The Future of Grid Power? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Connecteur
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 27, 2024, 08:09:34 pm
content: Let's say that grid power doesn't remain the same as it was originally designed about a century ago, more or less. What would it look like with newer technology?120VAC can be used in a lot of ways currently, but if the way it was delivered could change, how would it? DC? Lower, safer voltages? Why not? There was a time when AC power at lethal voltages made sense, but is that still the case? And will it be in the future?And will the economics of scale always favor a large, centralized power plant? Maybe every user could have their own power generation and storage, and do so economically. Maybe we need no grid at all. Power could be shared between multiple users, creating a "virtual grid," much less prone to outages.I have mentioned USB as a possible replacement, and that may suffice for lower power applications, but something similar could be scaled up for stoves, dryers and electric vehicles.All I'm asking is if it were to change, what would it look like?

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 27, 2024, 08:37:31 pm
content: 3rd time's a charm?https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/do-we-really-need-a-grid/https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/will-ac-power-distribution-become-obsolete/

author: Connecteur
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 27, 2024, 08:40:59 pm
content: Nice you remembered, but some of my ideas needed an update.

author: indeterminate
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2024, 01:53:44 am
content: It has already startedgrids are being re engineered to be better preforming bidirectionallySmall Towns being supplied by hundreds of kilometers of transmission lines are being split of as micro grids.more houses are being supplied by three phase 400v for EV charging, running there heating & cooling and to be able to feed the grid with more roof top solar.AC is easier to deal with.Higher voltages = less current & smaller wires for the same amount of energyModern safety devices RCD's / Earth leakage devices make things safe for the consumer.lo voltage DC like a USB supply will never happen , there is simply not enough watts.we may end up with intelligent power points that do not switch on the high voltage unless everything is safe.

author: Andy Chee
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2024, 02:32:20 am
content: Quote from: Connecteur on December 27, 2024, 08:09:34 pmAny changes must still obey the laws of physics, in this case, the relevant law is Ohm’s law.High power delivery at low voltage, implies thick heavy copper conductors to avoid resistance heat/voltage drop losses.It’s why USB-PD of 120W @ 5V is impractical and not supported.I’m pretty sure you also ignored Ohm’s law in your other discussion thread.

author: .RC.
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2024, 02:41:16 am
content: I sometimes wonder where all this copper is going to come from to electrify everything.Or are we going to use copper coated aluminium?

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2024, 03:01:17 am
content: Quotelower voltage= higher current and greater volt drop, needing larger cables. 120mm2to run me kettle at 5v aint gonna happen

author: Connecteur
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2024, 12:23:50 pm
content: Quote from: Andy Chee on December 28, 2024, 02:32:20 amCopper is not rare metal, and I expect that the market can't remain cornered forever.

author: Connecteur
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2024, 12:27:48 pm
content: Quote from: themadhippy on December 28, 2024, 03:01:17 amI was thinking more like 50V, but I never thought 5V was even a possibility for household current. Current USB PD technology is already delivering over 100W by using higher voltages. Speculation is that 240W systems are already a reality.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2024, 12:32:18 pm
content: Quote from: Someone on December 27, 2024, 08:37:31 pmReported to moderators as a duplicate thread. OP should be bumping one of their old threads with new ideas.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2024, 12:35:50 pm
content: Quote from: Connecteur on December 28, 2024, 12:27:48 pmSpeculation means guessing. We don't need to guess.240W USB-PD was introduced into the standard 3 years ago, and the first 240W chargers have just begun to ship. 240W-certified cables have been out for years now.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2024, 12:39:07 pm
content: Quote from: Connecteur on December 28, 2024, 12:23:50 pmWhat do you even mean? Who has "cornered" the copper market?What we see is that the rising cost of copper is causing huge amounts of it to be stolen, often out of running installations, causing tons of property damage. The last thing we need is to dramatically increase the amount of copper needed, just so that we can lower the household line voltage. If anything, we would want toincreasethe voltage and just use new connectors.

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2024, 12:52:08 pm
content: Quote from: themadhippy on December 28, 2024, 03:01:17 am..and is also less safe than HV due to increased fire risk.I suspect that connections increasing in resistance over time is far more common than insulation degrading to the point where there is a shock hazard

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2024, 12:55:18 pm
content: Within the home, distributing 50/60Hz to lots of individual LED PSUs makes little sense nowadays, especially if you then add phase-angle dimming, but hard to see any alternative emerging as a common standardPoE is one possibility, though maybe a bit overcomplicated.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 28, 2024, 04:57:51 pm
content: Quote from: Connecteur on December 27, 2024, 08:09:34 pmWhen would you like to start the comparison from? years ago AC generators being added were synchronized manually with oscilloscopes, the people that were good at it saved the building form a thud when the extra generator was added. But that was not even 100 years ago.QuoteI don't know? do you have an alternative to wires? You do realize that DC is impractical as things stand unless substations become fitted with very large 2 way switch mode converters which become more and more impractical (read exotic/expensive) as the voltages rise to the million volts used in some transmission lines? What do you mean by lethal voltages. "the grid" has voltages up to 1'000'000V, over 50V is considered lethal in most jurisdictions, so unless you have a way to defeat ohms law and transmit power at 50V or less then no I don't think we will stop using "lethal" voltages as the chasm from non lethal to the maximum we use is 200'000 times!QuoteYes! "large, centralized" is the definition of economy of scale. Maybe not as large but certainly a grid will remain. How on earth do you think every user having way more generating capacity than they need on average will be cheaper than the grid? that is literally the reason the grid exists. Your "virtual grid" is simply the grid we are starting to have that does not have to carry so much power across one stretch due to the more local sharing of power. But your idea of every man for himself is a stupid one unless the laws of the universe are rewritten.QuoteOK, and what exactly did you have in mind? are you still trying to take everything down to 50V? You want a stove that is say made up of 2kW rings to take 50A per ring? currently a 32A circuit is used for the whole stove in the UK, you will need 150% of that for a single ring..... The advantages would be ? apart from a staggering increase in the value of copper that will be needed in even larger quantities than it already is.QuoteChange happens for a reason! you have not stated a reason for any change. You just sound like some idiot looking to put a product on Indiegogo that is a total scam and is fishing for ideas as he has no clue what he is doing technically and has only worked out that he can rip people off on the pretense of a product that cannot work.If you can't post anything technically relevant I suggest you try some place like X for your ramblings, I'm sure Musk will hire you.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2024, 08:36:19 pm
content: Quote from: mikeselectricstuff on December 28, 2024, 12:55:18 pmJust plain 48V would do the trick, a mere 10A would then be 480W which would be far more LEDs than would be necessary in most homes.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2024, 08:44:02 pm
content: Quote from: Connecteur on December 28, 2024, 12:23:50 pmVery few elements are actually that rare on the Earth. What is rare is high concentrations where they can readily mined. We are already running low on those for copper. As you try to extract copper from lower and lower concentration ores, the energy required to mine and refine it skyrockets. Currently copper is at a kind of sweet spot where its cheap enough to use, but expensive enough to be heavily recycled. We appear to be recycling about 75% of it. Unless that can be raised quite a bit, which might be another highly energy consuming process of concentrating small scraps of it, we will need quite a bit more copper each time we go around the cycle of make, use, wear out, recycle, and repeat. I hope you have plenty of cheap energy for that high copper using future.

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2024, 09:08:05 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on December 28, 2024, 08:36:19 pmIME plain 48V is rather more prone to arcing than 24. Also the range of converter ICs becomes a lot more limited - for simple DC I'd go for 24V.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 28, 2024, 09:18:29 pm
content: The grid is fighting last years battle. At the moment the operators are worrying that they have so much renewable energy and it's not reaching the main industrial hubs, so they build more interconnect.The problem with that is, that if we move to a fully renewable generation, everywhere will most of the time either have too much or too little renewable electricity for local demand. You have glut, or night, or winter/dunkelflaute. In a glut everywhere will be in a glut, in a shortage everywhere will be in a shortage, what lies in between is almost irrelevant.It makes more sense to move hydrogen around than electricity, the current grid is plenty with a "little" strategic battery placement to smooth out peak consumption.

author: indeterminate
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2024, 12:50:17 am
content: 50V is never going to happen.I just did a rough calc and that would mean running a 95mm sq cable into the house.Thats $46 per meter for the two cores, and nearly 2kg per meter.Then the power companies poles and whirs would need to be massive , who is going to pay for that.Your larger EV's are moving to a 800v main power buss and 48v aux bus with limited support for legacy 12v stuffif anything i can see countries with 100>120v systems slowly phasing them out for 220vAppliances that operate from 220>240v are cheaper than there ~100v twins and if it is cheaper and does the same job guess witch one sells.

author: RJSV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2024, 02:56:56 am
content: Virtual grids I could begin to picture but the configuring and management would be chaotic nightmare.Firstly, the hardware would most assuredly be the existing cables, poles and buried cable.Supposedly, there would be a balance, of power production with consumption.

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2024, 03:04:12 pm
content: Quote from: Simon on December 28, 2024, 04:57:51 pmIn the 1920 and 30's alternators were synchronised using the dark bulb method, A a lamp or two was placed between the two machines and when the phases were in sync the bulbs no longer glowed, I have a book dating from the 1920's that goes into details of how to do this. Synchoscopes came along later.

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2024, 04:32:57 pm
content: QuoteMany discussions amongst lighting crew around the world have pondered something very similar,why the hell cant they stuff the dmx/artnet on the power line instead of having to run a power and a control cable to every fixture . There has been one or 2 tries,avolite being one,but that was a bit half arsed.Come on martin/robe/farilite incorporate something useful for a change instead of increasing the channel count for a bit of eye candy that might get used once

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2024, 04:37:40 pm
content: QuoteThat takes me back,i remember a factory with just that ,there was also a meter below the lamp that rotated the full 360o,when the needle was at 12 oclock you were synced.

author: RJSV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2024, 05:50:17 pm
content: What would a smaller grid, look like ? Gridlette ?Let's say, 10 miles by 10 miles is one grid. Roughly 4 km on each side, of a square land area. You've added up all the inherent existing generating capacity, and, likewise all the residential 'apatite' for power, with a decent match. Well, right there you are going to need to link that 'micro-grid' to a main grid, due to occasional exceeding generation ability.The other way, with enough or more capacity, the extra capacity is lost if you cannot push that onto the main network. For a lot of that, the decisions, for allocations originally and ongoing would be complex.Make the claim, that AI will rescue the management, by deciding when, and if, power flows either to or from the big network.That's largely done by one, private entity, (like P.G.&E. here in California.)Ok, say that one square can be managed. Then what about urban regions, having easily NO capacity resources, at all.Is there to be a criss-crossing network, of 'helper' feeds, to solve that imbalance ?All priced the same ? What if 'Montalvinia' in Montana goes on STRIKE...in a producer's strike, for more compensation ?We don't see something like that, here.How about, what if one region wants to hold out, for different set-up rules ?Do we create the tyranny to impose systems, at one particular regions expense ?

author: RJSV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2024, 07:52:21 pm
content: Then there is the pesky, rather large NATURAL GAS pipeline network. That won't be under the flexibility that electric energy transmission has, and is locked in as to customers and regions.Plus that market is jeopardized by the calls for (gas) to be banned outright (by the time this shit gets figured out, and implemented.)Abandoning the natural gas infrastructure is aot of wasted capability. I'd bet that 'they' wouldn't even care to sell the whole lot, to some disadvantaged small country !

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2024, 08:20:50 pm
content: The changes that may actuall happen could be changing from 115 V to 230 V. With RCDs the danger of lethal shocks got lower and isolation also got better. The higher current at 115 V in creases the chance for fires from bad contacts / thin wires. I have not seen the statistics, but chances are that there are more fetalities from fires starting from the electrical system than electrical shock.Chances are the change would be slow, starting with 2 phase 115 V as 230 V and increasingly less use of the 115 V part and more use of 230 V instead. The US plugs are anyway horrible and a makeover would be a good idea. Common sense would limit the US plugs to some 50 V and 10 A.Those paranoid may have a local 48 V or 24 V network in the house, but this would be nothing for longer distances.If one would be free to redo the standards a logical step would be a slightly high frequency, maybe near 100 Hz. This would allow for smaller transformers and motors and filter capacitors can be smaller. Slowing down an AC motor is possible with more poles, but there is no easy way to speed up beyound 3000/3600 RPM for 50/60 Hz. A higher frequency would also be a bit safer for those afraid of electrical shock - the current 50/60 Hz range is about the worst case when it comes to an electrical shock. Anyway I see little chance to actually getting a change in the frequency.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2024, 08:50:53 pm
content: Quote from: Kleinstein on December 29, 2024, 08:20:50 pmHow so? I beg to differ. I use them all the time and they (at least the well-made ones) are just fine.For higher current there are the different NEMA form factors, including locking plugs.

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2024, 09:17:21 pm
content: [quoteIf one would be free to redo the standards a logical step would be a slightly high frequency, maybe near 100 Hz. This would allow for smaller transformers and motors and filter capacitors can be smaller. Slowing down an AC motor is possible with more poles, but there is no easy way to speed up beyound 3000/3600 RPM for 50/60 Hz. A higher frequency would also be a bit safer for those afraid of electrical shock - the current 50/60 Hz range is about the worst case when it comes to an electrical shock. Anyway I see little chance to actually getting a change in the frequency.Ferranti built his first systems in the UK at 90HZ not sure why they ended up at 50HZ here.

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2024, 09:50:52 pm
content: QuoteAny particular one?Quotecertainly plenty of choiceand people think the european ceeform is complicated

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2024, 09:54:16 pm
content: Due to the skin depth, doubling the frequency is not a very good idea for transporting electricity.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 29, 2024, 10:58:52 pm
content: Aircraft often use 400 Hz to reduce the weight of transformers, etc.This is a trade-off with the weight of copper.At 60 Hz, there is a common rule of thumb that there is diminishing returns when using copper wire larger than 0.75 inch in diameter (due to skin depth), slightly smaller than 500 mcm wire (0.81 inch diameter).At 400 Hz, that translates to about 0.29 inch (AWG 1).Old-style railroad electrification was done at 25 Hz (Pennsylvania RR) or 16-2/3 Hz (Switzerland) to use reasonable weight on-board variable transformers with DC (brushed) motors.

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2024, 09:16:56 am
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on December 29, 2024, 09:54:16 pmFerranti knew this and his transmission lines were tubular concentric ones at that, he demonstrated the safety of his system by having the foreman hammer a cold chisel through a high voltage line with no ham to the man holding the chisel, earth/neutral on the outside and live inside. I think the only problem was it was a single phase system but this was 1898 1901 era.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2024, 12:24:23 pm
content: Quote from: RJSV on December 29, 2024, 07:52:21 pmCHP is the answer for cold climates. Absorption heat pump technology still isn't that great, so in practice most gas powered heat pumps are electric heat pumps plus generators. Separate it out and then you'll figure out the two don't need to be attached to the same building, in fact they can be many miles apart.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2024, 01:13:08 pm
content: The direction is clear: AC smart grid and long haul HVDC transmission. Smart grid means controlling power sources and loads.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2024, 09:57:52 pm
content: I like the idea of decentralized power generation, but I doubt it's something manageable, at least in large and dense areas.And, it would require ultra-safe power generators to allow many of them everywhere. Some think of solar panel installations, but that's not an answer to this. Granted that is safe, but that's an option more for individual houses, while the large majority of people worldwide living in large urban areas live in appartment buildings. Also, while that works rather well in very sunny regions such as Australia, not so much in others like the UK.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 30, 2024, 10:24:35 pm
content: One very important property of grids is redundancy, so that it is easy to recover function when one part of the grid generation goes down.This does no improve efficiency under normal situations, but is necessary for reliability under abnormal or fault conditions.An example from a few years ago: in February, 2021 Texas was hit by abnormally cold weather with three serious winter storms in quick succession.Since Texas, for political reasons, operates its own grid that is not connected to the two large US power grids, there was a serious power shortage when many Texas-located generation stations that were not well-winterized failed in the cold, coupled with high demand due to the weather.A more reliable grid connection might have saved a few hundred lives.If the only financial penalty for a utility to go down temporarily is a loss of customer revenue, the utility has little incentive to maintain reliability by extra investment.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 04, 2025, 09:40:53 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on December 30, 2024, 09:57:52 pmThe nice thing about hydrogen as seasonal storage would be an opportunity to completely re-engineer generation. Decentralization becomes possible to an extent no other technology would be able to manage, not even small nuclear reactors. High temperature solid oxide fuel cells don't get much more efficient at massive size, unlike turbines and nuclear reactors.QuoteCompared to natural gas stoves, you could create a generator a lot safer than that.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 04, 2025, 09:44:36 pm
content: Besides storage, hydrogen gas can be transported efficiently through the existing pipeline network to generator sites. Hydrogen embrittlement is relatively easy to deal with at normal temperatures by internal coatings.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 04, 2025, 10:58:30 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on December 30, 2024, 10:24:35 pmOr give an incentive for the end user to provide such redundancy, such as programs where they can get paid to be the first to get disconnected in such events. Which really means getting paid to use generators or other means of backup power and hence incentive to invest in it.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 04, 2025, 11:53:35 pm
content: Many domestic end users are poor, or rent in buildings controlled by others.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 12:04:50 am
content: Quote from: TimFox on January 04, 2025, 11:53:35 pmAnd why should/would that prevent them from accessing supply responsive pricing ?

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 12:05:27 am
content: Quote from: TimFox on January 04, 2025, 11:53:35 pmStill doesn't prevent such a program from being made available to them, the backup could be as simple as an inverter that plugs into a car. Now if it's an apartment building that would require more than just swapping in smart meters with internal relays, then the program would not be available in that location.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 12:53:49 am
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on January 05, 2025, 12:05:27 amIt is not going to be financially viable. Just do a cost calculation / TCO analysis of having a backup system capable of providing power for a couple of days. People will go out on the street with tar and pitchforks demanding energy to be cheaper instead. And that is no fantasy, lookup the yellow vests protests in France:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_protestsNot every problem has a technical (engineering) solution.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 01:17:32 am
content: They'll know about the terms ahead of time, if they're not properly prepared for it, their fault signing up. Perhaps a limit of how many hours they can be disconnected in a day would help.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 02:50:04 am
content: The "future" as we can imagine it in the mid term doesn't, IMHO, involve any kind of small-scale or even less so personal backup solutions. That's hard to manage, that's not economically viable, and the list goes on.As to hydrogen being safer to transport and safer to use locally than natural gas, I'm not sure what you have smoked, but it must be something pretty strong. Or maybe you are already thinking of the world in 2100.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 05:01:26 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on January 05, 2025, 12:53:49 amOnly you injected longer term backup here.What is reality right now are significant wholesale pricing differences on an hour by hour basis. There is nothing impractical about delaying by hours some power demand and that requires no storage or upfront costs. Add some shorter term storage such as thermal by HVAC or even fridge/freezer, again no cost when those appliances are already in the vast majority of households.Being paid to disconnect loads? that should be a choice people can make if there is a market for it. There is nothing inherently excluding renters, or requiring up front investment, or storage.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 09:14:37 am
content: Here every sensible poor person already uses hourly priced contract, because it's cheaper anyway, and it allows a poor person to further reduce their bill by choosing when they run their dishwasher or washing machine.Basically the remaining use cases for fixed contracts are* The large group of people who just do not care; they are used to paying premium for nothing (in the days before spot price contracts were popular, these same people just took whatever expensive contract when they could have saved hundreds a year simply by spending 5 minutes to switch to a cheaper contract)* Middle class people who use direct electric heating (radiators with little thermal storage capacity) and are unwilling to do anything to their heating systems and fear that spot pricing averages to higher than a well-chosen fixed contract. They spend many thousands a year for heating anyway. For them spot pricing ends up roughly the same, and they get a feeling that a fixed contract is "safer".Attached is my energy bill from December. This includes heating the house with heatpump. Note the energy cost of less than 4 cents/kWh. Fixed contracts are now 8.5 cents/kWh, but only if you understand what you are buying and when. Typical price fixed price customers are actually paying is way over 10 cents, and some pay over 40 cents and think they are somehow "safe" because the price is fixed. This is ridiculous way of thinking.During this time there were hours close to 100 cents/kWh; they don't affect the average price that much, but offer a real incentive to affect your consumption patterns.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 12:20:11 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on January 05, 2025, 02:50:04 amI wonder too. The near term solution is ammonia (NH3).

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 12:38:01 pm
content: Quote from: madires on January 05, 2025, 12:20:11 pmAmmonia is very toxic and flammable, there used to be a lot of fires in refrigeration plants caused by ammonia leaks, in fact there was one not far from where I live in the early 1980's at a frozen food plant causing it to shut down, it then changed to more modern refrigerants after it got sold off to another company.

author: Stringwinder
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 12:41:36 pm
content: Just to confirm that Siwastaja's "results" for december are accurate I have compared with myown december figures.December:Power usage 621 kWh (heating, hot water and lots of appliances)Cost 490,2 kr (39,6 €)Semidetached house 90 m2, 21 C indoorsTriple glass windows with new sealsTibber hourly tariffWater heating during low tariff hours (midnight - 5:00)Today midnight to 13:00-10,9 C outdoors16,91 kWh18,56 kr (1,50 €)Here are some astonishing figures from Europe on the use of heat pumps.Modern heat pumps work very well all year around even up here in Ultima Thule.At the press of a button you also have cooling in the summer.https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jan/03/theyve-heard-so-much-wrong-information-selling-heat-pumps-across-germanys-political-divideLooking at the diagram countries like UK and Germany don't look like they are inthe forefront of saving energy. On the contrary - plain stoopid they are.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 01:07:16 pm
content: Quote from: madires on January 05, 2025, 12:20:11 pmAmmonia is a terrible choice. If you want to be afraid, be afraid of ammonia due to its toxicity.The FUD-force is strong in some. And history is quickly forgotten. Before natural gas was commonly used, so called coal gas was used which main component is... hydrogen. The FUD spread by some gives me a major dejavu. In the 1980's the general public was made extremely afraid of nuclear energy (according to some the oil & gas industry sponsored the 'environmentalists'). You where better off putting a hot iron in your face than having a nuclear energy plant in your country.In the meantime the coal fired power plants kept chucking toxic gas into the atmosphere which did and does kill people. In reality nuclear power plants are the safest way to create energy by several orders of magnitude. Let's not make that mistake again because not investing more in nuclear energy has set society back instead of moving forward. Let's move forward this time.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 01:28:31 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on January 05, 2025, 01:07:16 pmCoal gas was generally about 50% hydrogen, 35% methane, and the rest included far too much carbon monoxide for comfort. I know the gas caused degradation of the network, but I don't know how serious a problem that was. I had a quick look for material on the topic, and couldn't find very much. Blends often have very different effects from a single pure thing, so a stab in the dark like 50% hydrogen == 50% of the problems of hydrogen is very likely far from accurate.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 01:59:51 pm
content: Ongoing experiments in the Netherlands show that using hydrogen for heating works just fine in existing natural gas infrastructure (which was already fitted with couplings & pipes suitable for hydrogen a long time ago).

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 02:08:51 pm
content: Quote from: G7PSK on January 05, 2025, 12:38:01 pmSome points fromhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonia:Quote

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 02:16:19 pm
content: Quote from: madires on January 05, 2025, 02:08:51 pmEasier to store doesn't mean easy. Hydrogen is a nightmare to store in large quantities, where the only realistic options are cryogenics and massive compression. Cooling or compressing it consumes a lot of wasted energy, and any leaks form a bomb in waiting. That makes ammonia look good, but only by comparison.The only real deployments of high hydrogen content gas has been the old coal gas/town gas systems. They didn't store very much gas. What they did store, as a production buffer, was only lightly compressed, in the telescopic metal domes you can still find in some cities, repurposed as regulators for the natural gas network.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 02:32:30 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on January 05, 2025, 01:07:16 pmThat argumentation is contracting itself. Demonising ammonia, a chemical commodity, while praising radioactivity. It's not so much about which one is more toxic or deadly. It's about which one we are able to handle in a reasonable way. BTW, I'm against shutting down all nuclear power plants in Germany. Moving to heatpunps for heating and and EVs for mobility we'll need three times the electric power we are currently generating.

author: NE666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 02:35:03 pm
content: Quote from: Stringwinder on January 05, 2025, 12:41:36 pmSome small insights into why heat pumps aren't such a great option for many (if not the vast majority) of existing properties in the UK. A sad fact is, much of the (now vastly overpriced) housing stock in the UK is just embarrassing when it comes to insulation, air tightness etc. Colder climates remedy this as a matter of necessity, whereas in more temperate ones such as much of England and Wales, you can 'get away' with rubbish. At least, you could, until the price of energy for heating sky rocketed, after years of complacency on the back of comparatively low oil, gas and electricity prices.Sure, this is being addressed to some degree with new builds (although I'd wager still not to the extent that I've seen in Sweden and Finland, for reasons previously stated) but there's no cost-effective way to bring older stock up to anything like the insulation values that are required in order for heat pumps to be REALLY effective. And, unlike our American cousins, we're far too invested and wedded to these bricks and mortar (as opposed to the land they are built upon, in relative terms), to consider tearing them down and replacing them after 50 -70 years with homes built to modern standards.And no, I'm not suggesting we start tearing down listed buildings, the family castle or country estates either. Much of British housing is just awful cr*p built post-war that we really shouldn't give a monkey's about replacing with better.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 02:41:14 pm
content: Quote from: NE666 on January 05, 2025, 02:35:03 pmThat is indeed the situation. In not so cold climates it made more sense to heat more than to insulate more. This means that for many houses a heat pump simply doesn't have the capacity to provide enough heat during a few days of really cold weather. In the Netherlands the recommendation is to get a hybrid heating system which uses natural gas to get the extra grunt needed when the heatpump can't cope.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 02:49:26 pm
content: Quote from: madires on January 05, 2025, 02:32:30 pmAre you aware ammonia is a gas? The stuff called ammonia in the supermarket is ammonia dilluted with water (typically less than 5% ammonia). As a gas it is pretty dangerous to deal with. Ammonia is also reactive with many metals so less suitable as a natural gas replacement because the piping uses many brass fittings. A natural gas or hydrogen leak doesn't hurt you (hydrogen is not toxic), an ammonia leak OTOH will cause serious injuries.

author: NE666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 02:50:08 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on January 05, 2025, 02:16:19 pmHowever, what if that energy is 'waste' to begin with?https://www.sizewellc.com/environment/net-zero/hydrogen/

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 02:52:00 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on January 05, 2025, 02:41:14 pmIt sounds like the Netherlands is being more realistic than the UK. Here they are pushing to ban the gas grid being extended into new housing estates, so the only option will be a heat pump. You might expect the new houses in a new estate to be better insulated, but I wouldn't bet on it. Standards are pretty bad here, and builders think a circle still has corners that can be cut. On the coldest days, when the COP falls, heat pumps need a lot of energy. If you only have a small number of super cold days each year, that may be affordable in pure energy costs. However, you will need a lot of electricity down every neighbourhood street on those cold days. We hear little about catering for peaks like that in the grid. We don't hear a thing about upgrading the entire last mile across the whole of the UK to deal with the far higher loads total electrification would bring. People always want to duck the last mile issue, for any form of infrastructure costs.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 02:52:16 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on January 05, 2025, 02:16:19 pmExactly! Therefore I would suspect that hydrogen and ammonia (as a bit less problematic version) won't go mainstream.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 02:54:01 pm
content: Coppice is wrong. Hydrogen is easy to store in old gas fields and salt caverns. That is already being done and being extended. Most European countries are gearing up to build hydrogen infrastructure and have it going within the next 5 years. Hydrogen is a done deal; it is going to be a big part of the transition away from fossil fuels in Europe (and likely other parts of the world as well).

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 02:54:49 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on January 05, 2025, 12:53:49 amDo a cost calculation of demographic change for the next 30 years ... there will be nothing close to a status quo for the next couple of decades, there will be only apocalyptical changes of which a net zero transition would just be a drop in the bucket.Net zero is a deckchair to shift around ... a good distraction.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 03:04:37 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on January 05, 2025, 02:54:01 pmDid I say anything different? Its easy. It just takes a lot of energy to compress enough into those places for them to form much of a storage area. We'll probably also find some funky seepage issues over time, that nobody likes. Those tiny molecules get everywhere.Quote from: nctnico on January 05, 2025, 02:54:01 pmI reply to a message about green hydrogen in this forum, and very quickly I am seeing recent reports about how green hydrogen projects are being cancelling in the US, Australia and the EU, and how the stock prices of companies involved in green hydrogen are plummeting. It seems I'm being monitored everywhere.By coincidence Sabine Hossenfelder just posted this on the same topic.(I don't think she is spying on me). This is looking like a replay of the carbon capture hype from a few years ago, where people were still saying how great it is when almost all the projects they referenced as models for the future had already shut down as unworkable.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 03:41:02 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on January 05, 2025, 02:52:00 pmWe'll need more power plants, more long haul transmission lines and more copper in the local distribution. Won't happen over night. But in the meantime we have a new regulation over here for limiting the load of ACs, heatpumps and wallboxes (EV charger) temporarily to 4.2 kW to protect the local grid (for new units). And they are still figuring out how to design the remote control.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 04:37:44 pm
content: Quote from: madires on January 05, 2025, 03:41:02 pmWhy won't they just commit to batteries?Solves :- peak solar reverse currents- peak heating load- lack of grid capacityYes batteries are expensive, but given how much they solve at the moment ... they seem cheap to me.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 05:16:14 pm
content: That's a decision of the electricity suppliers. For example, EnBW is building a 100 MWh battery storage.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 06:02:18 pm
content: It's usually huge centralised batteries. The pressing problems are at the edge. You can solve a lot of HV capacity problems with batteries at the edge, but vice versa never.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 07:47:18 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on January 05, 2025, 03:04:37 pmThey aren't cancelling them to pump trillions into building PWRs though. The EU is running out of steam economically and the US is running out of Biden, the abandonment of hydrogen is not the perfection of a plan, it's an abandonment of planning. Portraying it as some kind of victory of common sense is silly.QuoteYou can sum up problems of a solution ... but if you don't discuss an alternative, it's not a real counterargument.Hydrogen bashing confuses the issue. Rapid pace nuclear (ie. the pace of half a century ago) as opposed to renewable+hydrogen, that's what she should discuss from a technological point of view. If she wants to get into the politics of it, well then point out we're completely screwed at this pace and abandoning hydrogen makes it worse, not better.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 09:45:07 pm
content: Can someone here please address the possibility of using pumped-water storage as an energy-storage solution?There's at least one such project underway in my region.Seems like a reasonable approach, assuming the right topography and hydrology of a region.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 09:59:14 pm
content: Quote from: NE666 on January 05, 2025, 02:35:03 pmThis misses the point. If you need to heat your house the amount of insulation is a cost factor, but does not change the heating load required if comparing different heating systems.What you dont say is that the consumer price for gas in the UK is around 1/3rd of the price of electricity per unit of energy delivered. That's all there is to it, as todays heat pumps deliver an average COP (SCOP) of over 3 and heading off into 4+ then it becomes rational to replace even gas heating with heat pumps. So wrong on that too.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 10:03:34 pm
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on January 05, 2025, 09:45:07 pmIf you have the right geography for it, and adequate water to make up for evaporation and other losses, pumped storage is a really great solution. Its used to smooth night and day demand. Its used to provide power rapidly in an emergency when a big generator suddenly failed. It has been around for a long time, and it well proven. If there were vast numbers of spots with the right geography and water resources it would be THE way we solve the renewables storage problem.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 10:16:44 pm
content: Quote from: Someone on January 05, 2025, 09:59:14 pmThis point gets handled really poorly in a lot of discussions about heat pumps. The issue is really about UK style systems. These mostly consist of installing an air-to-water heat pump as a replacement for a gas boiler, connecting the high temperature water from the heat pump to the existing radiators. The gas boiler was probably outputting water at 70C to 80C. If you try to get that from a heat pump the COP sucks. So, you want to keep the water temperature considerably lower, or the electric bills are going to be really bad. If you run 50C water through the existing radiators the house won't get warm enough. If you change all the radiators for much larger ones, you use up all the wall space, and the furniture won't fit. You might be able to change some single panel radiators for double panel ones, but if they were mostly double panel to begin with that won't work. If you try to insulate an old house beyond basics like double glazing, rockwool in the loft, and so on, you have a really tough time to improve the insulation without seriously transforming the house. So, you end up stuck between a rock and a hard place.I'm not sure what is happening with new builds in the UK. The sane thing would be to use air-to-air heat pumps, and have no radiators. That keeps the output temperature of the heat pump as low as possible, and the COP can be really good.

author: Stringwinder
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 10:38:23 pm
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on January 05, 2025, 09:45:07 pmSome examples of what goes on in Europe.https://www.minestorage.com/project/vanga-sweden/https://powerplants.vattenfall.com/sv/goldisthal/A project to restore what once was a pumped-storage hydroelectricity plant.https://projekt.vattenfall.se/vattenkraftsprojekt/juktan(all links in swedish)

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 10:59:07 pm
content: Pumped-water storage goes back to 1907 in Switzerland and 1930 in the US.The first one I saw personally is in Tochigi Prefecture of Japan, which was then quite new.Japan has several. It is in second place behind China and ahead of the US for installed capacity.Obviously, mountainous countries are suitable for this process, along with reversible turbines.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 11:25:07 pm
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on January 05, 2025, 09:45:07 pmSalt water is a shitty medium to pump, fresh water has limited availability.I'm not sure how scalable the deep sea pumped storage is, where you pull a concrete chamber filled with fresh water vacuum into a bladder. Can't use natural terrain to store the water, but you can get a whole lot of head.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 11:40:36 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on January 05, 2025, 10:16:44 pmDouble panel radiators work well with radiatorboosters. Use radiatorboosters with <800 RPM fans most of the year, add power from some FCUs when it gets really cold.The FCUs don't take a lot of room can be relatively cheap, though a lot of people would object to the aesthetics.

author: ejeffrey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 05, 2025, 11:42:13 pm
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on January 05, 2025, 09:45:07 pmIt works great where it works. Most places in industrialized nations that have the right setup for hydroelectric power had it built in the 1950s.There has been some research into storage only hydroelectric. That's basically connecting lakes at different elevations that don't have an existing river between them. It potentially opens up a lot more sites and reduces environmental impact since you aren't damming existing waterways. But hydroelectric is capital intensive, and storage is still hard to economically justify if it doesn't accompany production.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 12:05:13 am
content: Quote from: ejeffrey on January 05, 2025, 11:42:13 pmIn case you missed it, that's exactly what my question above was about.Neither lake has to be already existing for this scheme to work. Just need the right elevation change (and access to water, of course).

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 12:06:38 am
content: According to Wikipedia, as of 2020, the operational storage capacity (world total) is 1600 GW-hour, with generating capability of 181 GW. Round-trip efficiency estimated at 70-80%. That is about 95% of total grid storage now in service. Capital costs are high, but practical lifetime is high.It is mainly used for load balancing (diurnal).“Hybrid” storage, pumping water back up to a hydro power reservoir, is also in use.My home state of Illinois is very flat, so not practical in my backyard.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 12:10:46 am
content: Quote from: TimFox on January 06, 2025, 12:06:38 amMaybe down near Kentucky? Or near those mounds (like the Cahokia Mounds)?"Hey, let's desecrate a historic native American site for some energy storage!"

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 01:17:11 am
content: Not much relief in those areas of southern Illinois.The largest mound at Cahokia is about 30 m high.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 01:23:27 am
content: The future is clearly AI powered by quantum computing, smartly managing the safe distribution of green hydrogen.

author: vad
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 01:25:59 am
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on January 04, 2025, 10:58:30 pmToo complicated. In similar communist countries, rationing was used when resources became scarce due to the incompetence and mismanagement of totalitarian leadership. Rationing at the distribution level is highly efficient and does not require multi-billion-dollar investments in Chinese-made smart meters. It could work like this: towns with names starting with the letter “A” get power between 1PM and 2:55PM on even days except Sundays, while towns starting with the letter “B” are privileged to receive electricity between 2:55PM and 3:50PM on the same days, and so on.Those unable to keep their residences above freezing could install a coal stove and a chimney at a fraction of the cost of a heat pump. These would also outlast a Chinese-made heat pump by an order of magnitude.PS. Particulate matter in coal smog, which reflects sunlight away from the Earth’s surface, could contribute to reducing the greenhouse effect.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 01:28:50 am
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on January 06, 2025, 01:23:27 amYou forgot to add cold fusion.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 02:48:46 am
content: Quote from: coppice on January 05, 2025, 10:16:44 pmblah blah blah legacy ?Rube Goldberg heating system blah blah blah.....Quote from: coppice on January 05, 2025, 10:16:44 pmYes, like the majority of the world. There may be some significant sunk cost in the hydronic systems in place, but as COP increases (or if gas in the UK heads towards an economically rational price) then just put in Air-Air split systems and be done with it. Air-air splits are the volume production product and amazingly cheap.All this inflated talk about things which aren't important and may not apply to others. If you want to compare heating costs, just plainly state the fixed and variable costs of each alternative. Rather than walls of text trying to justify a specific solution which probably doesn't make sense (otherwise it would be a short point of something like: Air-Air mini split has a 3 year pay off period).

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 08:59:22 am
content: Once you need more than a couple heaters, hydronic with FCUs can be cheaper than multisplit and avoids needing to put up a whole bunch of single splits.The market for residential FCUs is just poorly developed in most nations.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 10:25:30 am
content: Quote from: Marco on January 06, 2025, 08:59:22 amFor a good reason. FCUs are just a crutch. The same for air-to-air heating. A much better solution is hydronic underfloor heating if you are living in a colder climate. AFAIK this is standard in most new homes in the Netherlands. And it is quite easy to retrofit in existing houses for a long as they have concrete / cement floors (been there, done that). However, in many cases the first improvement is getting a ventilation system with heat recovery.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 10:57:47 am
content: FCUs can do below dewpoint cooling and has much faster response (it heats the air first, instead of a ton of concrete first). Floor heating has more comfort. Unless you are made of money and can do both, there is no clear winner.Any building air tight enough to benefit from centralized ventilation has floor heating already, it's all the "natural" ventilated homes which are the problem.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 11:29:36 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on January 05, 2025, 02:54:01 pmI remember you saying the same 5 years ago

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 11:34:24 am
content: Quote from: Someone on January 06, 2025, 02:48:46 amGood grief. You actually said something sensible for once.In the UK right now those Rube Goldberg setups are all anyone will install, as they get a large bung from the government for installing them. If you choose sane products they will both heat and cool. The government hates the UK being comfortable in the summer, so it will not subsidise any heat pump system with the ability to cool your home in the summer. Perhaps the big heat pump makers should start selling their air to air products with the cooling function so totally disabled that the UK government will pay for them.

author: NE666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 11:42:41 am
content: Quote from: Someone on January 05, 2025, 09:59:14 pmright, because reducing output heat flux has no bearing on the input requirement to maintain a steady state??

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 11:45:22 am
content: Quote from: coppice on January 06, 2025, 11:34:24 amSolution: forget the ****ing subsidies and the government. Subsidized tech is always more expensive to everyone, including those that get the nominal "subsidy" because it transfers directly into the price. Why do you think you need a government to babysit? Just order an air-to-air heatpump and get it installed. It's not like it's banned in the UK?

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 11:50:31 am
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on January 05, 2025, 09:45:07 pmBased onhttps://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_von_Pumpspeicherkraftwerken#Deutschland(in German) Germany has around 30 in operation with a maximum power of 10 GW for 4 to 8 hours. Buthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity#Worldwide_uselists just 6.5 GW.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 11:54:04 am
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on January 06, 2025, 11:45:22 amI think the subsidies are a terrible idea. They just create perverse incentives, like the one I described. However, he subsidies are so big people find it hard to walk away from them. The fact that they had to be so big to get anyone to take them shows how messed up things really are.

author: NE666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 12:01:43 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on January 06, 2025, 11:45:22 amExactly. My large-ish (50m2) outdoor office/workshop is insulated into the next world, has MHR for ventilation and is equipped with a 'standard' 5kw small commercial split air-to-air system from Mitsubishi. Works brilliantly in the heights of UK summer, and depths of winter. Affordable to install and to operate.Same premise will be employed when it comes to renovating the main property. I used a local, long-time established refrigeration and ventilation company for the install and it was still cheaper than anything that the government would subsidise, had it been destined for the main property.UK grants seem always destined to be funneled straight into the pockets of fly-by-night companies setup specifically to profiteer from them, without any financial gain to the customer. Same cr*p about 10 years ago, when they were trying to push wood pellet heating. Prices just jumped up by the the price of the grant, as soon as grants became available.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 12:08:01 pm
content: Quote from: NE666 on January 06, 2025, 12:01:43 pmTo be fair, the subsidies don't always end up with fly-by-nights set up just to grab them. Many government schemes have been specifically set up to get things going in small enterprises, with almost all the money finally ending up in the hands of long established large enterprises, where it dissipates, and starts nothing new.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 12:16:00 pm
content: Quote from: NE666 on January 06, 2025, 12:01:43 pmSo you how many external units will grace your walls?Multi-splits are nowhere near as cheap per air handler as mini-splits.

author: NE666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 12:21:39 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on January 06, 2025, 12:16:00 pmNone. It will, as you suggest, be implemented as centralised air handling. Mini-splits are fine, functionally and cosmetically, for an outdoor room but I wouldn't want to see them on the walls of my main residence.By 'same premise', I mean to convey air-to-air, supported by MHR, 'airtight' building envelope and very high R values.

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 01:34:53 pm
content: QuoteAh yes hot air heating,to those of a certain age that conjures up images of the late 60's early 70s houses with a vent in every room that would blow dust everywhere and share the smell of last nights curry with every room

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 02:00:11 pm
content: Found a picture of a syncroscope at Battersea power station. The man turning the handle is adjusting the viewing angle the meters are viewed from the control panel of the set being brought on line hence the need to alter the point of view.

author: NE666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 02:09:01 pm
content: Quote from: themadhippy on January 06, 2025, 01:34:53 pmI am of that age, and yes, it does indeed bring back memories. Including visiting a school friend who lived in such a home, as his father had just bought one of the new Betamax recorders and had Alien on cassette. Old oil-fired systems that the councils were keen on fitting in their housing stock during that period, which sounded like an airliner's APU when they fired-up.Fortunately, modern HVAC and MHR has moved very far on from that.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 02:14:58 pm
content: Quote from: NE666 on January 06, 2025, 12:21:39 pmNot really a solution cheaply available to most people of course. If ductwork isn't pre-existing, central air is up there with fitting floor heating for the entire home.Air to air has significant problems for most old homes except for the handful which had central air. Not insurmountable, not negligible.

author: NE666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 02:29:17 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on January 06, 2025, 02:14:58 pmYes, that is the significant problem with it. It's really only viable for new builds and significant rebuilds.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 02:35:07 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on January 06, 2025, 02:14:58 pmAir to centralised air is a problem for older homes lacking the necessary ductwork. However, air to separate heat exchangers in each room is not really a problem in most older houses, and you don't have the problem of smells from one room circulating to another.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 02:44:15 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on January 06, 2025, 02:14:58 pmWhat is normally meant by "air to air heatpump" is not some weird esoteric central air system, but just a bog standard splitroom air conditioner, invention from 1980's. They cost 500-1000€ and can be retrofitted in nearly any home, the only exception being a windowless middle-of-the-building apartment with long distance to all outer walls.They are not always complete stand-alone heating solutions and don't need to be. They reduce heating costs. Heating of hot water, and heating some of the rooms can continue using whatever old system. This also increases redundancy.Most of the world works this way and it works everywhere else except the UK. There is something special in UK (and to lesser degree, some middle European countries) which causes people to hallucinate excuse after excuse why this true and tested technology can't work there.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 03:05:51 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on January 06, 2025, 02:44:15 pmThe only thing a heat pump installation that actually makes the UK different to many places is the air sourcing, not how the heat sinks. For much of the winter the mix of external temperature and humidity in much of the UK leads to a large amount of freezing over compared to most places. I suspect this is solvable, and that existing products have been optimised for different climates where the sales volumes are higher. Resistively heated defrosters are a bit of a joke, really. In cities, there is a problem which is common to most places with a high population density. That is finding a place for the external unit that is well ventilated and won't disturb the neighbours. There will be a grid problem if every house in a street changes to a heat pump, as nobody is talking about the upgrades which will be needed to the last mile. I don't know if other countries are properly facing up to this, but it is largely ignored here. Apart from that the problem with trying to sell heat pumps in the UK is there is currently no benefit for the purchaser over using gas.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 03:36:59 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on January 06, 2025, 02:44:15 pmIf you want to heat 5 rooms, that's 5 externals. You can get 5x multisplits, but that's going to run you 5000 Euros uninstalled. Also for all electric you will need to add a heatpump boiler, wheras an air to water heatpump can do that on the side.There's niches for everything mentioned here, but for older homes with existing hydronics, air to air is not an autowin regardles of subsidies. FCUs from Panasonic and non designer Italian brands are very affordable.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 04:37:45 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on January 06, 2025, 03:05:51 pmUK weather is ideal for air source heat pumps. Don't worry, "UK weather" exists everywhere else, maybe not just as often. No special products are needed, every normal air-to-air heatpump works fine. This is one of the made-up excuses, we could create a list.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 05:01:03 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on January 06, 2025, 04:37:45 pmNo. As has been explained several times before, the insulation and ventilation of older homes (say before 1990) is insufficient for an air source heatpump to provide enough heat. The same problem exists in the Netherlands. Fixing those houses is not financially viable as it would cost like 30k to 50k euro. Using a hybrid heater which can use both electricity and (natural) gas is a better solution.Due to colder weather in Finland, home insulation & ventilation has advanced 30 (or more) years ahead of the current state of homes in the UK and the Netherlands (and probably large parts of Germany, Poland, Belgium, northern part of France, etc).

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 06:00:50 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on January 06, 2025, 04:37:45 pmSo, how much time does your heat pump spend defrosting itself on a bad day?

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 06:05:24 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on January 06, 2025, 05:01:03 pmYou have been "explaining" that over and over again, but it's some of the most psychedelic mental acrobacy I have ever seen because the truth, which you can derive by simple common sense, is the opposite. With small heating needs, source of heating is less important; even higher cost source is less costly in absolute terms, same for CO2 or any other metric; it doesn't matter because you consume so little. With large heating needs, like older poorly insulated homes, the savings provided by heatpump mean the investment is easier to pay back, because the absolute saving is larger.Here, retrofit heatpumps are most popular in homes of 1970's and before. When typical heat load is 30MWh/year for a tad larger than average (or poorly insulated) home, and you can supply 2/3 of it by heatpump(s) even with average COP of just 2.0, you have saved 10MWh/year. Then again, some new houses (especially smaller ones) built after 2010 here consume so little energy due to excellent insulation that for the required 5MWh/year they just use resistive electric heating, you could theoretically save like max 3MWh/year.What you don't seem to realize is that heatpumps come in many different sizes. If the smallest 2.5kW (nominal thermal) room unit is not large enough, 3.5 and 5.0 kW units are readily available and not any more expensive per kW (actually cheaper).QuoteHybrid isexcellentsolution; especially fossil + heatpump has good synergy because you can run fossils during extreme colds when COP would plummet, and heatpump otherwise; this also allows you to underdimension the heatpump (it doesn't need to do the full thermal load); although, the savings from undersizing is not that great, but it's something.Biggest issue building such hybrids at least here is inflated prices of turn-key solutions.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 06:19:23 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on January 06, 2025, 06:05:24 pmNope. Actually my father is a thermodynamics engineer by trade and since he is retired, he is a volunteer advisor for people to improve their homes where it comes to energy consumption. Based on his calculations / models an air sourced heatpump simply isn't enough to heat a home build before 1990 (ish). This is also verified / found by other experts and the general advise to people with such older homes is to get a heatpump / gas hybrid heater. Again, you can't compare the situation in Finland with the situation more to the south as the heating requirements are far lower and houses could have much crappier insulation / construction compared to what is required in scandinavia.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 07:22:22 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on January 06, 2025, 06:19:23 pmYet, those machines were invented and developed in Japan in 1980's to heat up basically non-insulated paper houses formerly heated up with oil heaters, in the aftermath of the the oil crisis. But I'm sure your dad knows better.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 07:30:49 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on January 06, 2025, 06:19:23 pmWith existing radiators.There's tons of shitty insulated commercial buildings heated by air to air heatpumps and air to water heatpumps with FCUs ... just throw more power at it. The power density of FCUs with 35c water is not a limiting factor.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 08:11:36 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on January 06, 2025, 07:22:22 pmIn those paper houses, they don't heat the room (which is impossible with the wind blowing through the sliding doors) but they heat the people while they sit under a blanket which covers the heater. An entirely different concept.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 08:23:51 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on January 06, 2025, 07:22:22 pmNot this one again. 90% of Japanese homes have at least an air con. Can you tell me the number where at least one of those is a reverse cycle type, which can heat as well as cool?

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 11:48:22 pm
content: Quote from: NE666 on January 06, 2025, 11:42:41 amChanging insulation level/quantity/amount would change the required thermal energy for whatever heating solution is being compared.Better insulation is not a prerequisite for considering a heat pump, which is what you were saying. If you need some blah amount of heat why is a heat pump inapplicable? they come in various sizes up to and including mansion sized 3 phase central HVAC.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 06, 2025, 11:56:14 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on January 06, 2025, 06:05:24 pm8,10, even 12kW (I recalled a 15-16kW unit but cant find a link) wall mount units are available here, commonly seen in low cost offices.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 12:00:31 am
content: Quote from: coppice on January 06, 2025, 08:23:51 pmStill feigning ignorance on that one?https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/what-is-the-real-story-around-heat-pumps/msg5352680/#msg5352680That would be a referenced and specific reply to you, on the exact question you pose as unanswered.Quote from: Someone on February 24, 2024, 12:06:09 amSo either you're a forgetful old coot, or your're trolling.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 12:27:56 am
content: Quote from: Someone on January 06, 2025, 11:48:22 pmThe keywords ares size, noise and costs. Try to retrofit an existing home with a much larger heating unit. It just won't fit without expensive remodeling -if that is even possible-. A bigger unit is also more expensive making the ROI move further away. A bigger unit will also make more noise. Typically there are strict noise limits. In the Netherlands the limit is 40dB.All in all better insulation and ventilation aretheprerequisites for considering a heat pump! But retrofitting can be expensive and it might not even be possible. One of my projects for 2025 is doing a retrofit with a heat-recovery ventilation system. As my home isn't designed for it, placement of the ventilation unit alone turned out the be a big puzzle involving more and wider piping, big noise dampeners, the physical size of the unit (320 liters versus 60 liters of the existing exhaust only fan unit which has the same m^3/h capacity), easy physical acces for changing the filters, getting a drain in place and where & how to install the extra air ducts.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 12:38:15 am
content: Quote from: Someone on January 07, 2025, 12:00:31 amYou are the ignorant one. Read what you posted, understanding that its marketing material. "More than 90% of homes in Japan are already equipped with heat pumps for space heating and cooling." The vast majority is cooling only. You look at random page on the internet that say something that fits your agena, and treat it like gospel. Japan is FAMOUS for being an outlier among affluent countries, in not broadly heating their homes. Try going to these places you think you know so much about, and learn.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 01:10:30 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on January 07, 2025, 12:27:56 amWho is saying larger or needs more heating capacity? I'm pointing out the misdirection by introducing more variables rather than comparing like for like. If house needs X quantity of heating energy, then that could be provided by various forms of heating technologies. Todays heat pumps with a SCOP of over 3 make them the cheapest form of heating in most locations, what matters are the local pricing of the energy and the local pricing of the appliances not these other imaginary "problems".Quote from: nctnico on January 07, 2025, 12:27:56 amWhy? What does a heat pump HVAC system need additional ventilation or cooling. You simply say it as fact but provide zero explanation or justification. It may be some economic consideration in your non-specific and unexplained analysis but you're coy on any details... likely because they wouldn't hold up to any scrutiny. Keep shouting your "truth" and I'll keep pointing out there is no substance or factual basis for the wild generalisation.I moved from gas heating to air-air split system, didn't change a single thing about the house. So immediately your claims are falsified.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 01:22:31 am
content: Quote from: coppice on January 07, 2025, 12:38:15 amHands up everyone who has been to Japan? Oh yes, that'd be me too.So we've got you ignoring the plain English of a reputable source who says:QuoteEmphasis mine. The vast majority of air-air split systems are reversible heat pumps and you have nothing to substantiate an alternative claim. So as before, if you think the world is full of non-reversible heat pumps that is on you to find the citations. The majority are not cooling only, as every where I look comes out with vast majority being reversible.The only markets where single direction operation heat pumps appear in any quantity are where there is market intervention (subsidies or bans) to prevent them being taken up. Reverse cycle is the obvious choice as the majority of the populated worldwantssome heating and some cooling even if only for some short periods of the year.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 01:44:54 am
content: Yeah.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 01:53:00 am
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on January 07, 2025, 01:44:54 amA pile of (almost certainly air-air) split systems, and wait for it... using them for heating!

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 01:56:03 am
content: This video was suggested to me by YT, I didn't actually look for it specifically. Freaky!

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 10:20:17 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on January 07, 2025, 12:27:56 amBut it really is the opposite:A house heated up by expensive energy cost form (e.g., resistive electric, or oil) benefits from renovation where insulation is added. For example, consumption goes down from 30MWh/a to 15MWh/a. Maybe the cost of renovation is e.g. 20000€.Or, high-consumption house can be equipped with heatpump(s). Maybe the cost is again 10-20000€ (less for multiple separate split units, more for central air-to-water or ground source system). Again, consumption goes down from 30MWh/a to 15MWh/a.But does it make sense to doboth? Prices just add up, there is no synergy, so total cost would be e.g. 40 000€ (assuming the more expensive side of heatpump installation for sake of discussion). And energy consumption would go down to 7.5MWh/a.So first 15MWh costs 20000€, the next 7.5MWh costs again 20000€.This is exactly why we see most retrofit heatpumps in most poorly insulated houses, all sorts of garages etc.; it's thealternativefor improving insulation.A modern well-insulated house (these were called "passive houses" here for some time, now the term is dropped as it's just simply the new requirement) here is nowadays often heated by a special thing called exhaust air heatpump assisted with resistive electric heating, simply because thermal loss through walls, floors and ceiling is so small it does not make sense to put money into an outdoor unit sucking heat out of outdoor air.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 10:36:11 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on January 07, 2025, 12:27:56 amThese are of course real arguments, and visual aesthetics one more reason. I can't argue against them. In Finland too there were some incidents where local authorities tried banning air-to-air heatpumps around 2010-2015 during the peak popularity because some bureaucrat thought the outdoor units "look ugly". They gave up with the idea, because most of the population is sensible, people want this stuff and don't want someone else to decide for them.But really, behind all this rationalization, I very well know what is the real reason of non-adaptation in some countries; it has nothing to do with house insulation compatibility or whatever bullcrap; it's money. It is always about money. What is similar between Finland, Japan and many other countries is relatively even energy prices between different forms and non-subvention of certain energy forms.And fair enough, I'm not saying you should be adopting technology which does not make financial sense to you. Just that I find it hilarious what kind of complicated excuses you guys are making up instead of simply saying: "oh, we have cheap gas and expensive electricity, this does not work for us".You may not realize it fully, but what you have in NL is artificially cheap natural gas which is artificially cheap because Russians sold it to you to gain political power over you. For example in Finland,evenwith all theFinnlandisierunggoing on, we were sensible enough never to start relying on Russian gas even though the temptation must have been great. Instead, we invested into our electrical system (for example, with Russian nuclear technology sure, but that does not cause such long-term dependency). As a result, our fossil heating fuel traditionally costs nearly as much as electric energy, like 20-30% less, not 70% or 80% less like in UK or some central European countries.This totally shifts the cost balance. If heating with oil (similar to you using gas) costs x €/year, then heating with a heatpump with COP=2.5 costs x/2.5 €/year.For you guys who pay maybe 5 pennies/cents / kWh for fossils but 30 pennies/cents / kWh for electric power it is obvious you don't want to invest in heatpumps. This is all right. But just say so.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 10:49:06 am
content: Quote from: Someone on January 07, 2025, 01:53:00 amOf course. If you ever visit to Japan, or watch any videos (anime is fine too!) you will see that your quoted 90% number is in the right ballpark. People like coppice are not trolls, they just have their neurons wired with careful coefficients so that un-learning wrong information takes more effort than one corrective statistics posted.Japan is interesting because it is really a hybrid of heating rooms, not heating rooms (as nctnico suggests), heating all the rooms, heating only one room at a time; using heatpumps; using resistive electric (heated blankets, or infrared heaters); using oil heaters (that put the exhaust directly in room air and depend on a lot of ventilation, pretty scary by my intuition but it works); burning coal in open air; orkotatsu, being under a heated blanket-insulated table which usually has a resistive electrical heater in it but apparently in that video even the oil heater + flexible duct goes (this I have not seen before).The history of this is gradual addition of stuff over the existing tradition without removing anything. Supposedly resistive electric + oil were both additions during the industrialization era, maybe soon after WW2. And in 1980's-1990's split air-to-air heatpumps were added, which is a very convenient thing to do because before that they used cooling-only window units (similar to what is still quite popular in the USA); a split unit does both heating and cooling at not much extra expense.You only need to visit Japan to see with your own eyes that it really looks like this (random images from Google):https://www.dreamstime.com/kumamoto-japan-november-outdoor-electricity-supply-air-conditioning-units-image136795889https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-air-conditioners-on-the-outside-of-a-building-in-japan-127331057.htmlhttps://www.pixtastock.com/photo/66891254And yes, these things heat up, they have this remote control thing which have heat and cool buttons in it. EDIT: for example look at the second image, they have installed a pipe system to drain condensate water (defrosting water) out of outdoor units; only a heating-mode thing.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 11:06:28 am
content: For the UK the problem is that natural gas is about the same price as heating a property using a heatpump.Example sums, I pay about 6p/kWh for gas, and 22p/kWh (on peak) for electricity. I get cheap electricity from 7p/kWh for 6 hours or sometimes more a night to charge the car, but it's usually from 11pm, not useful for heating the home.So if I have a COP of 3.5, I would pay equivalent of 6.2p/kWh (heating). Gas boiler is ca. 85% efficient in typical operation, so 7.1p/kWh heating cost.Breakeven point for a £10,000 investment is 1,100,000kWh or >100 years for my typical usage. Can't remove the standing charge as I still have a gas cooker, and that isn't going any time soon (would replace with induction, but only as part of revamping kitchen.)There is currently a subsidy of £7,500 to install a heat pump. With a contribution from the energy provider, the install comes in around £2,000. But it's still a lot of money to spend for little advantage. Especially when the relative novelty of them is an issue in the UK - there are few companies out there that can service and repair them.The cost of electricity needs to fall to make heat pumps more attractive in the UK.

author: Stringwinder
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 11:18:47 am
content: Some facts on what actual COP & SCOP figures were a few years ago.Just checked the specification of my own air-air heatpump (Hitachi RAK-35RPC).Efficiency class A++Installed 2021 so things may have improved even more since then.cooling 3,5 kWEER 3,72SEER 7,80heating 4,2 kWCOP 4,20SCOP 4,90

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 11:19:04 am
content: Quote from: tom66 on January 07, 2025, 11:06:28 amExactly. It is this simple. And you don't need any subsidies, you need gradual improvement of electrical system (more production, even using the natural gas).One thing unique to UK is that you have some of your own natural gas resources. But according to thishttps://www.mygridgb.co.uk/guest-blog-are-there-advantages-of-uk-onshore-natural-gas-part-2/you are still not even half self sufficient and over 10% is/was coming from Russia. So there is still some political instability in your gas-based heating system, although tomuchlesser degree than rest of the Europe.But this instability still does not fully reflect into your prices. Just like it does not reflect into European gas prices. This is because the political systems are bullshit where no one is responsible for their own actions; for example, when the shit hit the fan in Germany, Finland volunteered to pay Germany's gas bills, instead of German citizens having to pay for their own political choices. This was our gift so that you don't have to take those cold showers; you are welcome!But in the long run, having to pay for your own mistakes would be optimal to avoid similar mistakes in the future. Russian gas was one such mistake; and I don't understand why it must be so hard to admit that and do better in the future

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 11:21:23 am
content: Quote from: Stringwinder on January 07, 2025, 11:18:47 amNote though that this SCOP is for a pretty warm climate (tell-tale sign is that quoted SCOP is better than quoted COP). In Swedish climate (well depending how up North you live) you should expect significantly smaller SCOP. But still probably over 3.0; modern-day air-to-air units are pretty amazing.If you have an opportunity to use alternative heating methods (e.g., burn wood) during coldest days, that will of course drive your SCOP up significantly, and taken to the extreme, nearly approaching this marketing value.

author: woody
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 11:30:17 am
content: Quote from: tom66 on January 07, 2025, 11:06:28 amSame here. The main cause is that electricity is taxed at €0,13/kWh and gas at €0.71/M3. You would expect that, in a world where you want me to change to use electricity for heat generation instead of gas, you tax me less for electricity.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 11:52:21 am
content: Quote from: woody on January 07, 2025, 11:30:17 amWow, that is pretty insaneIf I calculated correctly, 0.71€/m^3 is roughly 0.066€/kWh, so "extra penalty" for electricity is 6 cents.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 12:04:53 pm
content: Quote from: Someone on January 07, 2025, 01:53:00 amI see one at about 8:45. Can you point out any others?He says something odd about the one at 8:45, that they use the heat function for drying clothes. Clothes drying modes use the dehumidify function, not the heating one. Any ordinary air-con has that ability.

author: NE666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 12:06:13 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on January 07, 2025, 11:19:04 amI think the benefit of subsidies is in the incentivisation of homeowners to replace fossil-fueled systems at the end of their natural working lifespan. Whilst there is such little difference in operating costs, heat pumps and any subsidies for them shouldn't be being aimed at "scrappage" style schemes, replacing perfectly serviceable heating systems for the sake of government set targets.If new builds and major rebuilds have heat pumps mandated, with incentives to update older properties when appropriate, then it is also easier to manage the transition and the infrastructure demands that it makes. We got into this 'mess' over the course of a century, so to imagine that we can back it out within a decade is nothing but wishful thinking.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 12:06:28 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on January 07, 2025, 01:56:03 amThis keeps happening to me recently. I post or read about something in this forum which I haven't touched for ages, and suddenly I get ads and suggestions related to that topic.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 12:16:28 pm
content: Quote from: Someone on January 07, 2025, 01:22:31 amWell, there's Taiwan, and Hong Kong, and Malaysia, and Thailand, and Singapore, and Vietnam to list a few I know from personal experience. Why would using a reverse cycle unit be an obvious choice, when you have little need for heating beyond hot water? The reverse cycle units are bigger, and cost more. When we replaced our air-cons with reverse cycle units in our flat in Hong Kong it was quite a complex job, as they would not fit in the spaces which had been provided for air-cons. This is a big factor in many places where most people live in flats, rather than having control of a sizeable space with more flexibility to change things.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 01:41:57 pm
content: Most "bang-bang" on/off air conditioners in the US don't reverse cycle either. Newer inverter units do.The lack of reverse cycling for a simple on/off air conditioner is simpler to understand since a heat pump system requires defrost, which implies some level of intelligent control to either periodically reverse the cycle to defrost the exchanger (and you don't want/need to do that at full power). Also, to get the best efficiency from any heatpump you ideally want the expansion valves to be adjustable. So suddenly you've gone from something that is just "call for cold" that turns on the full compressor, to something requiring actual control electronics, and control electronics arehard. Half joking, but they do add to the bottom line of price, and if you're building for a consumer market, price is everything.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 02:11:40 pm
content: Please be careful with manufacturer's COP specs. They are inflated similar to the gas mileage of cars, i.e. for ideal conditions in a lab. A few years back some organisation did a small study on the realworld COP values of different modern heatpump types across Germany (newly installed in homes). The average COP for air-to-water heatpumps (the most common type over here) was about 2.6. For a home in a city (usually a few °C warmer) you'll get a higher COP, while for urban areas the COP is lower. With heatpumps improving and less cold winters due to the climate change the average COP should be a bit higher meanwhile.Another important point about heatpumps is that one has to calculate and check the feasibility and economics for each building/home individually. What works fine for one home could be a disaster for another one. And selecting the right heatpump type and wattage isn't easy either. If done wrong it can shorten the heatpump's lifespan and/or increase the operating costs, wasting a lot of money. This happens more frequently than one would expect.

author: Stringwinder
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 02:14:55 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on January 07, 2025, 11:21:23 amThose numbers were ment for the rest of Europe, specifically the "middle" or "average climate" zone.My own climate is close to "middle" so I get those numbers most of the year. Moderately continentalis another name for my climate zone.In the standard EN 14825 the zones used for SCOP measurements are:● Average corresponding to Strasbourg ”A” (middle EU)● Warmer corresponding to Athens ”W” (south EU)● Colder corresponding to Helsinki ”C” (north EU)more details in:https://www.chiltrix.com/documents/App-B-Teknical-SCOP-NEF%20-EN14825.pdfMy house has thick concrete inner walls and good (and updated) insulation so the thermal timeconstant (fall time) is around 1 degree C per day with heating turned off. I can see the hourlytariffs for the coming day so I can "charge" the house with heat on cheap electricity and turnthe heat down and run on "idle" if and when price peaks appear. Then I happen to have a collectionof old kereosene lamps with a total heating capacity of almost 2 kW. It stinks a bit but once Ilived on the far end of an unstable powerline with frequent downtimes so I learned "the hard way".The largest lamp gives lots of light and 550 W heat and has a handle on the side. Very usefulfor the Japanese way of carrying the heat source with you from room to room.... so don't worry about us in the northern zone, we are warm and snug up here in the snow.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 02:22:43 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on January 07, 2025, 01:41:57 pmThere seems to be quite a lot moving around to reconfigure a modern reverse cycle heat pump when you switch between heat and cool. It takes a while, and involves various things clicking and whirring. I've never bothered to look inside one, and see what is going on.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 02:30:41 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on January 06, 2025, 02:35:07 pmFWIW, the lack of ductwork is not an insurmountable problem, even in historic buildings one doesn’t want to deface with air handling soffits and the like.There exists a niche style of central HVAC called SDHV (“small duct, high velocity”) which uses much, much smaller ducts. I think the name is fairly self-explanatory as to how they work. They use 2” (5cm) ducts (including insulation!) that are small enough to fit through walls and floors in wood-frame houses, or to go in ceilings dropped just a tiny bit to make room. This company claims to have invented them:https://www.spacepak.com/central-air-heating-and-cooling-system

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 02:38:01 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on January 07, 2025, 02:30:41 pmI should have said houses of a certain age, rather than older houses. Pre WW1 houses in the UK usually had quite high ceilings. In many of those it would be feasible to drop the ceiling enough to put in substantial ductwork without serious negative consequences.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 02:59:57 pm
content: Quote from: madires on January 07, 2025, 02:11:40 pmThat is all correct except for the myth about lifetime. Heatpumps are designed to run at 100% power and there is not much improvement to be had from derating. Typical failure points are stuck reversing valve (electromagnetic solenoid controlled 4-way valve) or stuck EEV (stepper-motor actuated expansion valve) (both functions of product quality and age, but not duty cycle or operating power level), maybe even fan motor bearings (which wear the same at 100% or 50% power), and then split units fail from install errors (failure to evacuate the system). And of course just random failures like on every real product. Avoiding bad apples would be great but I don't think any manufacturer is known to do particularly badly and we don't have databases for such real world experience (unlike with cars, at least you can see which makes and models fail most in 3- or 5-year inspections).In Finland specifically it is typical to undersize an air-to-air heatpump and run it at 100% power level as often and as much as possible, yet it is pretty normal to these systems to still function after 15 years. And then again, some fail after just a few years. This happens.We are well-equipped to blame ourselves when things go wrong. Yet, heat pump failures, at least when the install work is done by the book, are IMHO best considered "bad luck" events and are not that common. Best medicine against these failures is to avoid excessively expensive products because they are not any more reliable, but the ROI is longer and therefore the risk of investment going sour larger.Same can be said about PV systems, by the way. Some people rationalize buying expensive special "premium" panels but they are not significantly more efficient and the talk about quality is just marketing talk, without anything to back it up, compared to the cheapest available basic panel.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 03:54:51 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on January 06, 2025, 05:01:03 pmIf you're providing 18kW of heat via a gas boiler, and 18kW of heat via a heat pump, what's the difference in heat? That's right, there isn't one.The problem is not generating the heat, it isdissipatingit. A hydronic loop designed for flow temperatures of 70C will not be able to dissipate the same amount of energy at 45C. This has nothing to do with the suitability of a heatpump but the ludicrous assumption that one is a drop-in replacement on a system designed for a different source.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 04:06:02 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on January 07, 2025, 03:54:51 pmBlame the UK government for only subsidising the worst solution. It has become normalised as "they way we do things" in the UK.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 04:14:21 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on January 07, 2025, 02:59:57 pmI find this comment interesting. You don't find, say, a Mitsubishi or a Daikin far outlasts some of the lesser brands? My experience is with smaller room by room units, which cut in and out a lot. As you commented, the wear and tear is far lower when they run steadily, like most mechanical systems which go through warm up/cool down cycles at startup. So, the quality of the product may be a bigger factor in those applications. However, my experience has been that Mitsubishi and Daikin run quietly and smoothly for years. Fujitsu/General also run for years, but tend to be much noisier and less efficient. Others are much more hit and miss. A couple of the big Chinese makers, like Gree, show promise with their more advanced products, but I haven't seen enough of a track record to seriously judge them. They certainly pumped in the R&D to try to be a world leader.

author: NE666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 04:33:10 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on January 07, 2025, 03:54:51 pmThere is a big practical difference between those two heat sources when in comes to real world scenarios. Heat FLUX is the issue, the rate at which heat can be delivered vs at which it is being lost. That is a major determinant in perceived comfort levels, when trying to maintain consistent temperature when there are also events of irregular large system heat loss e.g. extractor fans running, doors open, hot water cycle on. A 'typical' domestic heat pump hasn't been much larger than 15kw traditionally, at least not in the UK. At the same time, a typical condensing oil boiler can be rated at anywhere from 20 to 40kw or more. That is to say, the oil/gas burner can deliver 2-3x the *instantaneous* output when required.Net heat flux, and hence also insulation and air tightness make big contributions to the overall perceived effectiveness of a heating system especially where the energy influx rate is more limited i.e. heat pump vs fuel burner.We can call it 'differences in output impedance', if that helps the audience here.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 04:38:28 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on January 07, 2025, 03:54:51 pmMost of the time you don't need 70C hydronic heating, though.It's about 1C outside right now and temperature has been like that for the last few days, I live in an EPC D house (~average efficiency for the UK), and this is what my boiler flow/return temperatures have looked like for the last few days.There have only been a couple of occasions when the boiler had to ramp up to 70C and that was just due to temperature swings in my presets that I haven't perfectly optimised yet. The house has zoned heating so the living room TRVs are mostly shut off during the day and then heating is driven into those rooms later in the evening.In fact you can see the heating system in this home is quite oversized since the boiler only needs about 40-50C flow to warm the rooms and has to cycle to maintain this as it can't go below about 8kW output. This is unfortunately very common in the UK. Ideally this house would have something like a 16kW boiler but it has a 24kW one. Such a boiler might need to run at full power on the coldest days but there isn't really an issue with that.A heatpump would work quite well here though peak temperature of the flow would be around 55C, so I may not be able to zone in the same way I currently do, as some rooms will take longer to warm up. Something worth considering for the future.

author: Stringwinder
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 04:41:00 pm
content: In scandinavia the average number of households with heat pumps is 52,8 %.UK has a measly non impressive 1,5 % and Germany 4,7 %.The scaremongers that list endless problems base their prophecis on noactual experience what so ever. The large user base up north means solutionsfor houses of all kinds and ages have already been tested and verified by decadesof actual use and evaluation of what works and what should be avoided.The comparison with inflated COP values in Germany and comparisons with car mileagesis hilarious. I guess the engineers from Germanys dieselgate had to go somewhere elselike promoting everything that competes with heat pumps.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 04:42:57 pm
content: Quote from: NE666 on January 07, 2025, 04:33:10 pmBut the radiators can't ... that's for hot water, not heating.A forced air system can put more heat into a home than radiators, but most people are perfectly used to radiators which don't have that kind of power.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 04:51:53 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on January 07, 2025, 03:54:51 pmThere is, as you point out below. Heat has two properties: quantity and quality. The quality of the heat is the temperature it is delivered at.QuoteIn addition to this, modern homes tend to have "on demand" boilers with instant hot water and no storage tank. And even with a traditional hot water tank system, the water should be stored at 60°C for safety reasons. A heat pump system cannot manage these things, so supplemental resistive heating will be required, and for instant hot water that is alotof heat (power). Gas can easily do 25-40 kW, electricity not so much.

author: Stringwinder
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 04:56:49 pm
content: ... and with a large user base solutions that don't use any ducts at all have beenadded to the "how to do it properly" book. Where I live there are houses of two to sixrooms in one or two floors. No ducts anywhere, just proper placing of the indoor unitand adjustment of the direcion of the output vanes. An electronic air thermometer with afast response sensor (a few seconds) is all it takes to find out where the hot air goes(and sometimes it NOT where you first think).

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 05:03:36 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on January 07, 2025, 03:54:51 pmThere is no difference except that 18kW simply is not enough (hence the word insufficient). For an average (cascaded) home in the Netherlands which is from before the mid 1990's you need a heater capable of delivering about 30kW. When the COP of an air-sourced heat pump drops to 1 when it is cold, then all of the heat energy needs to come from the mains connection. In the Netherlands you are looking at 3* 25A / 230V (17kW) at most. So you can't get enough heat from electricity alone. Also the local grid isn't laid out to supply high simultaneous demands. In the end heating is not about covering an average scenario but being sufficient for the worst case scenario.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 05:09:13 pm
content: Quote from: IanB on January 07, 2025, 04:51:53 pmYou do not need 60°C to avoid Legionnaire's disease. You need at least 50°C once every 24 hours for about 1 hour to prevent growth. This is easily done using a heatpump, either directly or by using a resistive boost heater a few times a week on a timer. Legionella is an aerobic bacterium and it is very difficult for it to grow in sealed systems too. This is much more of an issue in non-sealed systems e.g. using gravity cold water feed.Hot water tanks are still used in systems with gas boilers - the major advantage is you can have a far smaller boiler for a home with multiple consumers of hot water. The last home we had used one, it had three bathrooms and a kitchen fed with hot water. Two people could shower at the same time, it was great. Yes you had to make sure it stayed hot if you needed a lot of water, but that wasn't a practical issue for us. In the end I ended up turning off the gas water heating entirely and using the tank's electric boost heater during the off peak period 2130hr - 0230hr. It was more than sufficient for our uses with two adults, the tank would still be producing very hot water by the end of the day, and the electricity was about 30% cheaper than gas then (high natural gas prices in 2022).

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 05:12:35 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on January 07, 2025, 05:09:13 pmLet me stop you right there, regulations in the Netherlands (and other countries are likely to have similar rules) require the water at the tap to reach at least 55 degrees measured at the tap. So your proposal isn't going to adhere to building regulations.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 05:16:58 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on January 07, 2025, 05:12:35 pmWell both 55°C and 60°C hot water temperatures can be reached with a heatpump anyway. Modern high temperature heat pumps can go up to 70°C, though their efficiency is poor. You could also use a boost resistive heater on a timer if it was a genuine concern.Realistically, no issue here in the UK. Maybe NL has some silly regulations. :-)We were using about 3-4kWh per day in hot water with 2 x 10min showers and washing dishes etc., so even resistive heating for that is pretty cheap, especially so if you can put it in the off peak period with a well-insulated tank. Many hotter countries only heat hot water using resistive heating when there is no normal need for building heat, we stayed in an apartment in Greece that just had an immersion heater.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 05:35:33 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on January 07, 2025, 05:03:36 pmAnd here I am in an average 1970s UK home with a mild upgrade to loft insulation and a couple of new windows, and an 18kW boiler which is downrated (I don't recall how far.. 14kW maybe?) due to inadequate supply pipework, with absolutely no problem keeping up with heating both the house and the hot water cylinder.Now, can I put a heat pump in and be fine and dandy? Nope. Not with the pipework and rad sizes. But that's not an insulation problem.People love to focus on the worst case scenario - oh no, for two days every decade you can't quite reach your desired set temperature by 2C. What a horror.Quote from: NE666 on January 07, 2025, 04:33:10 pmIf your system is capable of delivering the heat, then there isn't an issue. You cannot just throw a lower temperature source at an existingsystem.

author: G7PSK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 05:35:42 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on January 07, 2025, 05:16:58 pmIn Greece and many other Mediterranean countries water is heated by roof top solar systems, these even work here in the UK and the problem with them is not getting the water hot enough its stopping them boiling and building up enough pressure to explode this is a problem even here in the UK.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 05:49:19 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on January 07, 2025, 04:38:28 pmYou do if you're still trying to use single panel radiators and 8mm microbore from the 1970s. Which is why retrofitting doesn't work: The entire heating system must be changed to suit the source.

author: NE666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 06:30:47 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on January 07, 2025, 05:49:19 pmIndeed. A friend looked into such a "conversion" when they were offered a very heavily subsidised air pump install by their local authority, if they removed their oil boiler. First thing the installers wanted to do was replace all of the radiators and pipework throughout the house, and fit a massive heat storege cylinder in their garage. Fine, maybe, if you plan to fully renovate anyway but not so much otherwise.I confess that this is a 'feel', rather than a 'know' but my perception is that, as others have said, air source isn't really suited to high-temperature hydronics, however much vendors try to make out that it is. I'd be interested to hear the experiences of those that do have such systems fitted.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 06:42:13 pm
content: Quote from: NE666 on January 07, 2025, 06:30:47 pmIt isn't, at least not for heating. It's suited to flow temperatures around 40-45C, iirc. This is great for underfloor heating and if you have sufficient room for large or multiple radiators (or forced airflow!), it does not lend itself to conversion of existing systems, and to a degree, properties (due to the size of radiators which may by needed).This does not, however, mean air source pumps are unsuited to delivering the necessary heat, but they're one component of a system which must be designed to suit the structure. Improving insulation and leakage of course helps to reduce the load, but in practice existing systems will still require substantial alteration or replacement unless designed well for a modern condensing boiler (which also wants a lower flow temperature than older systems were designed for, but still a little higher).

author: Sorama
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 06:48:45 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on January 07, 2025, 05:12:35 pmIndeed, you actually need 60°C for at least 15’ when a boiler is used.

author: Sorama
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 06:59:06 pm
content: Let’s not forget that electricity has a primary energy conversion rate of 2,5 which means the cost of having 1 kWh at the outlet actually needs 2,5kWh at the production plant.This is why the use of electricity for heating ( at least in Belgium) in households is “punished”.Gas on the other hand has a primary energyconversion factor of 1 because there are no losses.But then again, gas is fossile and not endless nor green.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 07:55:48 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on January 07, 2025, 04:38:28 pmThanks for the data; it seems that around your "usual" winter temperatures of around 0, your water temperature is around ~50degC. This is still pretty crappy equation for an air-to-water heatpump; SCOP would suck at 2.0 or even below even when you are in a climate where much better is possible with lower distribution temperature.Then again, if you could get an air-to-water unit for very cheap, even an undersized one would do, and make a honesthybrid system, that would work very well. I.e., air-to-water unit would provide, say, 30-40 degC water to the radiators when the outdoor temperature is around 5-10 degC, and around zero the system would transition into gas. But I'm afraid this is impossible to do on commercial level especially as turn-key solutions (and subsidies driving the price of installs up does not help). Because if you pay some ridiculously high price like 15-20k, you have every right to expect more than a partial system which saves you maybe 500 a year if even that.The options really are;1) Do nothing; keep using gas as is. This is probably most sensible choice given your energy cost structure,2) Do said hybrid system; probably some DIY mentality is required3) Ditch gas and convert the house to heatpump, and see it running with aux resistive heating already at -5degC or so, and see how COP sucks4) Upgrade the house to larger radiators (or even water fan coil units),thendo #3, or even better, #2. Radiators are actually surprisingly cheap and swapping them is not necessarily so costly. But result is still not ideal, like, doubling the radiator area maybe helps you to drop the temperature from 55 to 45 degC but not much further.5) Do what Someone suggests and get air-to-air unit(s) instead. Very likely to be a partial solution (unless you live in one big room or loft type open space); leaving the old system in place as a support (and provide hot water, of course) is obvious, then.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 08:01:16 pm
content: Quote from: Sorama on January 07, 2025, 06:59:06 pmWhat is this even supposed to mean. There is no such concept in real world, this is some made-up bullshit. It's sad to see this kind of politics sneak in the decision-making.It's probably some ancient factor of some thermal generation. Today we have stuff like wind power, solar power, waste streams being burned instead of fossils, and even for fossils, there are much more efficient combined cycle plants and co-production of electricity and district heating.If you want to sanction electricity because of how it's being made out of gas or coal instead of directly burning gas or coal in your home boiler, the coefficient for that is going to be on a totally different ballpark than 2.5.Besides, of course there is loss in burning gas in your home boiler. You can compare to direct electric heating which delivers heat to the rooms being heated. Boiler loses some of the heat to chimney, but also heats up the boiler room, and the water distribution going through the structures also cause losses. Typical estimate for the efficiency for such system would be like 60-80% depending on the era of the construction (e.g., how well is the boiler insulated).

author: NE666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 08:09:46 pm
content: I've wondered for a while whether the, certainly UK, traditional hot water system based on a central storage tank is really something that we should be looking to phase out, or certainly reduce the role of.When I come to rebuild my main home, I'm already considering fitting small instantaneous water heaters (the type with a very small, pre-heated volume of water, for 'instant-on') for the washbasins and sinks, and having a good size electrical shower. It seems very wasteful, heating tanks of water in advanced only to let them cool again, and take heavy heat losses in the final transit to the taps.Not for everyone, and certainly not for larger households where people prefer baths to showers. Even then, resistive heating with a smaller tank (perhaps with solar thermal, or solar PV contribution) might make more sense, using air-to-air source for room heating only.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 08:10:46 pm
content: Quote from: NE666 on January 07, 2025, 06:30:47 pmYour feeling is correct. Heatpumps are all about the temperature difference. When we talk about distribution temperatures like 50-70degC, even ground source heat pumps (which have the benefit of having stable input temperature of e.g. 5degC here, probably 10degC or so where you live, I have no idea) struggle to get good COP.There is nothing new in vendors claiming miraculous output water temperatures. And of course the pumps can do that, it isn't magic, and they have resistive aux heaters to get there when the compressor power is not enough. Just that COP is shit. If that happens once a year, no problem. But if it happens for 3 months straight, then it is a problem.You should be looking at the COP curves of typical heatpumps, and they do not differ so much between manufacturers and models, and compare against the lowestusualtemperature that is significant in your climate. I mean, here it's a good idea to make sure the COP does not suck at -15degC. But it doesn't matter if it sucks at -30degC because many years we don't have that at all, and in worst case it's a week or two but no more.Maybe for you a similar temperature would be -5degC. Make sure the COP is decent there and you are fine. If your distribution temperature at -5degC is +30degC, you have exemplary case and should get the heatpump. If it's +70, you are totally doomed to total and utter failure. Interpolate between.

author: NE666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 08:20:59 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on January 07, 2025, 08:10:46 pmI think that in those two sentences, you've concisely captured why there is a grumbling perception in the UK that heat pumps "don't work here". We're wedded through tradition to radiators, and that's what we like to fit because we know it well and have been doing so since the Victorian era. Vendors and installers have been happy to claim "no problem, we can retro-fit that to your rads and water tank", and then the shit-show ensues, with no operating cost saving to the homeowner and inadequate performance.Air source has great potential, just as much as for our European cousins who are ahead on that curve. A change of thinking is required.

author: Sorama
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 08:29:18 pm
content: It seems not everyone is up to date with how consumed energy is related to its production impact.In order to make a fair comparison, all energy systems like electricity, gas, PV is converted to its primary energy factor Watts to Joule, or Pascal to Bar.One could read these links:https://publica.fraunhofer.de/bitstreams/30f6cfba-dc4a-46cd-8287-29ddcad47d9d/download( Fraunhofer institute is the most trustworthy and renowned institute for research on building physics)https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/de7457ee-722f-11ee-9220-01aa75ed71a1/language-en

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 08:33:33 pm
content: We've got coal, Russia has natural gas. Also natural gas, nor methane in general, likely won't be available at net zero.

author: Sorama
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 08:49:23 pm
content: Have a look at pcm/thermal storage batteries ( phase change material).You charge them electrically (using PV of course) and then you have instant hot water.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 09:49:01 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on January 07, 2025, 12:16:28 pmYou can walk off into any arbitrary corner case you like, the majority of the worlds population want heating at some time of the year because they do not live in a humid tropical climate with minimums rarely below 20 degrees C.There are some markets where reverse cycle split units are rare or significantly more expensive. But that doesn't apply to the majority. Trying to point to those minority markets and claim it applies to places which do want reverse cycle is laughable.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 09:54:39 pm
content: Quote from: NE666 on January 07, 2025, 04:33:10 pmWhich only matters if you somehow restrict the ability of the hypothetical heat pump alternative to deliver its heat.Your unstated addition of "oh but when I say heat pump, I mean some extra bolt on to the rube Goldberg system I already have".... despite everyone clearly saying you should be comparing to air-air splits. The quote you chopped has all that in it but you're shouting about something else entirely while avoiding saying it.Quote from: Monkeh on January 07, 2025, 03:54:51 pm

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 09:58:50 pm
content: Quote from: IanB on January 07, 2025, 04:51:53 pmResidential sized heat pumps may not be able to produce "instantaneous"/continuous hot water, but 60 degrees C storage is pretty much standard:https://www.climatechoices.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/1898978/Sustainable-Household-Scheme-A-guide-to-hot-water-heat-pumps.pdf

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 10:19:42 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on January 07, 2025, 05:03:36 pmWhich if true (it isn't, over to you for a reference to prove it) would seriously impact the uptake of electric vehicles.Even if true, that additional (unstated until now) constraint would only matter for people wanting to heat the entire house. Yet another completely unobvious thing you chose to hide and drag out the fake argument.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 10:33:02 pm
content: Quote from: NE666 on January 07, 2025, 08:09:46 pmElectric showers generally suck, because the maximum you can really get is around 10-11kW due to mains current limitations and that is only enough for a low flow rate shower. A combi boiler can do 20kW hot water, and a tank can do even more, but either way both are more or less limited by the pipe diameter and flow rate. I've heard that DNOs don't really like electric showers, because they pull a lot of current from the supply for a short period of time, so they make them very little money but theoretically could require an oversized transformer to cope with morning peak demands. Hence why they are not installed in new homes, because DNOs get iffy around them.The benefit of a hot water tank is that you can use off peak or intermittent energy (e.g. excess solar) to provide your water heating. You're effectively using it as a small battery. But you can store a decent amount of energy in a hot water tank. IIRC ours (in the old house) could store at least 10kWh. Yes, you can only use that for hot water demands but the thermostat will ensure you don't put too much energy in.Depending on your use case, point heating of water may be more efficient and cheaper; with our combi, I have to run the shower for 30 seconds before I get hot water in the morning. There's a fair bit of lost energy in the pipes, wasted water, and the heat exchanger and pipes getting up to temperature. It would be nicer to have that supplied by a tank. But in the grand scheme of things not a major problem.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 10:37:23 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on January 07, 2025, 10:33:02 pmYou should try Germany, where every home has 3-phase power, and they use 22kW 3-phase shower heaters. Those are comparable in power to the water heating function of a combi-boiler, so they give similar results.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 10:45:02 pm
content: Quote from: Sorama on January 07, 2025, 08:49:23 pmThey are not exactly giving them away though. If you want all electric and your whole family wants rain showers and you don't have room for a massive boiler, it's an option.

author: NE666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 11:02:38 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on January 07, 2025, 10:33:02 pmYes, it's probably not a great time to be a UK DNO. Everyone and their dog breathing down your neck to let them connect their EV fast charger and heat pump, whilst bemoaning the standing charges in their next breath. Network diversity has served them well for a few decades but some serious investment will be required to in order for them to be able to fulfil some of the futures being imagined here. And just wait until you have to tell all the nimbies that you're going to need to string some more powerlines, and possibly build a bigger substation or two...

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 11:21:23 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on January 07, 2025, 10:37:23 pmDoes that not use the whole house supply? Or do they have 43kW service as standard? I can imagine a 22kW electric shower would be just as good as a combi.Sadly, the maximum typical supply in the UK is 23kW (100A @ 230V assuming PF=1) but the fuses are usually only rated for 75% of that continuously, so DNOs like it if you stay below 17-18kW total. You have to get permission for a second EV charger for instance. Usually homes with two showers have a shower interrupter that will cut power to one shower if the other is turned on. Can make for some painful experiences if the other half doesn't realise you're in there!

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 11:26:50 pm
content: Quote from: NE666 on January 07, 2025, 11:02:38 pmIt's worse for the grid operator. The existing grid does not go to where the new generating capacity is located (e.g. offshore wind farms), so they have to build new grid ties to transport the energy where it needs to go.On the subject of EVs, the Technology Connections guy is quite vocal that a majority of people don't need high power EV charging at home. For people who are doing local shopping trips, school runs, and short commutes to work, just an occasional overnight top up with a plug in the wall charger keeps plenty of energy in the car.

author: vad
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 11:37:12 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on January 07, 2025, 10:37:23 pmOr tankless water heaters that run on natural gas. I personally recommend Rinnai.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 11:38:23 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on January 07, 2025, 11:21:23 pmI think the standard German domestic supply is 3 x 60A. I have no idea why. When the practice started few homes had high consumption. Maybe some visionary saw a heat pump in every home, an EV in every drive, and all the nuclear stations shut down so there was no electricity to feed them.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 11:40:57 pm
content: Quote from: vad on January 07, 2025, 11:37:12 pmWe used to have a Rinnai 22kW gas water heater in each bathroom. They work very well for a nice strong instant shower. However, governments are trying to reduce our access to gas.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 11:49:22 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on January 07, 2025, 10:49:06 amAnd look at the first and last images. No drain tubes. I don't know why you describe the tube as for defrosting water. A heat pump drips constantly on the side being cooled, even when the humidity is not especially high.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 07, 2025, 11:58:04 pm
content: Quote from: vad on January 07, 2025, 11:37:12 pmIn the NL tank based hot water systems are considered crutches because they do run out at inconvenient times. Especially when living in a home with a family who all need to shower in the morning. Most people have tankless heaters which run on natural gas. These never run out of hot water and need much less space. Alternatively there is district heating in some areas which is even better. The hot water runs as fast as the cold water. Personally I'd never consider a tank system for hot water. I vividly recall my grandparents having an electrically heated hot water tank and always going on worrying about not using all the hot water. I can do without that.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2025, 07:38:18 am
content: Quote from: NE666 on January 07, 2025, 08:20:59 pmYou just need to change your thinking to what Someone has been saying all the time: split air-to-air unit aka room air conditioner. Two advantages:* They are cheap,* They are completely self-sustained so do not integrate to anything, and depend on nothing; they produce heat regardless of what existing systems you have or do not have at the house; they always give similar COP to what air-to-water delivers in optimal conditionsThey were at their peak popularity in Finland around 2010 when everybody understood the viability. And most often they were retrofittedalongsidean oil-based boiler system. Like, you put the heatpump in the largest room, possibly positioned such that the airflow hits some corridor or another room (at least partially), and then just turn down the radiator thermostats in that room a bit (so that the radiators start heating up only when the heatpump power is insufficient and room temperature starts dropping), and that's it. It was quite usual to nearly halve one's annual oil consumption. This way the heatpump is maxed out a lot of the time so the investment is also effective. And some people got two. Usually after that, a third one is diminishing returns.And while the thermal radiation from 70degC radiators feels warm on the skin (even with low room temperature), so does the warm air blown by the heatpump.But I can't argue against aesthetics or noise, or other feelings like this. And of course, since gas is so cheap to you, it still makes no financial sense, so we are going in circles here. Just keep these options in mind for the times when gas possibly gets more expensive, so that you guys don't need to panic and start from scratch then.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2025, 07:44:51 am
content: Quote from: coppice on January 07, 2025, 11:49:22 pmI don't have drain tubes either, and none of my neighbors; yet the things do heat, water just drips/pour out on the ground. Presence of drain tubes pretty much proves the thing is used for heating (or is installed by total idiots doing unnecessary work); absence of drain tubes means nothing.QuoteBecause the cycle when the heatpump reverses to melt the ice formed on the outdoor unit coil, is called "defrosting"; during defrosting a lot of water flows quickly. You can use whatever name for the water; it is being produced in heating mode (except in very dry conditions), and depending on temperature it either drips out continuously, or is directly deposited as ice to bedefrostedevery now and then.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2025, 10:19:12 am
content: Quote from: coppice on January 06, 2025, 08:23:51 pmReturning back to this ludicrous idea of mostsplitroom air conditioners being cooling-only, I tried to look at some data and while I can't find direct statistics about it, here is an idea:Gree is the world's largest heat pump manufacturer (source) and theirfull-line catalog(source) does not show a single cooling-only model; all of them are capable of heating.But I'm sure this is not sufficient evidence for you, probably nothing isQuote from: coppice on January 06, 2025, 06:00:50 pmI missed this one earlier, my bad: worst I have ever seen has been around 17-18 cycles, around 7 minutes each, so that would be... 9% or so. I do have a thermal energy meter installed so I can actually measure COP, and it does not get much below 3 even in these conditions. The trick to understand what is going on is:* In highly condensing (or depositing, to be clear) conditions, a lot of energy is also gained from the gaseous -> solid transition. If you understand basic physics (feel free to check from any source), you know that turning water from solid to liquid requireslessenergy than that was gained initially from gas -> solid. In real world of course, there are losses (quite a lot of them: for example, convection when the outdoor coil is kept hot, and wind makes it worse), so defrosts are not magic, but they are not as bad as you think they are. They are normal part of operation. There is plenty of real-world COP data (taking defrosting into account) if you look past marketing figures.* During very cold conditions (say, -15 to -20 degC) when COP is worse due to the low temperature alone, and defrost cycle "costs" more (more convection losses), in this condition absolute humidity of the cold air is so much less even at 100% RH that it simply takes longer to block the evaporator. Non-stop running periods of 2-5 hours are typical in cold climates. In other words, the COP notch from frequent defrosts is at its largest near zero degC, when the COP is otherwise pretty good, making up for it.I'm attaching again a graph from last winter during this same discussion. In that case we had very British weather (constantly at 0 degC, near-100% RH, with thick fog) for more than 24 hours non-stop. You can count 5 defrost cycles from the picture. Why so few? Because "British weather" is not necessarily bad. Condensing that much humidity releases so much thermal energy that not all of it deposits; it was producing liquid water at 0degC.Really, worst case for air source heatpumps is external snow load. If you have heavy snowfall with wind pushing it right into the machine, then the defrost cycles have extra work to do. And I'm sure the Japanese know this and possibly know to turn the thing off in worst possible snowing conditions and just push themselves deeper in the kotatsu heated through a flexible duct from an oil heater.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2025, 08:20:05 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on January 08, 2025, 10:19:12 amYou used what appears to be a Gree US web site, showing what they sell there. Try Gree's main web site, gree.com. Its a true PITA to find anything there, but there are plenty of cooling only products. I know Gree well. I've owned two of their air conditioners. Colleagues were involved in the development of their first inverter air conditioners. They are one the Chinese enterprises that are really prepared to do serious R&D and produce world class products.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2025, 08:44:31 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on January 08, 2025, 07:38:18 amWhile giving you dry eyes and a sore throat due to a draft of bone dry air. And the constant fan noise on top. No thanks. Nothing beats underfloor heating where it comes to comfort. Especially when it is close to the surface of the floor.

author: Stringwinder
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 08, 2025, 10:49:20 pm
content: And for cooling you use above-cieling cooling of course.Installation is a nightmare. Gravity sucks!

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2025, 07:59:29 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on January 08, 2025, 08:44:31 pmIt's matter of taste. I know many people like the warm air flow and have enjoyed it myself too without sore throat. You don't have to use the max fan setting. Dry air in itself is nasty though, I'm not aware of draft making it worse. Some higher end air-to-air heatpumps combine all sort of moisturising functions and whatnot to the indoor unit. I don't know if they are any good, but such premium market exists.I agree that underfloor heating is great; for maximized comfort I would still add radiators below the windows because the windows are still somewhat colder spots compared to walls (for example, windows could have U value of 1.0 and walls 0.5), so the effect of warm air rising up by convection just by the window is nice if you are, for example, watching birds doing bird things. But it's rare to combine both underfloor heating and radiators. Maybe I'll do it one day.Quote from: coppice on January 08, 2025, 08:20:05 pmI tried. Maybe you could also try to get your act together and find any kind of reference to support your claims.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2025, 08:39:43 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on January 07, 2025, 11:58:04 pmIn 30 years tankless/bufferless heating will be expensive one way or another. Status quo can not last forever.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2025, 10:09:34 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on January 09, 2025, 08:39:43 amOr as we keep banging on about, hot water storage is one of the trivial and economically viable demand management options available.So far we've heard a lot of "but if I install this system in a stupid way it will produce a bad result". Sizing a water storage system is pretty simple, so nctnico's claim that hot water storage is not possible as it will run out is plainly wrong once again. People whowantto have long high flow showers, and the entire building heated to 20 something degrees with inefficient methods can pay the premium for that and stop complaining about cost.... because there are cheaper ways to live (in multiple ways) one of which is switching to heat pumps.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2025, 10:47:07 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on January 09, 2025, 07:59:29 amI'm not sure how heating air makes it dryer (it could feel dryer as there is higher evaporation rate). But it comes back to the simple point of how is that any different to another source of heating inside the room?As you say, set the fan speed and airflow direction to whatever is comfortable in the situation. Rather than picking some worst case and dismissing the entire concept/technology just because it could be used poorly.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2025, 10:55:01 pm
content: Quote from: Someone on January 09, 2025, 10:47:07 pmWith the Daikin models we used to have they just let you set the fan yourself in cooling mode, but in heating mode the fan could be controlled by the unit, with some kind of sensing. So you get lots of air flow when the room is cold, to get the maximum energy into the room, but the fans slow as the room approaches target temperature, to reduce the evaporating cooling that fast air across the skin would cause. It worked very well. They gave us good warm up times and very comfortable rooms.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 09, 2025, 10:56:11 pm
content: With forced-air heating, it is possible to add a humidifier to the ductwork after the fan/blower.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 10, 2025, 07:41:07 am
content: Quote from: Someone on January 09, 2025, 10:09:34 pmAnd it even isn't any sort of premium. A 300-liter stainless steel electric boiler costs like 700€ when the smallest ones or in-line tankless systems costs like 300-400€. Totally negligible difference for the lifetime of the boiler (typically 20 years or so).

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2025, 12:18:46 pm
content: Quote from: Someone on January 09, 2025, 10:47:07 pmThe ability for air to hold water vapor* ishighlytemperature dependent: hot air can hold far more moisture than cold air. For example, 0°C air can hold up to 4.84g of water per cubic meter. 20°C air can hold up to 17.2g per cubic meter. If that cubic meter of 20°C air actually contains 17.2g of water vapor, then we say the relative humidity is 100% (17.2/17.2 = 1 = 100%. But if that same cubic meter of 20°C air contains only 4.84g of water vapor, then its relative humidity is just 28% (4.84/17.2 = 28%).So if you start with fully saturated 0 degree air and heat it to 20 degrees, then its relative humidity will drop from 100% to 28%.This effect is also why hot air is so much more effective at drying things than room temperature air: 100°C air, for example, can hold 598g of water vapor! That is a typical temperature for a hair dryer on high. So if we suppose your house is at 20°C at 50% humidity (so 0.5*17.2g = 8.6g per cubic meter), then the 100°C air coming out of your hair dryer has a relative humidity of just 8.6/598 = 1.44%!However, I completely agree with your point that it makes no sense for one type of heating to dry out the air more than another. Every heating type is subject to the same laws of physics.*Note that this is the “colloquial” terminology that is actually not strictly true. It’s actually solely a function of vapor pressure. But for the purposes of calculating humidity, this doesn’t actually matter. Seethis page, which is also the source for the numbers used above.)

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2025, 12:32:45 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on February 07, 2025, 12:18:46 pmDifferent types of heating and cooling do affect things. If the air doesn't move much across your skin (e.g. a room with underfloor heating or radiators), the evaporation is much lower than if you have forced air moving it quickly, without any actual change in the %RH. HVAC which uses a heat exchanger is not tied to the initial air moisture content of the room. If you have any form of open fire in the mix it gives off lots of moisture as the burning occurs - assuming you are not burning high grade coal, which produces little more than CO2. The change from open fires to central heating seems to be where the whole "it makes the air dry" thing started. For cooling, the type really matters, as it can seriously change how much moisture is removed from the room, as condensation on the cooling elements. The better air cons have modes which will dehumidify to a greater or less extent, mostly based on air flow rates. I can't think of a direct equivalent with heating systems. Combinations of humidifier and dehumidifier can fix all of this.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2025, 12:38:02 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on February 07, 2025, 12:18:46 pmYeah, and specifically, the reason why air is dry in the winter is the dehumidifying effect of the cool temperature outside. Because the cold air can hold less moisture than warm air; when the temperature is going down, excess water condensates into liquid or deposits into ice (that you then need to scrape off from your car windows; at least it looks decorative on trees). This loss of water is what makes the air itself dry. When you heat it up, this drought realizes in the form of low RH%. And indeed, it doesn't make a difference how it is heated up. Below about -5degC or so the outdoor air is always close to 100% RH and still very dry absolutely speaking, and will always give a dry feeling. To avoid this you need to use a humidifier, or reduce amount of ventilation such that the humidity from breathing (and other stuff being done indoors) keeps the air humid, but that easily leads to poor indoor air quality. In any case, if humidifying is done a lot during winter then the vapor barriers (of walls and ceilings close to the interior surface) of the house should be spotless or risk of condensation and mold inside structures is very real.

author: Zucca
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 07, 2025, 01:46:19 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on February 07, 2025, 12:38:02 pmThis is why the dew point is a much better indicator about humidity, feel free to correct me I understood it by watching youtube.PS: I don't wanna know how we drifted from grid power to water in air.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2025, 04:45:03 pm
content: Quote from: Zucca on February 07, 2025, 01:46:19 pmYeah, dew point is basically absolute humidity expressed in a different unit which is quite intuitive for many uses.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2025, 11:10:06 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on February 07, 2025, 12:32:45 pmI wasn’t addressing cooling in any way.I also wasn’t addressing the human perception of different types of heating. I literally only addressed humidity.Ok, fair enough, I didn’t think about open fires, since those aren’t a significant source of heat in developed countries, except for mood. Yes, a fireplace would affect things as fresh air is drawn in to replace what’s lost up the chimney. I don’t think the moisture produced during combustion matters much, because if you had enough combustion products in the air to keep it humid, you’d also be having serious problems with the combustion products besides water…So the baseline heating systems are either forced air, radiators, and underfloor, and little electric heaters for portable heat. It makes no difference to humidity which one of those you use.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2025, 11:47:47 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on February 07, 2025, 11:10:06 pmIts not just perception. The drying and chilling effects of evaporation are strongly affected by air speed, so it really makes a difference.

author: Connecteur
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 14, 2025, 05:42:17 pm
content: The monopoly that Edison fought so hard to attain, has become a reality today, in the form of "virtual monopolies," where a few big players share the market, keeping out any lower cost alternatives by exerting heavy competition against them in price.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 14, 2025, 05:49:57 pm
content: John Stuart Mill pointed out the “natural monopoly” correction to Adam Smith’s theories back in 1848.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 14, 2025, 06:30:34 pm
content: Quote from: Connecteur on February 14, 2025, 05:42:17 pmSo after 9 pages in this thread and 2 pages in the other (not to mention the one before that), you haven't taken anything on board. You are just trolling to try to keep the thread going.Quote from: Connecteur on September 11, 2024, 04:51:01 pm(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/do-we-really-need-a-grid/)

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 14, 2025, 07:56:01 pm
content: Quote from: Gyro on February 14, 2025, 06:30:34 pmThis guy is a pro troll. But I like him. He creates threads that somehow turn into good and interesting discussions nevertheless.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 14, 2025, 08:04:30 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on February 14, 2025, 07:56:01 pmYes, butin spiteof his contributions, notbecauseof his contributions.

author: Connecteur
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 15, 2025, 08:42:17 pm
content: The often misused term, "troll" has a simple meaning; someone who comes to a forum, trolling for a fight. And fighting is the point. That's why it's tossed at someone being provoked (hopefully) into a fight. Ironically, the person misusing the term, "troll" is likely the one spoiling for an online fight.

author: Zucca
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 04:02:38 am
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on February 14, 2025, 07:56:01 pmDefinitely. I imagine he is using white cotton gloves while typing and he is enjoying every split second of his crafted art posts.Same here, I hated him but now I am enjoying his contributions.Can't wait to see his next move.

author: Connecteur
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 07:01:33 am
content: "Hate" is a trolling word that belies your purpose here.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 10:53:46 am
content: Don't feed the troll.Everybody has the "right" to be wrong, and we can't correct everybody.

author: Connecteur
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 17, 2025, 11:03:34 am
content: I don't expect any forum to be micromanaged to the point of suppressing all trolls, but it would be nice to be able to discuss one's ideas without triggering online combat.