UK Sustainable heating debate warms up

The UK governments much delayed sustainable heating strategy is still eagerly awaited, not least given the UK energy cost crisis. With gas prices high, a coal plant had to be cranked up to meet power demand when offshore wind input was low and then a cross-channel power link went out of service. The resultant rise in power prices and the prospect of more energy prices rises, raise major, political, economic and social issues. However, more optimistically it was argued that, longer term, higher gas prices could help accelerate the shift from gas to renewables, backed by energy storage.  That might include solar with hydrogen back up and more offshore wind projects further out to sea in windier areas with higher load factors, and also tidal stream projects with inherently high levels of power availability.  So renewables could become more reliable. They could also be a hedge against future wild gas price swings. Certainly, some claimed, we could have avoided the mess by pushing the alternative options more.

Of course not everyone saw it like this. Predictably, the Global Warming Policy Forum saw the price rises as being due to green taxes and green policies, with even worse to come if the government insisted on pushing for high cost heat pumps to replace gas boilers and natural gas. With energy and economic chaos predicted, it even called for the COP26 meeting to be cancelled! 

Interestingly, Ecotricity also came out with a ‘save our boilers’ campaign, in conjunction with the Daily Express, claiming, like the GWPF, that the heat pump route was too expensive. But its campaign proposals were very different from the GWPF’s. Whereas the GWPF want to stay with fossil gas for heating, Ecotricity wants the UK to go for green gas, with biomethane produced from grass in their planned anaerobic digestion (AD) gas-mill plants. It said running the gas mains and existing boilers with biogas would be much cheaper and easier than trying to install and then run electric heat pumps. Its UK wide green gas-mill plan would, it said, cost £30 bn, a tenth of what it claimed the heat pump plan would cost, ‘with zero % of the hassle, upheaval and waste.’ It would also insulate the UK from the vagaries of imported gas prices. 

It’s a bold idea, although Ecotricity is only looking to supply 50% of UK heat from its gas mills. 20% would come from green hydrogen, 30% from green electricity powered heat pumps. Even so, it could have major land-use and ecological implications if fully developed, as was pointed out when Ecotricity first proposed the gas-mill idea back in 2016. The Biofuelwatch group said then that ‘replacing current domestic natural gas use with biomethane made from grass would require an area of 10.2 million hectares, which is 59% of the UK’s entire agricultural land. This area is equivalent to 92% of existing grassland in the UK, most of which is used for grazing.’ 

That may be a bit over the top- Ecotricity isn’t talking about replacing all home gas use with green gas. And, in terms of climate impact, it insisted that green gas, from fast growing grass, would be carbon neutral over a very short time-frame – 6 months from absorption to release. It could also be done in a sustainable way, for example in terms of diversity, so as to have minimal impact on local wildlife and ecosytems. Well, not everyone was convinced about that, or about the whole thing-  not least since grass doesn’t grow well in the winter and there is the risk of climate wrecking bio-methane leaks.

Ecotricity’s current plan is to start next year with its first green gas mill near Reading, which it says will use 3,000 acres to power 4,000 local homes. But clearly it wants to expand rapidly from that. Indeed, cranking it up to the maximum, Ecotricity’s Dale Vince said: ‘Heating 100 percent of homes from grass is feasible, leaving 40 percent of grassland for other purposes. The UK currently has 23 million acres of farmland, of which 63 percent - or 14.5 million acres - is grassland. Using grass to heat half the UK's homes would require up to 4.5 million acres’.

What next?

The governments Heating and Building strategy is unlikely to back anything like that, although, oddly, given its heat pump policy, the government had previously backed an expansion of gas boiler installation. At least 20,000 new gas boilers are to be installed under the energy company obligation (ECO) scheme. That may have added to the sense of confusion that has been reported to be common in relation to the Net zero heating homes plan. 

It does seem to be hard for the government to get it right! It seems so clear that energy saving is a winner, as, rather provocatively, Extinction Rebellion has been saying - although a full national insulation programme will be costly and will need careful management. The National Audit Office says that the governments previous exercise, the green homes grant scheme, was ‘botched’. It collapsed after six months because officials rushed its design, put in place an undeliverable timetable, and failed to heed industry warnings. Messy. 

Meantime, while the battle over gas and heat pumps continues, some very different heating projects are emerging, including plans for a very large low carbon heat network in South London. Large scale District Heating networks fed by high-efficiency Combined Heat and Power plants can achieve very much higher Coefficients of Performance equivalents than heat pumps.  With cost falls for green hydrogen also being talked up, a coherent green heating plan does seem to be needed! Indeed, some say a complete energy plan revamp is needed- including the re-nationalisation of the electricity supply industry. But that’s an even bigger issue. With the energy crisis deepening by the day, and, of all things, the UK running out of CO2 gas, as well as having fuel and food distribution problems, it will be interesting to see what the government comes up with. All we have had new of note so far is an indication that it wants nuclear to feature more centrally. How that would cut heating costs is hard to see.