From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness/Ian Cunningham
Yet another reason not to buy a heat pump!
From the Telegraph:
Heat pump households face winter warmth rationing as the drive to net zero raises increasing fears of blackouts.
By the end of next year, electricity suppliers will be able to remotely turn down heat pump central heating to help Britain’s energy system cope with high demand.
Suppliers are expected to do so on the instructions of the quango responsible for coordinating the grid, which is overseen by Ed Miliband’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ).
Britain’s electricity supply typically comes under most strain during winter cold snaps. The risk of blackouts is expected to become more extreme as net zero policies shift energy demand from gas to electricity and supply becomes more dependent on less reliable wind and solar generation.
Under the Energy Secretary’s proposed Smart Secure Electricity Systems scheme, licenced providers such as Octopus Energy and British Gas will be able to restrict heat pumps via the internet.
There are more than 223,000 heat pumps installed in existing buildings across the country, according to the latest official statistics. Mr Miliband has set a target for 450,000 heat pumps to be installed annually by 2030and since April last year, every one installed must be capable of being connected to the internet.
The Government’s assessment of the impact of the remote control plan, which is now under consultation, said energy suppliers “will be able to remotely control significant amounts of electrical load through EV charge points, heat pumps etc”.
DESNZ said the rationing system, officially referred to as load control, will help “balance the grid” during peak demand, making blackouts less likely.
It is proposed that only heat pump households that agree to become part of the system will be included. In return they will be offered discount tariffs.
Full story here.
Ignore the lie that you can opt in to this.
Yet now we find ourselves rushing headlong into a Stalinist rationing system.
It will not be long before it is mandatory. We already have legislation allowing the Government to restrict EV charging. It is inevitable that heat pump demand will soon overwhelm the power grid as soon as most households have them. There will be no alternative at all once that happens but to ration power.
Ironically, homeowners will simply resort to conventional electric heaters to warm their homes up instead. As these are less energy efficient than heat pumps, the load on the grid will increase, not reduce.
As somebody commented, nobody voted for any of this.
From the article:”…nobody voted for any of this.”
it appears you don’t vote for your PM either.
We don’t.
The parties have elected leaders, but at the election in each constituency one votes for an individual or a party, or even against one as a tactical vote. The party with a majority of constituencies (seats) forms the government with its leader as PM.
I think it is the same thing in Japan. People elect their representatives to the Assembly, and the party with the most representatives elects a member of the party who will become Prime Minister. The liberal-conservative party has been in power for virtually decades in the archipelago. (Obviously, this party is labelled far-right by Wokipedia. The horroooooor!)
In France, the situation is different: people elect their representatives to the Assembly during legislative elections, and then there are presidential elections to elect the head of state. It becomes quite complicated when the President does not have a majority in the Assembly, either after having ordered the dissolution of the Assembly or after legislative elections, because then they must take into account the parliamentary majority and appoint a Prime Minister from an opposing political side, meaning that the head of state finds themselves constrained in their political ambitions. But it is even more complicated when there is no clear majority in the Assembly, because not only is the President considered to have little legitimacy in the eyes of the people, but there is also political and ideological uncertainty in the parliamentary representation.
In a proper democracy, we should do as the Swiss do and ask the people for their opinion. The government should ensure that the vital functions of the country remain in place, meaning maintaining law and order and people’s safety, educating young people (reading, writing, arithmetic, building historical knowledge, scientific and literary culture, etc. What used to be called the Humanities, and which is just as important as mathematical analytical abilities, for example); and also establishing hospital structures that would not depend on the whims of the State for everything and anything.
We are far from that, and the signing of the Lisbon Treaty by the European Parliament in 2007 (after the French and the Dutch had answered NO in a referendum on the adoption of a European constitution) constitutes an extremely serious coup d’état and a return to feudalism, but with an international and technocratic dimension added on top of it.
It does not surprise me that fewer and fewer French people are interested in politics. Our democracy is no longer one. It reminds me of a quote from Bukowski: “The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote before you obey orders; in a dictatorship, you don’t waste your time voting.”
In a Swiss-style democracy, this is false. But it is indeed the case in a “democracy” like the European Union.*
Correct. The illusion that one is voting for a particular leader is promoted by the respective parties. This illusion helps parties maintain their preeminent position in politics. Same for tactical voting. Both leverage the ignorance of the voters who are in turn punished for it. So yeah, democracy works fine.
Technically, it is true that in the UK people vote for their constituency MP, not for the Prime Minister. However, if you vote for, say, Labour and the candidate is elected, that adds to the total number of Labour MPs. That, in turn, could determine that the Prime Minister is a Labour MP. So, indirectly, if you vote for the Labour candidate in your constituency you are voting, indirectly, for a Labour Prime Minister. And your vote might be determined by the fact that you want a particular person to be Prime Minister. (“I’m voting Labour because I want that inspiring, charismatic, internationl heavyweight, Keir Starmer, to be the Prime Minister.” “I’m voting Labour because I know that Keir Starmer won’t do lots of U-turns.” “I’m voting Labour because Keir Starmer told an elderly lady that Labour would freeze electricity prices.”)
Well now you know what all these smartass meters are for…
Everything that can be corrupted will be corrupted.
Everything that can be controlled will be controlled
and everything that can be weaponized will be weaponized.
And if they are doing this with heatpumps
imagine what they’ll do with CDBC’s
Truely mindboggeling, and the list of digital madness goes on and on.
So boys who else is in for another pangalactic gargleblaster? I know you shouldn’t have more of them than two but I rather prefer to face “da future” well drunk than sober. With all these retards in charge and herds of mindless sheep applauding their idiocy at 19:00 perhaps not the dumbest choice.
And even if the course would change, anyone done a conservative damage asessement cost and societywise? (not to mention the time required to fix all of it)
skål I say and keep’em coming Arthur sarc
CBDC (central bank digital currencies)?
Just remind me, please…what is it that “heat pumps” do…not do…supposedly do…and why do politicians always want to restrict when they should not restrict…and permit when they should prohibit..?
Heat pumps do not use natural gas to warm a domicile.
As we all “know” burning natural gas releases CO2, which has been indicted as a “climate pollutant.”
CO2 has been accused, convicted, and sentenced without a trail, all based on unsubstantiated conjectures, lousy models, and scientific misconduct or even malfesance.
Politicians have a number of unstated goals. Primary goal is to get reelected. Then there is the accumulation of wealth, power, and control.
Sad, ain’t it?
And in the Uk you can only get grants for Air to Water heat pumps ie for heating only. Air to Air which do cooling in summer get not grants and need full planning permission instead of Air to Water which are permitted even if your neighbours lose sleep from the outside blower unit.
“Politicians have a number of unstated goals. Primary goal is to get reelected. Then there is the accumulation of wealth, power, and control.”
The saddest part is that knowing this people still vote for them.
The least powerful politicians are independent ones. Except for the power of their free intellect and conscience.
https://climate.nasa.gov
Apparently, heat pumps can’t stop you from using bold italic fonts
can you not Google “heat pumps” yourself?
Then, search for a primer on thermodynamics because there is no easy way to explain to anyone totally ignorant of it when measuring the relative benefits of pumps vs direct combustion or “free energy” collected by manufactured gadgets like solar panels, windmills, hydroelectric plants etc.
What do have against hydro?
So, Miliband is to be our massively embarrassing Foreign Secretary…
The good news is that he is no longer the Minister for Energy Security and Net zero. He has been replaced by Miatta Fahnbulleh who cannot possibly be any worse than he was. Has there ever been a job title which is more absurd?
Another PPE graduate so just the person to put in charge of energy.
Oh FFS…
You need to meet her, it will change your mind about her.
Cynical knee-jerk reaction : “Oh ye of little imagination …”
.
PS : In the time it took me to log in “strativarius” has done a (much) more serious post about Miatta Fahnbulleh’s “credentials” for heading up the UK’s DESNZ. You just have to scroll down to the top-level post just below this thread.
I am sure if we put our collective grey matter to work we can identify a few viable competitors.
Almost as embarrassing as the openly gay Defence Secretary, Wes Streeting. Here’s our front line boys on hearing the news:
Not just openly gay, but a believer in the ideas of Dr John Money. The post war Dr Mengele.
Didn’t know that Mengele was a pedophile and crippling little boys sexual organd..
Sydney Gottlieb was more the Mengele dude – Money was, if we use German/American analogy, Magnus Hirschfeld.
I thought just about everybody knew Mengele conducted cruel [and fatal] medical experiments on sets of twins at… Auschwitz
You have heard of the need for a blank? If not, you have now.
Like… who didn’t see that coming down the line?
But things have taken a real turn for the worse. Since Crash and Burnham became PM yesterday he’s made some bonkers appointments to the Cabinet.
Firstly, mad Ed is out of energy and is now Foreign Secretary. It is no secret that the Trump administration loathes both the Miliband brothers. Ed will be jetting around trying to persuade other countries to follow the UK’s net zero example.
Secondly, the replacement Energy and Net Zero secretary… and this one is Miliband on steroids. Miatta Fahnbulleh – daughter of a Liberian minister in a rather unsavoury regime.
From Guido Fawkes…
Fahnbulleh for six years served as CEO of the capitalism-sceptic New Economics Foundation.
The NEF under Fahnbulleh recommended, among other things:
A wealth tax and yet another windfall tax on oil and gas.Calls for mass nationalisation e.g. of land, transport, and energy.Extending national insurance to investment income.A cap on interest rates and charges on every form of consumer credit.Hiking capital gains tax to income tax levels. See what you did Wes…Hiking divided tax to income tax levels.Abolition of the upper earnings limit for national insurance.Huge expansion of the benefits system including a “minimum income guarantee” paid to everyone apart from the rich.Nationalisation of banks and creation of new “green” banks with taxpayer funds.Block on private banks lending to anyone with a “large amount of greenhouse gas emissions” and “penalisation of banks that provide too many carbon-intensive loans.“Forced sale of existing businesses to employees.A tripling of the stamp duty surcharge to 9% for multiple homeowners and an increase to 6% for non-residents.Fahnbulleh also supports the creation of large nationalised energy companies to “flood the market“, accompanied by the introduction of “free basic energy” for everyone.
Worryingly, Fahnbulleh yesterday celebrated the blockage of almost 900 new homes in her constituency of Peckham, forcing residents to put up with a dilapidated 80s shopping centre for more years instead. Burnham said today that his first big target is housing – it’s not going well so far…
Here we go… PS. Convicted criminal (fraud) Louise Haigh is now in charge of the Cabinet Office and… ethics.
Time for an early whisky.
Part of her job title is energy security. Ed Miliband completely ignored that part of his job as he concentrated solely on Net Zero insanity. If she actually took her job seriously, she should row back on the Net zero nonsense and ensure that Britain can keep the lights on.
If she actually took her job seriously…
Oh she does. But not as you would imagine.
yes, stay in power
get reelected
What is the energy platform for the Reform party? Does it have a chance of forming a majority in parliament after the general election?
What is the energy platform for the Reform party?
Get rid of net stupid zero.
At this point nobody knows, the establishment is trying to destroy Reform. It has been for some time, and it won’t stop.
They’re using the get Trump playbook.
And doxxing people in Reform or conservatives they don’t like. The Times was once a reputable publication. It now seems as bad as News of the World at its worst.
Yeah, jump from one party to the next. That will work not. Wake up! Parties are the problem not the cure.
So instead of Mad Ed we have Madder Miatta.
Oh, a communist. We are ruing the day when we all decided to tolerate communists.
Apparently Britain must die a green suicide before the people will awaken. Germany, too.
So compared to the gas shortage and rationing in the 70s this ones voluntary with benefits.
Guess the US in the 70s was also stalinist. And as always: Ignore reality, trust wuwt fearmongering.
So compared to the gas shortage and rationing in the 70s
There were no shortages of gas in the UK, in fact the dash for gas occurred in the 1980s. Prior to that we used town gas, coal and nuclear.
If you want to learn more about Stalinism I suggest you read Homage to Catalonia.
The ultimate form of demand reduction – rationing aka cutting off your power. Blackouts.
Why are you here?
You always deflect from the topic at hand to create a flame war.
Are you so desperate to accumulate “debating points” to inflate your ego or is all this purely entertainment so you can grin and giggle and people responding to your triggers?
You will not convert anyone to your religion.
So it comes down to the perspective you build that you are a flame warrior.
I just point out wrong claims in the article.
You do this frequently on multiple articles.
Conclusion? You lie about your motives.
“So compared to the gas shortage and rationing in the 70s this ones [sic] voluntary with benefits.”
So you get to freeze while clutching pearls.
I didn’t freeze when russian propaganda told me to, I won’t freeze when fossil fuel propaganda tells me to.
The big difference between you and WUWT is most of what WUWT has been, and is now, predicted did and is becoming fact; while you have been feeding us mostly miss-information that has been and is being proven false.
Renewables: expanding at a record-breaking pace
EVs: Record sales worldwide
Electric Trucks: Increasing
Electric shipping: Taking over ferries and inland routes
Batteries: Prices fall, new technologies emerge, record build-out
Nuclear renaissance: Still not happening, and like the twenty before it likely won’t.
SMRs: lol
Grid and society: Still not collapsed
That’s 0 points from my side.
Ponder this. According to the recently published Energy Institute’s ‘2026 Statistical Review of World Energy’ In 2025
“Fossil fuels continued to expand in absolute terms and retained their dominant position, accounting for 86% of Total Energy Supply (TES)”
Also in relation to ‘electric shipping’ a modern container ship can typically carry between 15,000 – 24,000+ 20 foot containers and 7500 – 12,000 40 foot containers. They are never going to be electric. Ferries and inland routes are small beer.
MUR doesn’t ponder, he/she just panders to his climate worrier masters
Correct. You scored 0 points.
Renewables being renewed frequently as they wear out.
European and US car makers rowing back on making EVs but agreed Chinese doing well.
Haven’t seen sny big E. trucks in GB so far although lots of small delivery vans.
Western Ferries just ordered two new ferries, diesel direct drive. The company says it can’t justify the extra cost of electric hybrid.
Nuclear renaissance – correct – unlikely with Fahnbullah in charge.
SMR – ditto.
Grid collapse – ask some residents of US NY State about the other day.
EVs: Record sales worldwide: requires new laws to maintain sales
Electric Trucks: Increasing: increased so much production is shutting down
Electric shipping: Taking over ferries and inland routes: requires double the ferries or batteries for charge time, not happening.
Batteries: Prices fall, new technologies emerge, record build-out.: and record electric costs to cover intermttient renewables.
Nuclear renaissance: Still not happening, and like the twenty before it likely won’t.
SMRs: lol: Not what the Germans are realizing, they are re-thinking the future.
Grid and society: Still not collapsed: and won’t thanks to fossil fuels.
Red Ed Miliband has taken the UK back many decades… in every respect.
The government knows heat pumps will not save people money and there is no way they can replace gas energy demand for heating with electricity. They have all the information they need to know current energy policy is unachievable. Yet they plough on hoping somehow it will fall out in the wash or some new technology will appear out of thin air?
PDF file.
https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/45590/pdf/
Anyone in the trade able to give us a rundown of the energy used to manufacture and distribute and run heat pumps and their approximate working life? You know, just like windmills.
As I’ve said many times, the Eco-Nazis are simultaneously trying to force both heating and transport to be “transitioned” to all electric, while destroying their power grids with worse-than-useless wind and solar.
What could go wrong?
Even more reason to spend thousands of quid to convert to a heat pump.
Shivering = virtue signaling.
Heat pumps: The best make-believe answer to a make-believe problem we could come up with. Motto: You just gotta Believe!
Energy price cut
Crash & Burnham is going to cut VAT on electricity bills – effectively saving us £0.90 per week; yes, ninety pence. Here’s the thing, the money to pay for that has yet to be found…
As usual, it’s unfunded.
The new PM has unveiled a sweetener of 5% off electricity bills from October, insisting it can give families “breathing room”. The Government claims the £850 million to pay for the measure is being found by axing the ID cards scheme.
However, Darren Jones – who was brutally sacked from the Cabinet in Burnham’s purge of Starmer loyalists yesterday – warned this morning that no funding had been earmarked for that policy. As a result new Chancellor John Healey faces having to find the cash at the Budget, heaping more pressure on the public finances. – DS
What shall I do do with 90p? Save up for a pint in eight or nine weeks time.
Save it for the £1000 council tax increase next April.
I’ve already had the bad news from Wandsworth Council…
The Council’s Financial Crisis
40% cut in government funding
£137million budget gap
etc
But no mention of all the free stuff they are throwing at illegal migrants, from free housing and transport etc to free swimming and dance classes.
Brightside is the magazine of Wandsworth Council. It contains a range of information about services and events.
I call it Frightside.
The obvious solution is to open the borders and take in millions more illegal aliens.
Is the /sarc needed?
No.
I will buy one litre of heating oil. (Last year 90p would have bought me almost two litres)
I have a coal boiler as well as the oil boiler with a programmable mixer board, 1 tonne in stock and more to follow. You can get a Tonne of coal for £365 delivered but it will be high ash, £500 will get you good quality coal.
Two points.
Someone needs to inform the MP Yahoos that those “Cold Snaps” often bring with them Wind Lulls and occur, obviously, in Winter when solar is least effective rendering Renewables (wind/solar) useless. More Wind and Solar added to the mix would be simply “More Useless”
It’s sad to see the UK being swallowed by the Marxist mob.
The UK gave Marx a home when Germany kicked him out. In a sense, he’s ours.
It’s even harder to be stuck in the middle of it
Burning NG in a modern furnace or water heater loses about 15% of the energy up the flue.
Converting NG to electricity loses about 65% up the chimney and out the cooling system before it even leaves the plant site.
Dumb!
Natural gas at $6/E6Btu burned in a modern condensing furnace (air) or water heater with 85% efficiency has a net delivered cost of $7/E6Btu.
Electricity at $0.15/kWh and 100% efficiency powering a furnace (air) or water heater has a net delivered cost of about $40/E6Btu.
A heat pump using $0.15/kWh and a COP of 3.5 has a net delivered energy cost of about $12/E6Btu. The colder the weather the lower the COP and higher the net cost.
If some salesman suggests replacing NG w heat pump & does not know this he is uninformed.
If he suggests replacing NG w heat pump & does know this, he is a crook.
You stepped around it, but the electricity losses from generator to consumer needs to be included.
Your final sentence needs a minor revision.
If he (salesman) suggests replacing NG w heat pump (even if he knows the numbers), he is not a crook. He is a salesman. It is his vocation, his livelihood to make sales.
Caveat emptor.
If the buyer does not ask questions, it is not the fault of the salesman.
If the buyer accepts all salesman pitches as valid without independent verification, it still rests on the buyer.
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings”
— Julius Caesar (Shakespeare)
Sadly … they voted for this. Oh-well.
That was the goal from the beginning.
Socialists consider themselves to be both morally and intellectually superior to everyone else.
As a result, they view themselves as not just entitled to rule, but required to rule over others.
Disagreeing with them is just more evidence of how stupid you are.
If you were smart enough to be allowed an opinion, you would agree with them, so why should they care what anyone else thinks.
Change socialist to activist and I will agree even more.
I cannot recall the origin of the comment, but it bears repeating here:
“You can vote your way into Communism, but you have to shoot your way out of it.”
Co2? I just released some into my greenhouse. My plants love it.
Every time Net Zero is mentioned I think of the defunct free dialup internet company. You had to install their dialer software which put an always on top banner ad on your monitor. Ads would rotate just like they do on websites. It was quite the screen space hog on a 640×480 or even 800×600 monitor. Users would have to constantly move the ad window around to see what was under it.
So here is a business opportunity. A black box that sits between your thermostat and the internet essentially modeling the thermostat and resultant ambient temperature but not letting them actually tweak your heat pump.
I prefer just to not install a heat pump. (Or a smart meter.)
WUWT has commentators and contributors from across the globe.
Why is there hardly ever information in the headline telling us what land, country or nation the report is referencing. This one is the UK
Is it too hard to write ” … to be rationed IN UK” ?
This is the problem with government being in charge of something as important as electric power and fossil fuels. They will never admit they made a mistake or a bad decision. Their default response will always be double down on the failed program and blame someone else. We really do have to start limiting their authority, they have proven they can’t handle that much authority. They are too powerful to let them keep making the same mistakes over and over.
In our small house in Spain we(like everyone else) use air to air heat pumps (aka air cons) that provide cooling in summer and heating in winter. These cost around £600-£800 for a large room. So we could fit out our house in Scotland for less than £10k.
Why would I want to install an air to water HP?
Heat Pump Load Control and Why Buffer Tanks Matter
I have done electrical installation work in Finland on all the main heat-pump types—air-to-air, air-to-water, exhaust-air and ground-source—and assisted their HVAC installers; I currently live in a house with a NIBE exhaust-air heat pump, while my previous home had an air-to-water heat pump for ten years.
Finland and Sweden use market-based incentives and voluntary flexibility.
Finland: Finland is introducing a consent-based load-control interface through Fingrid’s Datahub and compatible smart-meter relays, phased in between September 2026 and June 2027. This modernises a decades-old practice: Finland has shifted electric heating and hot-water production to night-time since at least the early 1970s using night-rate tariffs, sealed time switches and, later, remotely controlled meter relays.Sweden: Many network operators use capacity-based tariffs (effekttariffer) to discourage simultaneous peak consumption. However, the requirement for every network operator to introduce them by 2027 was repealed in June 2026.Why buffer tanks matter
Short pauses can be absorbed by the building’s thermal mass and stored hot water. A normal buffer tank mainly stabilises flow and reduces compressor cycling: 200 litres over 10°C stores only 2.3 kWh. With a high-temperature heat pump, such as the 75°C Mitsubishi Ecodan R290, a deliberately heated 200-litre store could theoretically hold about 9.3 kWh over 75–35°C. Comfort during a 1–2-hour pause still depends on weather, insulation, tank size and heating-system design.
n Finland, heating is not merely a matter of comfort but essential for surviving the long, cold winters and preventing homes and their plumbing from freezing.