Question of the Month: Will the next car you purchase be an EV or a Hybrid Electric Vehicle?

michaelkellett said:

Our capacity for electricity generation and storage is way short of the predictable demand.

This gets said a lot, but the National Grid has repeatedly said this isn't the case. Eventually, all those idle car batteries could be used to balance demand near the source and smooth out generation requirements, but we're a way off this.

I agree we shouldn't throw away perfectly good ICE cars and gas boilers, but that's not being suggested. It's a ban on more new ones that's being proposed. Definitely keep the existing stuff whilst it's still usable. Nobody's suggesting otherwise.

Sorry Fred, not sure where you are based but in the UK there is political activity to ban the sale of houses unless they remove gas/oil boilers and replace with heat pumps. There is no infrastructure to supply the electricity or grid capacity to support it.

The National Grid was designed to distribute electricity from central generators to millions of houses and factories - it has no significant capacity to work in reverse or sideways.

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/scottish-news/scots-could-banned-buying-new-28483872

https://www.fwi.co.uk/business/heat-pump-proposals-grossly-unfair-to-rural-communities

Replacing all fossil fuel with electricity will increase the requirement for electric power by a factor of at least 2 or 3, this will require a huge expansion of the grid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_Kingdom

Fred27 said:

Definitely keep the existing stuff whilst it's still usable. Nobody's suggesting otherwise.

If only the politicians were listening !

MK

I didn’t know that about boilers and house sales.  Is that a Scotland thing?  Totally bonkers if true

There are mixed messages, as although there is the 2025 ban of gas boilers in new homes, there also appears to be a move underway to replace natural gas with hydrogen gas. Starting from 2028 it is supposed to be a 20% hydrogen/80% natural gas blend and then a final transition to 100% hydrogen.

The downside is that all existing gas appliances need to support blended gas by 2028, and then 100% at some point in the future. It looks like a lot of new boilers today are already 20%/80% blend ready. So if you replace your old boiler ready for blended gas in 2028 then you may need to replace it again depending upon the chosen date of the 100% roll-out.

This may get around the problems of moving domestic heating onto the electricity grid and homes not being efficient enough to support air source heat pumps all year round.

However the catch is that there don't appear to be 100% hydrogen boilers designed for domestic use yet and apparently the UK can't supply enough hydrogen for domestic heating anyway.

I have a Chevy Volt, it's a plugin hybrid, I charge it at work for free. It has a range of ~55 miles, that's more than enough for daily driving. I only use gas for road trips.

Not the point. See: www.wsj.com/.../of-evs-and-heat-waves-range-anxiety-tesla-emissions-climate-7baa0f7d

michaelkellett said:

Sorry Fred, not sure where you are based but in the UK there is political activity to ban the sale of houses unless they remove gas/oil boilers and replace with heat pumps.

I'm just south of London. I've never seen any suggestion of banning the sale of houses with gas boilers, and the links you gave don't say so either. There may be a suggestion of banning the sale of new gas boilers, but that's a very different thing from forcing replacement or banning the sale of houses with one.

Coincidentally, I'm looking at replacing a gas water heater and considering a replacement also using gas. Electric heat pumps may be more efficient but the cost of electricity per kWh is much higher than gas.

I think it stems from this newspaper headline:

"SNP plans to effectively ban sale of homes with gas boilers"

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/07/23/scotland-homes-sale-ban-swap-gas-boilers-heat-pumps-snp/

However, the article says:

"...From 2025, properties will need to meet Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of C or above at certain trigger points, including a sale..."

So it depends upon what is required to meet the EPC rating at the time of sale. If you have an old inefficient gas boiler, then you may well not meet the EPC rating and thus it may prevent a house sale.

As far as I can tell the revised EPC rules are planned (by the SNP) to specifically exclude the use of fossil fuel powered heating systems. Similar EPC rule changes are being discussed for the UK. Some of the proposals would ban biofuels as well.

We won't know until the changes are actually published.

Which is why I said:

michaelkellett said:

in the UK there is political activity to ban the sale of houses unless they remove gas/oil boilers and replace with heat pumps

ie such changes are being proposed and discussed by those in power.

MK

Indeed.

It's a bit ironic though that a number of the retro-fit heat pump installs state that you may need a gas boiler to supplement the heat pump during colder winter months.