrees. Caused by cloudy nights in South and clear cold ones in the North.
All the heat has gone to Spain!
Agree, but they had to get their global warming nonsense in somewhere. Yesterday on BBC Radio 2 news it was reported that it was going to be the hottest April day on record ……. in Spain. It is nearly May and if you booked a holiday in Spain wouldn’t you want it to be nice and warm. This would not have been news a few years ago.
this is what is Being posted on the Octopus Web Page blog regarding heat pumps and saving versus a gas boiler.
You can save £340 per year by switching from a gas boiler to a heat pump on the Flexible tariff.
🔥🔥 If you’re on a smart tariff like Cosy Octopus, you could save an extra £109 a year.
🔥🔥🔥 Factoring other ditched costs, like boiler cover and gas standing charge, your heat pump could save you a further £263 a year.
Taking the total saving to £712 per year..Let’s break that down
Every person’s home will look slightly different, but these are the average savings seen by our heat pump customers
Gas boiler:
Gas consumption 17097kWh Average usage for an Octopus heat pump customer (14.1 MWh heat demand)
Gas unit rate 10.46p / kWh Energy Price Guarantee April-June 2023
Gas boiler efficiency 83% Average efficiency seen from BEIS gas boiler study
Total annual gas heating bill £1,788 for our average heat pump user
Heat pumps:
Electricity consumption 4236kWh Average usage for an Octopus heat pump customer (14.1 MWh heat demand)
Standard electricity unit rate 34.19p / kWh Energy Price Guarantee April 2023
Heat pump efficiency 333% Average efficiency seen from Octopus heat pump metered data
Total annual heat pump bill (standard tariff) £1,448 for our average heat pump user
Total savings just from switching to a heat pump £340 for our average heat pump user
Additional savings from load shifting on a smart tariff £109 assuming you shift 50% of peak heat demand to off peak
Additional energy bill savings from removing the gas standing charge £104 based on Energy Price Guarantee prices
Additional maintenance cost saving £159 comparing our heat pump cover to Which? average boiler cover
Total potential savings £712
So what will my savings look like?
It all comes down to the efficiency of your heat pump vs your previous boiler. If you were to compare an average gas boiler (which has an 83% efficiency according to BEIS study) to our average heat pump (with 333% efficiency) you’d save around £340 a year. The chart below shows you how that varies with different efficiencies but in almost every case heat pump costs are lower.
The Electrification of Heat trial, came up with average of 261% heat pump efficiency, but with wide variation over the 800 or so air heat pump installations analysed.
https://es.catapult.org.uk/report/electrification-of-heat-installation-statistics/
Not ‘efficiency;’ ‘effectiveness.’ That is to say, the energy extracted from the air compared to the energy drawn from the grid to enable
the heat-pump to effect that extraction.
Good spot! That more realistic efficiency would add about £400 to their electricity costs, leaving no benefit.
Although Octopus appear to be using real-life figures, I suspect these are cases that are well-suited to heat pumps: modern, well-insulated, etc..
Also they use an average boiler efficiency whereas anyone looking to replace their system would be looking at a condensing boiler with much better performance. That would probably knock £200 off the gas bill, strengthening the case for gas.
Summary: a new gas boiler would be cheaper to run as well as costing much less to buy and install. Plus, of course, it would not require any modifications to piping, radiators, etc..
The analysis only works in a really well insulated house, typical UK home needs gas flat out in the morning 30kW to get the chill off, the heat pump would have to run almost 24 hours to keep the house warm. Burning gas in the home is really the most efficient method of getting the most heat out of the fuel. Distribution losses in electricity are around 15%, it has to be admitted that thermal efficiency coal and gas electricity generation is really poor, you loose 50% of the energy in the power station, all the more reason to stay with gas for home heating, it is just so easy and efficient, far outweighing the alleged risk of CO2.
333%!!!
Fork me, we have cracked perpetual motion x 3!!!!!
Well reasoned and presented analysis, but that’s a lot of words to say “No body knows” what the results of trying to heat an older home with radiation designed to operate at 180 degrees F will work with the tepid water that comes from an AS HP. The ‘ruling grade’ will be how much it costs to run the strip heat, and if that power will be available on a cold night when everyone’s mandated heat pump is singing the blues at the same time.
No mention of course of any building works req! or ongoing service costs. Even if I did save £700 a year that still only 3 meals at my favorite restaurant high up in a pointy building in London!
My 17 year old gas boiler in Scotland, which has performed flawlessly, will presumably need to be replaced in the next few years. I don’t see any practical alternative to a like for like replacement. If the government manages to dramatically increase the electricity supply (pigs might fly) and crushes the gas supply (probable) I suppose I could install electric panel heaters. Interesting that heat pumps are popular in Scandinavia though. I’ve lived in Denmark and Finland for a couple of years at a time and found their approach to heating and insulation really innovative. eg triple glazing with internal venetian blinds and a district heating system in Copenhagen run off waste heat from a power station running on fish meal no less. You were always comfortable without noticing where the heat was coming from.
IIRC the Danes were scooping up large tonnages of sand eels (up to 150,000 tons per year) from the North Sea and extracting their oil to fuel power stations. This is believed to have had a knock on effect on sea bird and fish populations. The fish meal was used as a source of protein in animal feed.
The sand eel fishery was closed in 2000, but 5,000 tons per year are caught as a ‘monitoring operation’.
A house built with a heat-pump in mind will be fine with a modern installation.
In places with cold winters, an emergency source of heat is also necessary. When it is Zero C° and wind is strong, houses cool rapidly.
For a large fee, I will be happy to meet with Lord Callanan and explain all this. The good Lord might wish to come to my home and take notes as I explain and show him how this shakes out. [My emergency source of heat is a modern wood stove with a catalytic combustor.]
On the Midlands weather forecast last evening the dopey woman presenter said how cold the weather in the Midlands had been, but, that doesn’t mean CC is over as you should know that the Sahara is experiencing an above average warm period(!) (The unsaid bit being that CC is always with us – Sheesh!)
That’s where all the White-bait went!
A little elaboration on why air source heat pumps do not work would have been informative; e.g. you cannot heat an older house with the tepid water produced by these expensive ill-suited machines, no mater whom is paying the tab.
I have a heat pump. No water involved.
I’ve seen this supposed connection before.
I’ve no idea what it means. 😒
So your useless heat pump is atop a forced warm air handler? Good for you. When it is cold out side, at night, the only thing heating your home will be the resistance strip heat. Sorry I could not see inside your home to know what useless heat source you were using. Water, air; magic unicorns are what is needed when the cold winds blow, but I am certain you have them at the ready.
Lord Callanan is just saying what he is told to say by the greens (UN, WEF perhaps?) He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree (BSc) in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Newcastle Polytechnic and so he must know that heat pumps are a complete waste of somebody else’s money.
Not necessarily, he could still be an ignorant idiot despite his BSc.
More than likely both.
Yes, the cet was I think 7.2 for March but only 3.6 in Scotland, a much bigger gap than the usual 2 degrees. Caused by cloudy nights in South and clear cold ones in the North.
I wonder what tens of millions of heat pumps will do to peak electricity demand in the worst case (plausible) scenario, when cold anti-cyclonic gloom covers most of the UK, giving very little natural solar heating via windows, and with most of the heat pumps switching to resistance heating.
10 million heat pumps, each consuming 5 kW = 50 GW.
Just no way the local distribution network will have enough capacity for heat pumps, in cold weather they are going to be running 24 hours per day, that is 120kWh plus charging car say 30kWh plus 12 kWh for lights and appliances so 162kWh per day, average use today is 12kWh (OFGEM calculate the cap on this figure), with a large diversity factor. sub station will be glowing red!
Well said. The heat pump fans always seem to leave the strip heat out of their equations.
All to be covered by a vast expansion of wind power. But no concomitant increase in back-up generation. The government is trying to plan a substantial proportion of the economy based on lies, fantasy technologies and an utter inability to do basic sums and to think coherently. That virtually every other government is doing the same is quite, quite weird. As Texas has found out, this is madness and will not work. Such a transition needs to be carefully planned and take decades. Rushing it through as quickly as possible to meet false and fraudulent deadlines put forward by people with ulterior motives is madness squared.
A few gigawatts here, a few gigawatts there; before you know it you talking more gigawatts than are available. I guess this is where the Magic Unicorns come in.
When sticking to policy targets trump reality. But that’s our political class for you, they wouldn’t recognize living in the real world if it slapped them in the face.
Heat pumps work when built in to the house design from the ground up, with all the necessary insulation. Retro fitting is a pointless money pit.
Devoncamel,
in a modern well insulated house gas (or oil) boilers will do an excellent job very economically. and more to the point better.
What sort of idiot would spend thousands of pounds replacing something that worked very well with something that probably doesn’t?
It’s really that simple. Maybe 15% of the population are willing to spend actual money and effort on climate change. Unless you offer people an improvement, nobody will spend anything. Quite why this is a big surprise to politicians is beyond me. They really have lost the plot, even on the fundamentals of politics.
Heat pump? or electric car ? but not both. Ask an electrician.
Also ask the rest of your ‘zone’ (ie linked to the same substation)… (also from an electricia)
“And we think over the long run if you depend entirely on subsidies, the risk is that it’s wasteful because you spend money on projects that would have happened anyway.” This was said by Jeremy Hunt.