Reply To: Electric Water Heating Boilers in the UK So have been and always am looking at eventually replacing our Gas Boiler when I get our kitchen refitted in a couple of years time, I noticed the other day…

[UK Sentinel]

So it seems from first impression, an Electric Hot Water heater to replace an existing Gas Condensing or non-Condensing boiler is not effective from a cost perspective. but from an environmental perspective is a good option especially if you live in a smaller property and/or flat that currently has a Gas boiler producing 15 kWh, then an electrical boiler can be used to replace existing Gas boiler easily.

Another main area of concern with Electric hot water boilers is that the installation may require your house to be switched from a single phase to 3 phased electrical feed to support running the electric boiler, so a cost to consider.

Running Cost.

Currently my Gas and Electric unit costs are (Octopus Energy)

Gas:        4.49p/kWh

Electric:  19.64p/kWh

So from above Gas and Electric unit costs, it is clear that Electric price is 4 times greater than Gas, so based on a 20 kWh Gas or Electric boiler output, to run each boiler for an hour would cost approximately …

Gas:        4.49 x 20 x 1   = 89.8 =  £0.90  per hour

Electric:   19.64 x 20 x 1  =  392.8  =  £3.93 per hour

Note: It must be noted that even though gas boiler are not 100% efficient, Traditional gas boilers are around 60-70% efficient and Gas Condensing boilers are around 90% efficient.

This still show that running/heating cost of a Gas boiler compared to an Electric boiler is still considerable cheaper even with a less efficient gas boiler.

This must explain why Electric boilers for domestic usage is not popular in the UK and why Heat pumps are the only real Green alternative to Gas for a heating and supplying a home with heated water in the UK.

 

In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom (J.G.Ballard).

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