Are Renewables Value for Money

We have heard so much over the past 10 years or more about been Green, Sustainable Energy, Renewable Energy etc, etc, so why has it not taken off.

Even with Government Grants RHI and FiT (Bribes in my opinion) the uptake has not been great, why is this? Well in my opinion its simply, people can see that these overpriced, expensive components are never going to repay the capital cost in savings during their lifetime, we see all this info saying payback in 10 years, 5 years, 3 years or whatever, what is this based on, its based on theoretical data, not real life, houses are different, each home has a different heatloss, peoples personal comfort levels are different, there is no standard in personal comfort levels, so much of it will depend on personal use, theories and guessing don't work in the real world.

The uptake from installers to the likes of MCS were dreadful, why was this, again cost and also bureaucracy, it seemed that constant hoops had to be jumped through and much silver had to cross palms to belong to MCS, but renewables was likely to be a tiny percentage proportion of a plumbing and heating business, so the costs and time needed to comply with the schemes requirements were simply not worth it to the majority of sole traders and SME's, but without these groups on board it was always going to fail, if they can't get installers on board to beat the drum of renewables, what chance do they have with the public

When we look at the reality of renewables, what would anyone do when faced with the following options, a GSHP installation costs between £13,000.00-£20,000.00 or a gas boiler install £2,000.00-£3,000.00 its a no brainer, the GSHP is not going to save you so much in energy costs that its worth the extra £10,000.00 capital outlay and why should GSHP's, solar, biomass get grants, nothing is free, we are all paying for these grants, but in my opinion, the returns are simply not viable.

If renewable options are good, why has the new build market not embraced them, why do we not see solar on every new build, why do we not see ASHP's or GSHP's been installed on every new build, again, its the costs, bureaucracy and the lack of demand for these technologies from the public.

While on the subject, why is Biomass treated as a renewable, or sustainable, in my opinion it is a dirty fuel, why is it seen as green to grow trees then tear them down to burn as fuel, yet coal mining and burning is seen as bad, where is the difference, both are bad for the environment and burning both are bad for air quality, so why is one praised as been good.

I understand that we do need to find cleaner ways to heat our homes, I just do not think the current options are the real solution, we do need to find solutions, but to be successful the costs needs to be reasonable so that ordinary people can afford them and installers are free to install them without putting up barriers, to prevent uptake

These are just my personal opinions on this matter

Is Government Really Interested in Energy Efficiency

Looking at Building Regulations and the new build housing market, it's difficult to believe that the Government is serious about energy efficiency and saving consumers money on their energy costs for their homes, all I see in new build is minimum insulation, standard double glazed windows, radiators running at high temperatures, pipes not insulated, there is so much more that could be done to improve efficiency without costing the earth, if we can't get the new build market right, what chance do we have with existing stock.

In my opinion insulation levels of new homes should be greatly increased, if we reduce the heatloss first, everything else falls into place to reduce running costs, why build a house with a 15kW heat loss, when we could make it a 9kW heatloss with better insulation, the lower the heatloss the lower the heat input required to maintain comfortable room temperatures which will lead to reduced running costs, it's as simple as that, I also feel that new build should be embracing UFH now as standard, or at the very least be designing the system and sizing the radiators to heat the rooms at a 50*C flow temperature, not the 70-80*C that I mainly see in new build, also standard cheap radiators should not be used, better quality efficient heat emitters should be used, this in itself would increase efficiency by a large amount, as the boiler would always be in condensing mode, even without weather compensation, the likes of Boiler Plus just seems to want to add components which in reality will do a basic minimum to save energy, they need to tackle the main issues to reduce running costs, better insulation and better heating system design, most new build homes have the boiler and cylinder if they have one, (most seem to go the combination boiler route, which is not always the best solution in my opinion) shoved in a small cupboard, or the boiler is in the utility room and the cylinder in a cupboard on the first floor, which creates a long primary run which does run at a higher temperature to heat the cylinder, which then has heatloss, the cylinder and boiler should be together, so the primary flow & return to the cylinder is as short as possible to reduce energy waste.

Boiler 4 pipe technology that some boiler manufacturers have should be used in new build, still using old outdated cylinder thermostats in this day and age is ridiculous, using a sensor direct from the boiler to control cylinder temperature is more accurate and safer in my opinion.

System balancing appears to have been dropped completely from system commission, its an essential part of ensuring the system runs efficiently

So who is responsible for holding things back, Government, Manufacturers, Housebuilders? I just do not understand why new homes are been built in 2018 to what are very poor building regulations, that simply do not go far enough to reduce the energy required to heat those homes, we need change, at the moment it just appears to be a box ticking exercise, with no real meaning, stating that a home is A rated, or B rated in reality means absolutely nothing, all a homeowner wants is low fuel bills and I do not believe the EPC means that bills will be low, especially with todays Building Regulations