Critical_Insight @ Critical_Insight @feddit.uk

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2 yr. ago

Staying warm is not the issue. It's the price for that comfort. Running a 1kW space heater for 24 hours at yesterday's prices would have cost a little over 26 euros.

Plans like that started gaining popularity in the recent years as in general they were cheaper than ones with fixed prices. Then because of the Russian invasion the prices skyrocketed with daily averages of even 30 and 40 cents and people were in deep trouble with their electric bills and many of them scrambled to get 20 - 30c/kWh, 1 to 2 year long plans to save their asses. However the spot prices then dropped back to 3 to 4 cents for the spring and summer and now those people were stuck with their fixed price plans and are paying 10x the spot prices. Personally I just decided to gamble with the spot priced plan as my 6c/kWh plan had just ended and the 8 to 12 cent plans are all 1 to 2 years long. Despite freak days like this, on average, I'm still probably paying less than I would have with a fixed price plan.

If your intention is to heat or cool air using as little electricity as possible, a basic heat pump split air conditioning unit is going to be more than adequate for 90% of people. If you live in a place like Yakutsk, then yeah, you probably need to look into something else, but for the vast majority of people it's going to be just fine. A general recommendation doesn't mean it's the best choice for literally every single person.

Yeah obviously it's a whole different game when you live in a place like that. That's just quite rare usecase. The vast majority of people who keep repeating the "heatpumps don't work in cold climates" lives in a climate much warmer than I do. Even mine struggles on the really cold days we get few times a year but that's fine because it gets the job done flawlessly for the remaining 350 days.

Tomorrow is back to normal. Even the 37c/kWh spike hardly registers on the graph compared to today even though that's still pretty expensive.

Today is highly unusual. Never before in recorded history has the price climbed anywhere near this high. Last year we had record high electricity prices due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and even then the average price for the year was 18c/kWh. This year it has been around 12c/kWh I think.

Sure, but as I said it's just a handfull of days in a year. If the heatpump alone struggles to keep my house warm I can just switch on one or two electric radiators.

My heatpump is about 3x more efficient than electric radiator.

This is such an outdated information. Modern heatpumps work just fine even in temperatures of -20C and below. Ofcourse the efficiency gets worse the colder it is but even at worst it's still 100% efficient. On a typical year there's only a handful of really cold days. It doesn't make sense not to get a heatpump just because it's inefficient for few days. It's not like it stops heating or something. It just effectively turns into electric radiator which is what my house was heated with before I got the heatpump anyways.

Shiver uncontrollably.

50kWh and closer to 90kWh on days like this. It's a log cabin and I'm keeping my root cellar and insulated shed above freezing aswell. Even running a 1kW heater all day would result in a consumption more than 21kWh and that wouldn't keep any house warm.

It's what I exclusively heat my house with

Yeah I have considered it. There's just no good place for the chimney either. It would need to go thru the wall and past the eaves on either of the two sides of the building that the roof is not sloping towards to because else falling snow is going to rip it off in the winter.

In winter yeah but we have long ass days in the summer and even in early spring they work surprisingly well as solar panels are more efficient in cold temperatures.

When I said my house is tiny I truly mean that. I don't even have space for a medium size house plant let alone a fireplace. The attic was converted into living space and I believe the fireplace used to be where the stairs are now.

I have a wood burning sauna on a separate building though

It's a log cabin with 5cm added fibreglass insulation on the inside.

Those batteries would never pay themselves back.

I unfortunelately don't have a fireplace in my house. It was removed when the house was renovated in the 80's

I don't think it was scheduled maintenance. Something broke

About 30% do