Radical change to heating your home

Nothing seems to have been said about the effect such an installation might have on the domestic electricity grid. Will that have to be adjusted bringing about further cost as is the case when you want to install a wallbox?

Good point Dachs. I understand that the increase to the electricity supply if everyone chooses to buy an electric vehicle will be offset by the number of people unable to afford one, or unable to charge the vehicle due to the prohibitive cost of electricity. Same with electric heating. We seem to be putting a heavy toll on the electricity supply and even if we started now installing extra methods of supply, it will be tens of years before the extra supplies come on line…Not really an issue with most of the posters on here…

Bob, you are talking about what happens to the national, regional, or local grid, depending on how it is organised, if the load on the power grid increases because too many people consume electricity. That’s one thing to be considered. With domestic electricity grid I had the mains electricity in your home in mind to which it is connected as they say in the article. If that needs adjusting, too, it will lead to additional installation cost. This, I was told, is quite often necessary if you want to install a wallbox because the entire mains supply network in a house or apartment is not designed for that. So I wondered if it is for a wallpaper heating system if you think of the large number of older houses.

Hi Dachs, without knowing the power requirements for the wallpaper heating system its difficult to know if house wiring (the weak point in the electrical supply) would need upgrading. It certainly does when installing an electric shower, and because heating water by electricity is very inefficient, the immersion water heater would be very expensive and wasteful. Not to mention the need for a large copper tank which we have all just got rid of when having a new gas combi boiler fitted, as recommended by the government.

In effect we are turning our rooms into a large faraday cage, or at least a microwave. I don’t like the part in the article which describes objects in the room warming up also.
And woe betide banging nails and screws in the wall for pictures, mirrors etc.

And are we to believe that installing solar panels on the roof is the only way of making the project half profitable? You had better factor in the cost of those also…
And did I read that the wallpaper is full of carbon granules to make it conductive?
Whatever happened to ‘carbon neutral’ ?
Net Zero is becoming far too expensive and a bit of luxury we cannot afford.

It is a problem now before we add heated wallpaper. Our national grid is already in deficit. We have to import energy from other countries. . Once we start rolling out significant numbers of EVs…

I had to google what an electric shower is. Didn’t know that it is uses so much energy.

I did something similar about ten years ago for the same reason. Today it’s often unbelievable how indifferent and uninterested people were a couple of years ago. Our hot water tank ran 24 hours in the non-insulated attic with minus temps for weeks consuming huge amounts of energy. Our architect and the building company thought that was state-of-the-art. I was stunned when I compared my bill before and after the fitting of the condensing boiler in a now insulated attic. A tank was not needed any more. I wish I’d done that earlier.

@besoeker Our grid is a mess as well.

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Not just wall-boxes. Anything where drilling through the plaster into the brickwork will rupture the electrical foil and would probably short circuit the foil to earth, tripping the RCD.

I have a notion we are not entirely enthusiastic about this project…

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There are to many detractions for it to receive my approval :-1:

As several people have said we cannot produce enough electricity to cope now, never mind with ideas like heated wallpaper and the increase of electric vehicle ownership. The countryside is being ruined with large Wind Farms and large Solar Panel Farms and this is happening despite it being known that both these systems are inefficient and unable to provide power 24/7 365 days of the year.
We are a small island surrounded by the sea which is Tidal and we know exactly the times of the tidal ebbs and flows, so why in God’s name are we not investing in harvesting this natural power that would provide all the power we require all the power we need and would not be an eye-sore because it would be mostly underwater. Like wise with our Water Supplies, we are already being warned of possible droughts and water shortages for later this year…“Water, Water Everywhere and not a drop to Drink” except we now have the capabilites to make Sea Water high quality Drinking Water but where are the Desalination Plants in this country ?
I had an Uncle who worked in a Desalination Plant in Ayrshire over 50 years ago, but they shut it down because they could not get enough business to make it a viable business (Mind you the quality of the drinking was nowhere near the quality available now).

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We have tried that with the Severn Estuary several times over the century. . Cost is the main problem. For example Hinkley point is about half Severn bore. There is another water project, Dinorweg. The turbines use storage and then later release that storage. It is rated at 1,800 MW. Just for comparison Drax was 4,000 MW. Scale and all that…

Not all that much. The POWER is high but for short time - around for five minutes. The ENERGY is typically 10 kWh far 24 hours for typical residence. Peanuts compared to an electric shower.

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Besoeker, you say cost is the main problem but surely the Wind Turbines that are sited off shore must cost a pretty penny to erect so is cost really the main problem ?
Perhaps those who are involved with or investing in the Wind Turbines and are looking after their own interests is the real problem, I would really like to some of the names of some of those who are heavily involved which I think would be quite an eye opener.

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About £1.25 million for a 1.0 MW wind turbine.

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Besoeker,
£1.25 million is the basic cost of the wind turbine, after a bit of research I discovered that all the costs involved to install an off shore Turbine is in the region of £1 million and after it’s lifetime of 20 to 25 years it will be another £500,000 to de-commission it at todays prices, so probably about £3 to £5 million in 20 to 25 years time. Another cost involved is the annual rental cost of the land they are sited on, on land farmers are receiving about £40,000 a year for each Wind Turbine, as for those off shore if it is the same £40,000 per annum for each Wind Turbine.
As most beaches and seabeds out to 12 nautical miles in the UK are Crown Property then that income must be going to the Royal Family.
I still have not been able to find out about certain names that I am sure are involved in ownership and investment of the Wind Turbines.

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Yes but nothing like the Severn Estuary scheme. And then there is the problem at slack water. How do you manage that? .

I’m not pro hydro schemes for power. As it happens I designed a few such systems. One in Fife was the largest. It was originally used for a mill race and later it was used to power in the paper mill. That was 500kW. Just to get an idea of scale the whole mill was 5,000 kW.

Besoeker,
I can see what you mean about slack water in the Estuary, but that shouldn’t be such a problem with off shore Turbines further out to sea.
As you say you are not pro hydro schemes, when obviously I am (and probably an advocate for "many of the old ways were better than the new and why change for the sake of change) but it is great to learn things from someone the other side of the fence so to speak and it is great that we have both been polite and considerate to each others stance when so many others could have developed it into a slagging match.

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Oops - I was in a rush and I made an error! I AM pro hydro schemes. I have engineered a few but not quite on the scale of The Three Gorges Dam !!

Would I be wrong in thinking that batteries have been made in the past using saline and Zinc, or carbon…Wouldn’t it be grand if we could build perpetual batteries using sea water. No moving parts and an endless supply of power.

Wiki says:-

Salt water battery

Description

A saltwater battery is a type of battery that uses a mixture of salt and water as its electrolyte. Unlike traditional batteries, saltwater batteries are safer to use because they are non-flammable and environmental friendly. This makes them to be an eco-friendly energy storage solutions. Wikipedia

A good idea. But 460 Wh is not a lot. A typical UK residence is 10,000 Wh per day.