120 comments on Weathering the storm: making it through a natural-gas crisis
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120 comments on Weathering the storm: making it through a natural-gas crisis
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Hi Nick,
Actually, natural gas dominates the residential space heating market with approximately a two-third share; electricity accounts for about 16 per cent.
Cheers,
Paul
I live in London UK in a 120 apartment block and we moved from oil to gas for the central boiler about 15 years ago.
We now get our gas at wholesale (Industrial) rates which are about 50% less than residential rates. There are, however, some potential downsides to this that we have yet to experiance.
My understanding is that since margins are much greater for residential it is the last portion of supply to be reduced. So we get a lower rate but we increase our risk of supply disruption...
There is a small movement within the block that wishes to move to individual gas boilers in each apartment -I aim to resist this move if it ever gains traction as I still believe the communal system gives advantages. It would be almost impossible to supplement individual systems with renewable solar for example.
Regards, Nick.
Hi Nick,
The cost and logistics of installing one hundred and twenty condensing boilers should hopefully keep this from happening. If the primary motivation is to encourage the more efficient use of energy and ensure greater fairness (i.e., each tenant pays for only what they use), there are sub-metering systems that permit these costs to be charged back on a unit by unit basis.
See: http://www.wilsonenergy.co.uk/case_studies.html
Cheers,
Paul
That's good to know.
What about home cooking? I had the particular impression that electric stoves were the norm. I remember someone talking about the UK grid being challenged when everyone put a kettle on during a television commercial (advert?) break.
Hi Nick,
Digging a little further, in 2006, 87 per cent of UK homes with central heating are fuelled by gas (non centrally heated homes represent less than nine percent of all housing stock). With respect to cooking, natural gas and electric are fairly equal, with natural gas holding a slight lead in fuel use (53 versus 46 per cent).
Electric kettles and commercial breaks in a country that loves its tea can certainly wreck havoc, considering your basic Russell Hobbs can draw 3,000-watts.
See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/britainfromabove/stories/people/teatimebritain.shtml
Related: http://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/Media+Centre/PressReleases/15-06-06.htm
Cheers,
Paul