How many Kwh to heat by electricity only ?

[CB750K2]

I have a well insulated 3 bedroom semi-detached house with a 13 year old 24kwh gas combi boiler and 9 radiators.

In the winter I keep the temperature at 20 and throughout the year I use 14,000kwh of gas.

My energy supplier said if the house were heated only using electricity that an estimate of 8000khw of electricity would be needed at cost of £1200 compared to 14,000kwh of gas

Would 8000khw of electricity really be enough to keep the house warm just as it is now ?

 

[denso13]

Gas is cheaper than electricity. There is no way you'll save money on heating and hot water by switching to electricity straight from the grid.

 

[Jackrae]

Electricity at around £0.14 per kWh for 8000kWh equates to £ 1120
Gas at around £0.03 per kWh for 14,000kWh equates to £ 420

Do you really want to go for electric ?

 

[oldbuffer]

1. There may be some gas used for other purposes, e.g. gas oven hob, gas fire. Say 2,000 kWh, leaving 12,000 kWh for space and water heating.
2. Your boiler is probably at least 80% efficient, so space and water heating need 12,000 kWh input and yields 9,600 kWh of space and water heating output.
3. So your property needs 9,600 kWh of energy to achieve the heat you are used to.
4. Don't see it can be done with electricity on 8,000 kWh.
5. And as Jackrae says, why spend the extra?

 

[endecotp]

Electricity at around £0.14 per kWh for 8000kWh equates to £ 1120
Gas at around £0.03 per kWh for 14,000kWh equates to £ 420

Just for completeness: 8000 kWh of off-peak economy-7 for storage heaters = 8000 x 0.08 = £ 640.

(I got the off-peak 8p/kWh number from https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/economy-7/ , which gives about 11p/kWh as the “best” regular electricity price; that brings the cost down from £1120 to £880.)


Question: how will these prices compare in 10 or 20 years time? It’s worth thinking about if you’re fitting a complete new heating system.
We’ve just passed the point where heating with electricity produces less CO2 than heating with gas; I think we can expect to see gas prices rise and electricity fall (relatively) to encourage less gas use.

 

[oldbutnotdead]

Energy is energy. At the moment 8000kwh of electricity at 12p/kwh is a much dearer deal (£960) than 10,000 kwh of gas at 4p/kwh. (£400) (those numbers assuming 100% efficiency for electric heating, which is realistic, and 80% efficiency for gas heating). The numbers change if you have solar PV and they may change in the future but right now electricity per kwh is about 3 times the price of gas per kwh so switching to electric heating will cost you a lot.

 

[alan333]

Mothers 3 bed bungalow is all electric, heated by oil filled rads and an old school electric bar fire. It goes through about 13500-14500kwh per year.

 

[flameport]

We’ve just passed the point where heating with electricity produces less CO2 than heating with gas;

Impossible.
The largest energy source for UK electricity generation is burning gas.

 

[endecotp]

Impossible.
The largest energy source for UK electricity generation is burning gas.

Yes, the largest source is gas. The rest is nuclear, wind, hydro or solar. So the average CO2 is below that of gas.
(We now get only a tiny amount of electricity from coal.)

 

[flameport]

Only true if burning gas to generate electricity was 100% efficient.
In reality it's grossly inefficient. 60%+ of the energy is lost before it gets to the end user, so for every 1kW of electrical energy delivered, 2-3kW of gas is burned.

 

[endecotp]

https://www.theguardian.com/busines...-breaks-record-for-coal-free-power-generation



https://electricinsights.co.uk/

Electricity being used right now produces 147g of CO2 per kWh.
That compares with more than 500g in 2012.
It’s currently 30% gas, and virtually everything else is carbon-free.

Burning gas to produce electricity produces about 400g of CO2 per kWh of electricity.
Burning gas in a domestic boiler produces about 185g of CO2 per kWh of useful heat.

 

[polesapart]

So CB750K2, what's your decision?

 

[Munroast]

I have a well insulated 3 bedroom semi-detached house with a 13 year old 24kwh gas combi boiler and 9 radiators.

In the winter I keep the temperature at 20 and throughout the year I use 14,000kwh of gas.

My energy supplier said if the house were heated only using electricity that an estimate of 8000khw of electricity would be needed at cost of £1200 compared to 14,000kwh of gas

Would 8000khw of electricity really be enough to keep the house warm just as it is now ?

I'm thinking you will be converting about 80% of your gas to useful heat - so if you are currently using 14,000kwh of gas then you will be needing 11,200 kwh of electric to do the same job. There 8,000 figure seems very optimistic.

 

[Jerbs]

Are they maybe talking about a heat pump system?

 

[muggles]

Are they maybe talking about a heat pump system?

Who can say? They've not logged on again since posting