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A POLICY TO install hundreds of thousands of electrically-powered heat pumps in homes across Ireland could increase power costs by up to 46%, a research paper has found.
As part of the Climate Action Plan 2021, the government plans to replace oil and solid-fuel boilers with heat pumps powered by renewable electricity, with the aim of installing 400,000 heat pumps in existing buildings by 2030.
The government also aims to retrofit around 500,000 buildings with insulation to a B2-equivalent rating by 2030.
An Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) paper titled ‘Decarbonising heat through electricity: costs, benefits and trade-offs for the Irish power system‘ examined potential scenarios around this policy.
The paper analysed the impacts of electrifying 20% and 30% of Irish residential heating demand under different policy scenarios.
The results, published in the academic journal Energy Policy, indicated that the cost associated with retrofitting dwellings to the B2 BER-rating needed to support a heat pump was “by far” the greatest driver of costs.
The study found that the total costs associated with the heat pump policy increased power system costs by 30% if 20% of heating is electrified, and by 46% if 30% of heating is electrified.
Senior research officer and co-author of the paper Dr Muireann Lynch said that the high cost of retrofitting “highlights the challenges associated with decarbonising residential heating”.
Dr Lynch added: “Our current decarbonisation of heating policy relies on retrofitting and heat pumps and renewable electricity, and it’s worth considering some contingency plans if all of those don’t necessarily come to fruition.”
The high cost of retrofitting and installing heat pumps compares to the relatively low increase in electricity generation.
The study found that the costs of electricity generation investment – such as building battery storage as well as wind, solar and fossil fuel power plants – increased by 2.5% and 5% respectively.
Meanwhile the cost of transmission – such as wires to transport electricity – decreased slightly, by 1.5% and 1% respectively.
“What that might suggest is that if you increase electricity demand through electrifying the heating sector, then what’s happening there is we’re actually getting heat dispersed throughout the whole system,” Dr Lynch told the PA news agency.
“And that might mean that you’re better able to balance supply and demand at a local level.”
The ESRI study also found that when the geographical location of heat pump investment was chosen so that it imposed the lowest cost on the power system, there was a small reduction in costs relative to a policy that saw heat pump investment at an even rate across the country.
The location of heat pumps was driven by the location of the heat demand, with large investments in heat pumps in the Dublin region.
In contrast, areas with high renewable supply and good availability of land for rollout, such as the West and Mid-West, saw lower heat pump investment relative to a scenario where heat pumps were rolled out evenly across the country.
Dr Lynch said that “…contrary to our expectations, the demand for heat rather than the supply of electricity determined the optimal location of heat pumps”.
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No thanks. Don’t want a gargabe air souce heat pump. Like my heating and water hot, not luke warm. You can’t extract hot air from outside when its freezing cold, i.e when you really need it. The cost to properly retrofit homes to make these things even approach some level of efficiency is going to be crazy. You can’t simply swap out the old boiler. And they have to run all the time… I’ll take a ground source option if the salad party want to give me a €100k to swap out my oil burner
@Christopher Byrne: They don’t have to run all the time and they work perfectly fine in winter.
But I agree with you in that for them to be of most use the house will need to be retrofitted to a high level, the cost in a lot of cases being prohibitive.
@Christopher Byrne: Surprisingly heat pumps are still effective well below freezing. Absolute zero is at -273 oC Anything above that still retains some heat. As we rarely get temperatures below – 12oC we shouldn’t have to worry here to much about heat pumps efficacy.
@Christopher Byrne: You ruin your valid points with your wild claims about heat pumps. I was lucky to be able to retrofit my 1990s house to an A2 BER and installed a heat pump. Constant 21 degree temperature during winter and always have hot water but it was expensive to do.
@Christopher Byrne: Hi Christopher, you might want to do a little bit of reading on how a heat pump actually works. It does not and can not extract hot air. It uses a compressor and an internal refrigerant liquid cycle to provide the heat to high output aluminium radiators or to underfloor heating pipes. Think fridge in reverse. Ground source systems are indeed more efficient with a slightly higher COP (Coefficient Of Performance) but the price of installation and the amount of ground required will be prohibitive for the majority of homes. Air to water heatpumps work excellently in the cold.
The big issues for rollout will be to have installers who understand the systems but where there are grants available every cowboy going will suddenly become an ‘Expert Heatpump Installer’.
@Niall Kierans: My understanding is that they are effective at heating water to a low temperature, but because new houses are so well insulated, have underfloor heating, and most have also heat recovery systems installed, they work well because they simply don’t need to get warm like a traditional heating system. They’ll also switch to immersion heating when the air temperature is very low which is also inefficient. There probably is a better solution yet to be invented that could be easily retrofitted into existing buildings that will be much more cost effective than heat pumps.
@Christopher Byrne: I have one, it’s efficient, you’re full of BS
@Longlin: that’s what I’ve heard too longlin.
I’m holding out for a ground source heat pump or an improvement in efficiency before I’d consider an install.
Like most people I just have traditional radiators that require hotter water to work. Aluminium radiators are an option but installing underfloor heating is the best way to get efficiency out of the system.
@Daney Howard: Can I be rude and ask approx price?
@Christopher Byrne: I guess you have zero idea how a heat pump works then….piping hot water 24×7 with a heat pump setup
@Longlin: Solar Thermal Panels are fantastic for hot water needs . Continuous hot water for 10 months of the year . If its a busy household, water needs a boost from the boiler in thise other two months of winter .
@Christopher Byrne: garbage you say ? I smell ignorance. I coupled an air to water heat pump with solar evacuated tubes on my roof for hot water and I can assure you my water is hot (minimum 55 degrees) 24/7/365. House is a new build though with A2 rating so I understand the money required to bring older houses up to standard for the system to make sense. I heat the house at night for the day ahead on the cheap night rate electricity and the solar takes care of everything else. I save a fortune not having an oil burner but each to their own.
@Daney Howard: how expensive?
@Christopher Byrne: Have Air to water which supplies underfloor and water, works brilliantly at maintaining ambient temp and instant hot water. I go into typical ’3 up and downs’ (like the one I grew up in) and i’m amazed how badly they regulate the temperature, and the ‘immersion’ don’t get me started. Pick those knuckles up and move with it.
@Christopher Byrne: personally I would go with a hydrogen boiler when they become available. Hydrogen stores energy from wind farms and can be supplied thru existing infrastructure. Trucks are coming next year that run happily on hydrogen. As an ex builder it makes no sense to me to put 50k into a house to save energy when the payback time is decades.
@Christopher Byrne: Rubbish! Heat pumps are designed to provide the energy a house needs or wants……
Ignorance as usual.
With smart meters and heat pumps you are handing control to parties that do not have your best interests at heart. Whilst they do have a genuine use in new homes retro fitting heat pumps in a bungalow bliss will likely cost a kings ransom in electricity bills.
@O’Brien: The “solutions” they are offering are not economical for ordinary home owners. This tells me that the characters pushing these solutions have absolutely no idea what they are doing.
@David Corrigan: it’s fascinating isn’t it? On the one hand we have them offering advice on how to reduce costs such as driving slower on a motorway and shop around in supermarkets.
Then on the other they’re advising people to spend tens of thousands retrofitting their homes. The disconnect is stunning.
@O’Brien: The Smart meters will be great. We will be able to buy electricity for just a few cent when the wind is blowing strongly. That’s because its so cheap, we having paid billions in PSO, high charges etc. to put it there.
Biggest problem in this whole debate is the Long Covid issue of “the missing second half of the sentence” syndrome.
Get all your electricity 100% renewable ……… for 50% of the time
This new solar farm will supply 10,000 households ………for 30% of the time.
We are going to get all our electricity from renewables …….. for 40% of the time.
Where is the other 60% going to come from.?
@David Corrigan: They probably do have an interest. Their interest might be in shares or or having someone related in that business. Trust them? Not likely. Another point is where would I find money to retrofit my bungalow. I’m to old to borrow money and the grants are useless because you have to pay for any work when completed.
@Nicholas Grubb: As it stands, unless you have a heat pump, the smart meter rates are prohibitively expensive, the day and evening rate is so high it offsets any potential gain from night rates and you pay more overall. You also have to deal with the inconvenience of leaving your washing and dishwashing until night time.
Currently it’s just a scam and energy providers are milking those non-the-wiser, see them trying this more in future.
Heat pumps are simply not the answer for most existing Irish homes. A switch to HVO for houses that currently rely on oil is about as good as we will get. It’s the only cost effective way for the private houses which will not be retrofitted at the government’s expense.
@NotMyIreland: yeah I agree. Heat pumps are a good fit for new homes but not really existing homes. We’ve a 1960s semi-d and have already spent €30k getting triple glazed windows and doors and €19k on attic and external insulation (yes that includes grants) and we are still only B3 BER so we still wouldn’t be suitable for a heat pump if you need to be B2 according to this article.
@Sean: Far and away the best solution for existing homes is to insulate walls, windows, doors and keep the heat being generated by your existing system.
@Sean: Far and away the best solution for existing homes is to insulate walls, windows, doors and keep the heat being generated by your existing system.
@Sean: Unless you’re in your 20s, you’ll probably never see full payback for that investment unfortunately.
@Sean: no Sean, I think you’ve completely Korea’s the article, a gear pump would further improve your BER rating to maybe an a3 with a heat pump
@Johnny Honest: well yes the BER would improve but the article did say something about retrofitting houses to minimum B2 standard to support adding a heat pump so I took that to be the necessary starting point. The point anyway was that we had put €50K into retrofit and were still marginally shy of that starting point.
Greens in the fairy thinkers.
Low income paying more for Electricity so as government can pander to data centres etc. Let big business pay the surchage instead.
@Martin Matthews: yeah let google and fb pay they charges if they want to be based here
And when the electricity goes there’s no heating during the winter months. Exactly why the mother-in-law is getting a FREE grant to have an Oil system put in (to replace the wood burning piece of garbage that’s been there since 1974). Finally getting it this year, she won’t know herself being able to have a warm house waking up in the morning.
But to wake up without electricity and no heat, when you’re elderly.
Mate of mine got one of those fancy A rated houses with all electrical heating, was frozen during the winter months when the snow came and the power went.
Concentrate on getting houses up to better standard. Increase the grants to retrofit houses to get them to A or B ratings.
For example, can’t get a grant for triple glaze windows, as double glaze will do and the rest of the house has double glaze – they won’t fit the triple glaze. So stuck with a grant that will only install 1 window as a double glaze.
@Rafa Condron: The new oil system will need electricity to work. So if the power goes your mother in law still won’t have any heat.
@Rafa Condron: How does the oil boiler and circulation pumps/valves work without electricity?
@Roy Dowling: I wasn’t there when the discussions happened, but they say there’s a system there to get the heating going when the power is off. I’ll check it out more now – thanks.
@Daney Howard: Not an expert.
Anyway – there’s no free grant for heat pumps – so gone with the free one which is oil based. She cannot afford to do anything else.
She might have gotten the info wrong – in fact – she has.
Keeping the open fire so now too, I guess.
@Rafa Condron: I’m genuinely not aware of any oil fired heating system that can operate without electricity. I suspect someone might have been dishonest to your mother in law to make a sale.
@Rafa Condron: a
@Roy Dowling: Don’t think it was a sale thing, think she just got the info wrong. There’s no natural gas option. And the electric air to heat pump was too expensive and not available for free.
anway – it’s a huge upgrade and the power thing, have the option of an open fire.
Thanks for the heads up – I’ll pass on the info.
@Rafa Condron: Cool man. Yea it’s huge upgrade she’ll definitely feel the benefit of it. Fully agree the heat pumps are to expensive to fit to older hosues. My parents looked I to getting one installed in their house. But in the end they just upgraded the oil burner and replaced the radiator. That alone has made a massive difference. And they also still have the open fire if the power goes..
@Roy Dowling: Ah that’s good. Pity about it not working during power outages. I was trying to get her to go the air pump for the long term. But simply not affordable.
@Rafa Condron: What do you mean Free Grant, sure the S.E.A.I. give no Grant for Oil Heating.
@Owen G Mc Ginley: I’m going by 2nd hand information evidently. SEAI guy was out and did all the recommendations. I’m literally a 3rd party observer and got much wrong so far.
@Roy Dowling: I have a UPS for this reason. But I haven’t seen any boilers that come with a UPS built in before.
@Rafa Condron: And to think we had none of these problems 50 years ago, everyone had an open fire or and a sf range…..we managed and probably were healthier for it too.. now everyone wants to live in a heated tupperware box!!
@Rafa Condron: Rafa do you think your mother would be able to join in on these comments haha as you’ve got everything wrong so far but fair play for admitting it? Reading your many mea culpas has put a smile on my face.
@Daney Howard: I have a generator
Retrofit triple glazing (fitted correctly) and insulate where possible and the heating requirements will drop. Add solar with batteries too and switch to wood pellets as a previous poster said.
These are where the grants should go. Big 100%, interest free grants. Use the German system where the amount you pay back is offset by the savings on your bill.
But the government don’t actually want this- less tax revenue if we use less electricity
@Frank Carroll: Possibly that combination would work for private houses. I don’t know how many people are currently living in apartments, but I doubt they have the access or storage to add such systems. Possibly on balconies, which most apartments lack.
@Frank Carroll: wood pellets are a joke. Not environmentally friendly- biggest scam going. Read up on them. Loads of places took them out myself included.
Why not give grants for wood pellet boilers which is renewable and highly efficient, much easier to install than heat pumps which are fine for new builds
Heat pumps only work efficiently in new insulated homes. Useless in old houses
The government fail at most nearly everything. Why should these plans succeed when so many many others are falling on their face?
Will these heat pumps become the diesel cars of the future?
What about Nuclear Power for Electric Generation, I have never heard that option being discussed. I’m neither for it or against it, considering our proximity to the U.K. but is it a viable Economic and Enviromental alternative.
@Owen G Mc Ginley: there’s been a massive improvement in Nuclear technology over the past number of years. Lfter and MCFR reactors are smaller, safer and use less radioactive fuels than conventional reactors. I think it’s foolish to believe we can go 100% solar/wind. We’ll always need a backup and Nuclear reactors are not the scary 3 mile island/chernobyl style reactors of yesteryear
Wood pellets/correctly fitted triple glazing and insulation where possible matched with solar where feasible. There are even clever wind generation systems in production that are suitable for roofs. This is where the grants should go. 100% interest free grants with repayments offset by savings in your bill – like they do in Germany.
But where’s the tax revenue coming from if we’re generating our own power!!! Climate action is a catchphrase to this government
@Frank Carroll: How much would triple glazing, new door, insulation and a new wood pellet boiler cost?
My guess for an average house is that you won’t get much change from €50k
With an average ESB bill of say €125 per month, even if you half that amount with the new retrofit, you’re looking at 800 months payback – that’s 66 years. Throw in oil/coal saving on top of that and you’re maybe down to 40 years.
If you have to get a loan for that and pay interest then, the reality is that you are going to be waiting 50 years to see back a cent of that investment.
The costs in Ireland of doing that work is simply not economical and, until that changes, nothing will change.
@Lee King Buckett: exactly this doesn’t pay the home owner to retro fit.
Zero point installing a heat pump when the house will only leak out that heat. You have to have a well functioning heat retaining house before a heat pump is installed. otherwise you will have the HP on all the time and yes then it will be super expensive
120 k to bring a ber D2 rated house upto scratch thats 3k per year saving id have to make for 30 years for it to pay off which will not happen .
@Stephen Walshe: it is expensive but not that much. It cost me less than half that to bring a 1960s build D2 semi-d to B3.
Another climate change control measure debunked. There is no free lunch.
Hydrogen boilers are by far the best option the network all ready exists they just need to take out natural gas and put in hydrogen, but that option might be to easy for this government
Sure we won’t have any electricity to run them.whats the point
Very difficult to retro fit an old house
Nope, nope nope..l I’m sticking with my solid fuel range, one fire in it does so much than having everything electric
Heat pump €20,000 window and door replacement 15 to 20K, External insulation wrap plus attic insulation €25,000. Total cost circa € 65,000, if you saved 1k per year on heating costs it would take 65 years toget your money back.
The Green party are peddling us a big fat lie and it will cost us all dearly.
Candles this winter to light our way
There is a home owner I know of who recently fitted a new Grant Vortex oil boiler.There was a heat pump fitted also. Home owner said the heat pump was rubbish and parts were expensive when it broke the manufacture wasn’t helpful. Not sure what make it was but they were very happy switching over to oil. House was built new with the heat pump. And as mentioned above, HVO is probably the best was to reduce the emissions when it comes on stream as it will be a drop in replacement for kerosene.
have your say