this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2025
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Neat breakdown with data + some code.

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[–] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 2 points 13 hours ago (1 children)
  1. Is HVAC excluded?
  2. Do you have an EV?

With an EV you can have 80%-90% of days covered, and top up with EV. You also get to dump daily surpluses into EV, and you can think of covering winter heating with solar and a heat pump. Easier if you have a fireplace for extreme cold possibility.

Storing heat with fall surpluses is path to get winter heating covered. Heat pump can make hot water very efficiently, and resistance heating can make a pile of dirt 300+C. Radiant floor heating is most efficient because water is distributed around 30C. This means your 90C water volume is 60C effective heat storage that is generated at 600% efficiency in fall, and 300% efficiency in typical UK winter, and your dirt heat storage can be 5x more dense.

A 2nd EV even if not frequently used during the day can be an attractive option, especially if used, and tax credits will go away soon, or have gone away (makes used prices lower) can be much easier than home batteries, and much cheaper if it remains uninsured/unused, and resale value doesn't go down much because of few miles driven. Where utility service includes a high fixed monthly charge, ($50/month in Toronto), $12000 over 20 years savings creates high incentive to remove electric utility. Gas utility has similar fixed vs variable equation, but for Toronto, heat is somewhat reasonable from high supply on our continent.

[–] edent@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

(OP here) Typically, UK homes don't use HVAC.

I've had a few EVs, but moved somewhere with electric buses instead.

[–] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

they use heating. I should of just said heating.

[–] edent@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

Most homes here are heated with gas - ours is.

So electricity doesn't factor in to heating (other than a tiny amount for controlling the boiler and thermostat).