REGISTERED GAS ENGINEER | OPINION
‘We need a single unifying voice’ A
single body or council should represent all buildings, products and services sectors to create a pragmatic and non-partisan pathway to achieve and promote the goal of net-zero carbon emissions, says Rinnai. The company is also calling for that body to be composed of all interested parties – residential and industrial consumers, contractors, installers, distributors, designers, consultants and manufacturers – to plan for a realistic and practical route to net zero. Rinnai managing director Tony Gittings says: “We need to look at this from the consumers’ viewpoint. We need to be putting accurate information in the public arena. There are a lot of interested bodies and companies showing understandable self-interest in wanting to know they have a future in the marketplace. We cannot be agnostic towards energy vectors of the future: the combination of hydrogen,
bioLPG and electricity combined will provide a robust decarbonisation pathway. “In our sector, we have manufacturers of similar or like-for-like products who are looking to what will replace natural gas as the fuel of mass consumption and how that will affect them. We also have the pragmatic logic of trying to find affordable fuels for the mass market. “Alternatives on their own are simply not an answer: we also need to look at the range of innovations and developments such as hydrogen and bioLPG that will come on stream. “No single product or system is the panacea to the issue of carbon emissions: individual products have a place. But what would be the net-zero answer, as an example, to a commercial or industrial building envelope that has the added complications of needing Legionella prevention
regimes and constant hightemperature hot water in large volumes? “How would electrification and heat pumps, for example, be attractive in terms of capital, installation and ongoing operational costs and performance? When we look towards notional building models within the new Future Homes Standard or the Scottish Energy in Buildings draft, these documents are clearly looking for a silver bullet
solution that doesn’t exist. “Everything has a role to play and everything non-carbon can have a future. And a collective, equable effort will give us the result we all want – the result we must have if we are to have a sustained quality of life. “Widespread unity and clear, responsible information exchange are required to avoid the partisan or the ‘silver bullet’ approach, avoiding technology dystopia in the future.”
Hydrogen: hype or gripe? W
e know there is no silver bullet to decarbonising heat in the UK, says Vaillant Technology and Training director Mark Wilkins. Ultimately, we need clarity from the government so that heating manufacturers, gas and network providers have a clear strategy to determine the journey to decarbonising heat. The past 16 months have been a huge challenge, especially for the government. The pandemic has pushed back the publication of numerous strategies such as the Future Homes Standard, the Heat and Buildings Strategy and the UK Hydrogen Strategy. As soon as these strategies are released, the industry can move forward in developing innovative new technologies and training programmes to support green jobs, ensuring we are prepared to reach the UK’s net-zero target and support a green economic recovery. 28 July 2021
While we are supportive of the long-term goal of green hydrogen, blue hydrogen has an important role to play as a stepping stone in the reduction of carbon emissions in the immediate future. It is true that blue hydrogen is produced from natural gas, but the CO2 produced is not released into the atmosphere. Up to 90 per cent of the CO2 can be stored in tanks or underground caverns, preventing emissions. Creating blue hydrogen can achieve lifecycle carbon emission savings of up to 85 per cent when compared with natural gas boilers being used today*. Vaillant is a strong advocate of both heat pumps and hydrogen boilers, but arguably hydrogen is easier to store than electricity. In the peak heating season, energy demand is approximately four times the average demand for the rest of the year. Historically, this has been met via the storage of
gas for use at these peak times. But a move to pure electrification of heat will pose significant challenges for the electricity grid to cope with seasonal demand. With little means of storage and the variability of wind and solar energy generation, there are challenges for green electricity generation. Hydrogen, as a replacement gas, can be stored, overcoming the challenge of variability in electricity demand and generation throughout the year. Of course, other options such as hybrid heat pumps can provide an on-site flexible solution to cope with the seasonality of demand and provide a cost-effective, lowercarbon solution for those more hard-to-treat homes. Heat pumps are a good alternative when homes are off the gas grid or for many retrofit properties that have a suitable
level of insulation. However, some existing UK homes need insulation upgrades before the installation of a heat pump is an effective measure. With the cost of a heat pump installation significantly more expensive than a boiler installation, and with a lack of incentives currently available, many homeowners will opt for a less costly approach. Currently, many homeowners are unaware of the changes required to their heating systems, including how a heat pump works, how the system operates at lower temperatures, and the behaviours in the operation of the system compared with a traditional boiler. We urge the government to act quickly and provide much needed clarity so that we can move forward in the decarbonisation journey. *Source: The CCC
