Re:notch Solar Heat Storage’s Post

Household heating is surely including Domestic Hot Water in that figure. In which case that's pretty much what I would expect. An EV doing 7k miles a year needs about 2100kWh and an average family uses about 2000kWh(t) of hot water. Any house with a cylinder in an airing cupboard already has a thermal battery for their DHW. If they have gas, they probably also have an immersion heater as a back up. If the spark gap gets to 1.1 or less on a time of use tariff (I get 1.1 now in the UK for 6 hours every night) then electric is on parity with gas. An you need hot water year round, even if you live in a city centre flat. Massive flexibility opportunity.

So 'flexibility' means ability to reduce or increase electricity consumption at short notice. But if you are energy efficient (eg with good insulation) you don't have much consumption to start with and so little room for flex. Maximum flexibility comes from a combination of poor insulation plus high thermal mass. The latter allows you to ride through periods when your heating is off without suffering falling room temperatures. You will then have high consumption as you aim to replace all heat lost because of poor insulation, in preparation for the next high price period. So, poor insulation plus high thermal mass is the winning combination for maximum flexibility.

So the moving the building stock to better insulation will have a huge impact! Narara Ecovillage has an average star rating of 7.7 stars for their 50+ homes and counting. Makes a huge difference. Better for equity and resilience too, as more vulnerable people tend to have lower efficiency homes that need more heating and cooling.

I'd like to know what the assumptions are behind this. Heat pumps are by far the most efficient electric heating solution (though not all heat pumps are created equal), but the notion that they can also provide significant demand flexibility is pure fantasy.

Thanks Jan - I will have to read this on my journey back from London this evening. Someone in the team is a big Fatboy Slim fan given the title of the report?

How many households, what’s the share of heat pump penetration and what’s the duration of flexibility?

Thanks Jan for keeping up banging the drum on this - it is so important and is a simple fix with tested technology. It is just more intelligent to heat houses with heat pumps than by burning gas! Efficiency is elegant but overlooked

Surprising to find heating at almost 10x V2G and batteries combined especially as heating is not required year round (guess this may include hot water?)

Excellent summary! Heat flexibility is an untapped resource for managing grid congestion.

Jan Rosenow, surprise surprise! Well, perhaps not so much of a surprise really :-) Well said @Jan Rosenow