What is going on? There is so much talk everywhere about Hydrogen boilers or air source heat pumps!
I’m Jon Mullen the Energy Evangelist and we’re talking about #SaveEnergySaveMoney.
Currently we are hearing a lot from government and other sources that gas boilers will be banned from new build houses by 2025. So what is going to replace them? The main 2 solutions are hydrogen boilers or air source heat pumps. We could have a big discussion about this, but let’s pull some of the important factors out of the equation. This is all being driven by our race to get to carbon net zero by 2050. If we don’t reduce our release of CO2 then we will kill the planet.
Option 1 – Hydrogen – This may seem like the easiest solution as we can just replace our combi-boilers with a hydrogen boiler. However there are lots of issues to transition from gas to hydrogen because we can’t just turn off one and switch on the new supply. There will be significant costs to the suppliers because the network will have to change and the big question is how to manage this change. However industry experts believe this will not be installed by many individuals because of cost of installation, cost of the hydrogen fuel, and complexity.
Option 2 – Air source – many people are promoting this technology only based on one fact – for every unit of electricity they use they generate between 2 and 4 units of energy from the air. So as long as the electric is sourced from a green provider this is a clean solution. However the cost of an air source heat pump is between 3 to 6 times the cost of a gas boiler. But currently households can claim back approx 50% via the Renewable Heat Incentive over a 7 year period. Additionally, both solutions have one big problem – there are not enough installation engineers who currently have any experience and knowledge to fit or install these solutions correctly. This will be a very big problem for the near future.
So both options have decisions to be made as to which is better for you, but this is just touching on a much bigger answer to a much more complex search for a solution. But in the long run these changes will provide a better cleaner solution for all of us.
I’m Jon Mullen the Energy Evangelist. Come and find out how to #SaveEnergySaveMoney at EnergyEvangelist.co.uk