There is a lot of “hot air” being released at the moment regarding domestic heating solutions for UK homes.

Sitting dispassionately on the side-lines, the “sunk-cost fallacy” comes to mind. There are various definitions for this, but they usually centre around idea that someone chooses to do or continue something just because they have invested (unrecoverable) resources in it in the past.

How we heat homes in the UK is different from how other countries do it. So why have we gone our own way?

A little bit of history

Gas has been used here since the early 1800s. By the mid-1800s in England, gas street lighting was a common sight. Up until the late 1960s, gas in the UK was actually “coal gas” or often referred to as “town gas”. Coal gas is produced by heating coal in the absence of air; it is highly toxic since it has a high carbon monoxide content.

Because of this danger to human health, Coal Gas as a source of domestic heating was not popular. But novel heating methods such as gas-fires, central heating and gas warm air heating did retain market share into the mid 1970s.

Natural gas discoveries in the UK territorial waters during the mid-1960s eventually led to the creation of a national distribution grid, which connected into pre-existing regional grid networks that had been established for Coal Gas.

The Fuel Policy White Paper of 1967 directed the conversion of the UK to North Sea Natural Gas to ‘enable the country to benefit as soon as possible from the advantages of this new indigenous energy source’.

As a result, there was a ‘rush to gas’ for use in peak load electricity generation (ie. gas-fired power stations) as well as in domestic heating and cooking. It has the major advantage of being relatively clean and non-toxic. To enable this transition, all existing equipment had to be converted to take natural gas.

Hydrogen

If you have had your street dug up recently, this is most likely part of a national gas network renewal project (costing you £28 billion) to get the grid ready for hydrogen. Hydrogen is a much smaller atom, therefore can leak out of old iron pipework and domestic pipe connections, and since it has explosive properties, this is a big safety risk. Getting “hydrogen ready” involves changing the pipework, and phasing in hydrogen into the Natural Gas supply.

So what about those Sunk Costs?

The principle reason to go down the hydrogen route is because we have an extensive existing grid network for distributing gas, a professional trade body that is experienced in supplying and fitting central heating boilers, and a customer base that is well adapted to benefit from gas fired central heating.

These are the sunk costs.

But does it make sense to continue down this route? What about alternatives? We seem to be deep into a turf war between existing industrial bodies that are invested in promoting hydrogen, and those promoting alternatives. There are a lot of vested interests in pushing forward with hydrogen.

What should a domestic consumer do?

We cannot know how the hydrogen versus alternative battle is going to play out.

But some things are universally true.

In particular, insulation is a “no-regrets” investment. And if you have been struggling to sleep in the recent heatwave, we should really refer to “fabric first” investment since keeping cool in summer is also very important.

If we need to apply lots of heating or air conditioning to maintain a comfortable living temperature, then this will necessarily entail high ongoing energy costs (no matter the energy source).

So, action 1: Insulate your home. (And perhaps install some shutters on south facing windows.)

But the precursor step to this is to have a heat loss survey of your home, since it will identify where best to apply your limited investment capital.

Your own sunk costs

If your home already has a good set of pipework and radiators, these are your own sunk costs. It will influence your decision to retain a “wet” heating system (such as a boiler or an Air Source Heat Pump) or change to a “dry” heating system (such as electric heating, of various forms).

Brimstone Energy can help you consider the decision in an objective way. The decision isn’t binary, and there are many ways to achieve a comfortable temperature in your home.

Brimstone Energy – Helping you Navigate the Green Energy Transition.