Heat Pumps and Hydrogen - What is the future in heating?

[@stokebob]

The achilles heel of hydrogen (which everyone seems to be missing) is in a future where we're not burning fossil fuels, it will be far more expensive to heat your home with hydrogen than with a heat pump. At best, a hydrogen boiler will be 95% efficient. A heat pump is 300-400% efficient. And don't think that hydrogen will be cheaper than electricity (per kWh), as is currently the case with natural gas. You need electricity to create hydrogen, and the process is only around 80% efficient. So for every 1 kWh hydrogen created, there would be the cost of 1.25 kWh of electricity baked into it's purchase price. So not only will electricity be cheaper than hydrogen (per kWh), but heat pump will crush a hydrogen boiler on efficiency. You'd be better off running bog standard electric radiators in your home, rather than a hydrogen boiler.

[@DennisFreeland]

Yes the "hydrogen economy" is a buzz phrase at the moment and not just in the Uk. Countries across the world from Peru to Singapore to Australia are talking of investing heavily . So the UK will invest also for fear of missing out. The UK has the advantage of a large gas network but it will need to be relined to prevent compressed hydrogen from just seeping through it. Blue hydrogen may be a stop gap measure and is being being promoted by the oil and gas industry as they have the technology to produce it so no surprise there. Green hydrogen prduced by electrolysis ,the process has been known for about 200 years; is a simple process but little investment has been spent on large scale technology hence it is currently expensive to produce. There is is no one process does it all solution. Hopefully we will be wise enough to develop those technologies that are low carbon regardless of the high initial investment costs ( inevitable because as you say we have left it to very late in the day) than through those groups with vested interests in current polluting technology..

[@dorewoodman]

I couldn’t agree more Dennis

[@iansmith788]

Hydrogen causes embrittlement in steel so they need to replace steel valves and pipes in the existing gas network.

[@ram64man]

My problem with the alternative system is in the event of a power cut (brown out ) common in rural England, your stuffed so to speak especially if your setup uses a cylinder free setup . The U.K. government forced us to have a max of 4kw at the behest of the electric grid who said we would have the issues that Germany have with so many old coal plants being shut down from 2012 now 10 years later were feeling the effects by rising power and a significant amount being imported , with the demand of end of sale of existing we are creating a huge problem, sure I understand the need to move away from diesel heating systems but lpg systems still make over 20% of the grid where utility and builders didn’t want to run mains , but none of the new technology can be used by flat owners and the cost to retrofit would be huge non which landlords would be willing to pay for willingly

[@richardlphillips]

Hydrogen will be expensive and replacement of large parts of the gas network will be required (embrittlement). It's 3.6 times greater in volumetric density which means it needs much higher compression in the gas network. Which require new more powerful compressors. Not doubting it can't be done, it's just terribly innefficient. To get to net zero we need to make efficient use of energy and hydrogen should be reserved for use cases where no other solution exists. iE industry and long haul aviation. understand we have leaky housing stock but this is also energy wastage. High temp heat pumps can work in leaky housing stock and you might only get a COP of 1.5 but it would still be more efficient than losing 30% of electrical energy to electrolysis of water (using electricity) compressing it and pumping it into people's houses (using electricity) to then burn it. Even at 100% efficiency is poor due to losses in production. I'd be very surprised if there is much uptake and cost is normally what drives success.

[@dorewoodman]

I agree, the problem is, we have reached a crisis point and simply left things too late. The government speak of a Hydrogen Revolution yet only injecting around £160 million at this moment in time into an infrastructure that will cost Europe trillions and relying on private sector investments. It is a huge task to reach carbon zero and simply can’t rely on governments to achieve that for us alone and we should all make conscious efforts to reduce wasting energy and that can start at home. We complain about spending money to improve efficiency and insulate our homes yet property is ever increasing in price and we are happy to pay through the nose for leaky inefficient homes. Heat pumps, solar pv, solar thermal, electric cars, biomass, smart controllers, weather compensation and reducing flow temperatures on heating systems will make a difference on CO2 emissions and education on this sector will also help tremendously, not just end users but more importantly installers.

[@richardlphillips]

@@dorewoodman I think it's just fossil fuel companies lobbying government to stay relevant to be honest. Be nice if we could actually focus on the problem in hand without all these pointless distractions.

[@mickbmx]

A cheap £1500 hydrogen boiler is more affordable then a £15,000 heat pump install.. Get the cost down and it'll take off..

[@dorewoodman]

That may be so, the only trouble with that is there isn’t any hydrogen to feed it.

[@mickbmx]

@@dorewoodman I agree. The trouble is then, where is everyone going to find that sort of money. I certainly don’t have it.

[@dorewoodman]

@@mickbmx I think fundamentally homes need to be more efficient. Insulating a home is incredibly important and that will enable higher efficiencies with home heating for example, meaning that a lower carbon output can be achieved. Weather compensation components to existing boilers will also help. I believe the main focus for heat pumps in the immediate future is for properties off the gas grid to replace Oil, LPG and highly inefficient electric heating boilers and storage heaters as well as new build developments.

[@mickbmx]

@@dorewoodman the boilers I install all get load compensation stats. I’d love to start fitting ASHP but the majority of customers in my neck of the woods simply don’t have the £££

[@stokebob]

Economies of scale, as heat pumps take off over the next few years, the cost will reduce, a lot.