By Paul Homewood
There has been some discussion about the impact of decarbonising heating, in terms of the impact on the electricity grid capacity.
Perhaps the best place to start is the following chart, which was included in Lord Oxburgh’s report on decarbonising to Parliament in 2016:
If all heating was to be electrified, we would need maybe an extra 350 GW of power capacity to meet peak demands in winter, seven times as much as we have now. Not only would this entail the construction of huge amounts of new generators (which would stand idle for most the year), but also a massive upgrading of distribution networks.
Heat pumps, of course, have a higher efficiency than direct heating, perhaps three times as much. So if they were used to replace current gas central heating we could be looking at maybe 100 to 150 GW extra capacity needed. There again, heat pumps become much less efficient as outside temperatures drop, so the true figure will lie in between, as the CCC explain:
https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/hydrogen-in-a-low-carbon-economy/
There is also the problem that heat pumps cannot provide the sort of instant heat that gas can, so won’t be of much use on cold winter mornings.
The alternative to heat pumps is hydrogen, produced from natural gas via steam reforming. However this is an extremely way of replacing gas, both in terms of hydrogen production and converting household appliances and pipes.
Worse still, the process produces CO2, which therefore needs to be captured at great cost. Even then, some CO2 emissions still occur.
In their infinite wisdom, therefore, the CCC have come up with the cunning plan of combining heat pumps with hydrogen in a hybrid system:
https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/hydrogen-in-a-low-carbon-economy/
In winter months, heat pumps provide a steady background heat, but the hybrid boiler kicks in to give a boost at times when extra heat is needed. This way, the extra demand put on the grid is around 50 GW.
Based on this and expected demand from EVs, the CCC are projecting peak demand of 150 GW by 2050.
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
October 16, 2019 at 12:39PM
Iowa Climate Science Education 
Reblogged this on Climate- Science.press.
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