The wait is over…
I’m so excited and I just can’t hide it, I’m about…
Why are you singing like that, with a stupid grin on your face?
Well, today is the day…
Mother’s day?
No, concentrate, I get to look at our heating costs and compare a winter with an air sourced heat pump to a gas boiler – like I said, I’ve been looking forward to doing this analysis.
You really ought to get a life, you know, you only get one!
Cheeky, this is what I like doing. Making things better and I like to be a person of action. It’s been killing me the fact we couldn’t make this move earlier…
Would you mind doing the figures, so we can all get on and have some fun?
Sorry. This is the approach I’ve taken. 1st October to 31st March is the duration of a British Winter. Taking our old figures for gas consumption from https://www.n3rgy.com/, I have compared that to the heat pump’s consumption figures.
This makes sense for us because gas was only ever used to heat water and the house – no gas appliances here.
I have cross checked the heat pump’s usage figures with our hourly usage for electricity, and again that seems a reasonable way of sanity checking them.
Each winter is called the year of the January it falls in, so this winter was 2025 (1st October 2024 to 30th March 2025), last winter was 2024 (1st October 2023 to 31st March 2024).
Wait a second, this winter is going to be a day short!
Yes, I will complete the figures tomorrow or later this week, but I didn’t want to delay publishing.
So, what are the numbers? Does a heat pump make sense from an energy conservation point of view?
You’re finally interested – a contented sigh this side…
Here are the numbers, going back to 2022, all in kWh (kiloWatt hours).
Year | Total power used | Jan – Mar usage | Oct-Dec previous year’s usage | Winter totals |
---|---|---|---|---|
2022 | 15,013.391 | 5,502.894 | 7,109.310 | 12,612.204 |
2023 | 13,270.888 | 5,360.847 | 6,727.941 | 12,088.788 |
2024 | 4,433.757 | 3,105.757 | 6,170.366 | 9,276.123 |
2025 | 2,075.000 | 2,075.000 | 1,328.000 | 3,403.000 |
In 2025, the “Total power used” and other figures are electricity, all the others are gas.
Now, the difference between 2022/23 and 2024 was the use of programmable radiator valves and zone thermostats. The average temperature in a room was 18°C, but the lounge and kitchen often run at 20°C and above for all years.
Temperature-wise, the winters were comparable. Last winter, we didn’t have a winter’s holiday but in the end, we didn’t turn down our heat pumps running while we were away, so again, probably a fair comparison.
Our boiler died on the 23rd March 2024, so last year’s figures are a little light, we used electric radiators on the cold days, but I am not counting them.
So, what is the usage difference between 2024 and 2025? 5,873.123 kWh or 37% of what we used last year.
So, from an energy conservation point of view, it’s a no brainer.
Cost is a harder sum. In March we have generated 476.9 kWh of electricity from our roof, and our solar batteries (the second one finally got installed on Monday), which goes towards heating, lighting, dishwashing, laundary, transport (our Leaf), and cooking.
Which covers our heating costs this month (469 kWh) but it’s close. On average this month, we’ve paid £4.54 a day for all our power, or £140.74.
January was by far the coldest month: our gas usage last year was 1694.77 kWh, this year it was 909 kWh, nearly half the power we used went towards heating and hot water, of course some of that was generated. The costs were, on average, £10.61 a day for the 1327.0 kWh we bought.
Of course, that’s not our total energy bill: for January, it was 1327 kWh or £328.79, that’s on top of what we generated, which was 92.7 kWh (it was a dull and overcast January, our worst ever, typically we get 145-170 kWh off the roof).
Feb we paid for 1044.6 kWh and generated 146.3 kWh. March was 544.2 kWh bought, and generated 450.7 kWh.
We’re relatively heavy users of electricity. But it is powering our car, as well as the house. My commute to work has relied heavily on the car the past few weeks: while it is now sunny, it is still chilly.
So, is it cheaper than using gas? If you’re not generating your own power, possibly not. Over the summer, we should be grid free.
If you are, it’s an absolute no brainer, go heat pump!
Posted: March 30th, 2025 under Driving off the grid.
Comments: 1