General > General Technical Chat
"Gas Armageddon": Energy/electricity prices in EU/UK (and how to deal with them)
madires:
--- Quote from: Marco on August 31, 2022, 12:25:24 pm ---
--- Quote from: nctnico on August 31, 2022, 11:26:05 am ---The problem with subsidies is that they just increase the price.
--- End quote ---
The problem with consumers trying to get a competetive bid is information assymetry.
--- End quote ---
It's part of the problem. But subsidies too. Over here we have program to promote heat pumps (subsidies up to 40% (was even 50% not long ago)). Besides the poor availability of heat pumps at the moment, the program keeps the prices high. There's no incentive or need for competition. I guess, there's no direct monetary loss for customers because of the high subsidies, but it's still tax money.
Siwastaja:
--- Quote from: madires on August 31, 2022, 01:19:26 pm ---Proper insulation is a prerequisite for heat pumps.
--- End quote ---
Where is this meme coming from?
These things (heatpumps, insulation) are totally orthogonal.
Quite the opposite, (e.g. ground source) heatpumps are specifically being recommended here in old, poorly insulated buildings (with maybe some historical or sentimental value); of course, because poorly insulated houses consume more heat, there is more (absolute) potential for savings.
For example, a well insulated house needing 9MWh/year of heat, heatpump with COP=3 saves 6MWh/year of energy. A poorly insulated house needing 27MWh/year of heat, heatpump with COP=3 saves 18MWh/year of energy.
Siwastaja:
--- Quote from: tom66 on August 31, 2022, 01:51:37 pm ---In normal times, 12000kWh per year of gas would cost about £400.
--- End quote ---
This is just absolutely, ridiculously cheap. You need to realize what kind of privilege this has been to you.
Consider Finland. Our "gas" has always been oil, oil heating systems have been hugely popular. "Normal time" cost (in 2010's pre-NWO and everything) for heating oil has been like 0.90EUR/liter i.e. 12000kWh would cost 1100EUR. And no one complained about it (except of course those who complain about everything).
tszaboo:
--- Quote from: Siwastaja on August 31, 2022, 12:49:28 pm ---
--- Quote from: tom66 on August 31, 2022, 09:07:33 am ---Avg. gas consumption of 12000kWh per year for a house
--- End quote ---
Funnily enough - this seems to be a rough ballpark figure of heating energy spent anywhere.
--- End quote ---
Houses here actually come with an energy label. Like eg. the fridge, same colors and everything, goes from G to A++.
You are only allowed to sell the house if you have this.
F is about 380 kWh/sqm, A+ is 105 and A+++ is 50. We can calculate 80 for a small, 120 sqm for an average Dutch house.
I got label of A, which is 160 when I bought my home, now it's probably a bit better because I put solar panels on it. And it's time to replace the roof windows, from HR to HR++ or something.
I talked with Dutch people and they said that the house is built to handle the cold. And I was laughing at it, after I compared the joke of the isolation here to the standard that I'm used to.
So yeah. Rating of A would mean 19000 kwh/year. And that's a very good rating here, I see houses with rating of D and E on the market, already sold.
Funny stuff is, I used 50GJ last year for heating, which is 14000kWh (and 2000kWh for electricity), very much the same that you suggested.
Also, with the current prices, I was calculating an airco heatpump would be 50% cheaper than district heating.
Siwastaja:
--- Quote from: tszaboo on August 31, 2022, 02:38:36 pm ---Houses here actually come with an energy label. Like eg. the fridge, same colors and everything, goes from G to A++.
You are only allowed to sell the house if you have this.
F is about 380 kWh/sqm, A+ is 105 and A+++ is 50. We can calculate 80 for a small, 120 sqm for an average Dutch house.
I got label of A, which is 160 when I bought my home
--- End quote ---
And of course, here the calculation is somewhat more complicated - but playing around with one Excel calculator I could find, it seems 160 kWh/m^2/year (with fossil fuel multiplier 1.0) gives label of D.
And because this is already per consumed energy, it already takes the climate into account; we already need to apply more insulation given your standards, and then a lot more to meet our much stricter standards.
And this is the problem - Finns are, as always, required to do so much more than the others, and in addition we need to pay for Germany's cheap gas contracts. But it's pretty close to being game over, we have very little left and are on the brink of a national suicide.
OTOH, I don't complain about the requirement of insulation. It's the right thing to do. It would be nice if others insulated their homes, too, instead of buying Putin's fart gas, because we are the ones who have to sit next to Russia even if we don't use their gas.
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