The UK could massively cut both carbon emissions and investment in new generation plants by using domestic boilers as “mini peaking plants”, according to new research.
Colin Calder, chief executive and founder of PassivSystems, outlined a sneak preview of the “Freedom Project” study last week at an event in London organised by the Policy Exchange think tank.
The research, which has been carried out by Imperial College London and is due to be launched next month in the House of Lords, assesses 75 homes where hybrid heating systems had been installed.
Calder said this showed that the households used clean energy for 80 per cent of their heating needs with gas boilers kicking in when the grid was under stress.
He said that allowing these boilers to remain in use would be more cost effective than building expensive new peaking plants, which are likely to be idle for 90 to 95 per cent of the time.
“Numerous reports indicate that unresponsive grids will just get more and more expensive and hence we will burden consumers unnecessarily with costs.
“We are building into auctions the construction of power stations we will rarely use and will never see demand flexibility come to market because we continue to build capacity.”
In addition, he said that heat produced by domestic boilers wastes a lot less energy than electrical heating supplied from fossil fuel-fired power stations.
Calder said the research showed that tapping existing boilers would lead to a 25 per cent reduction in the amount of peaking plant generation capacity that will be required as the UK transitions to a low carbon economy, which consumers ultimately pay for through their energy bills.
“We get enormous carbon efficiency gains, and we will build 25 per cent less capacity.”
And he said unless a value is put on flexible demand measures, efforts to switch over the heating systems from gas to lower forms of energy would be stymied.
“You are asking consumers to find over £100 billion of their own money to convert their homes from high carbon to low carbon heat. I don’t think there is a consumer who is going to offer you that money unless you make that market more attractive.”