because most electricity comes from gas! Burning gas

I fear you've been confused by misinformation again. https://www.nationalgrideso.com/electricity-explained/electricity-and-me/great-britains-monthly-electricity-stats

Plus, of course, the share of renewables is very likely to increase substantially during the lifetime of a heat pump installed today,

   - Andy.

Today on Gridwatch templar Gas 47% Wind 30%.

Wait for the blocking high pressure system and UK wind power stops. Usually happens during to coldest of winter spells.

That might be true for October (gas 27%, wind 33.7%), but not so for September (gas 33%, wind 24.9%) or August (gas 35.3%, wind 23.6%) or previous months.  It is rare that wind generation exceeds gas.  These are numbers averaged over the month; bear in mind that for significant numbers of consecutive days there was virtually no contribution from wind.

it is fair to say that if we did not have any gas fired electricity generation we would need a far better means of heat storage. But it is also fair to say that the fraction created by renewables, wind in particular, has increased massively over the last decade, and there is no reason to assume that trend will not continue - if nothing else rising gas prices encourage investment in alternatives.
Gas  also skews the question about how best to heat the house - for 40 or so of the last 50 years or so, gas  has come from the north sea more or less at cost, while the last few years have seen the supply start to dry up, vast investment to try to keep it level ,and then the decline to resume anyway.
I would not like to bet on the fraction of our electricity, or heating for that matter, coming from natural gas in the next 10 to 20 years doing anything other than falling further.
I also do not think the politicians have a grip on any of this.
Mike.

The solution is pretty obvious. Rather than the 400 billion so far chucked at wind turbines compared to the 200 million offered to Rolls Royce to get on  with small modular nuclear and then having to compete globally for the UK share. This country has no faith I  it's engineering any more.

yes, that sort of thing is very much worth pursuing. But really we need to be much braver and get things like the tidal stuff working as well - we have yet to realise that we are busy painting ourselves into a tight corner, and we really need to back as many potential escape paths as possible. Only backing one or two things, pretty much ensures that you miss the best,and may miss out altogether - betting on any single method is not going to cut it.

Mike.

mapj1 said:

But really we need to be much braver and get things like the tidal stuff working as well

Not much use on this part of the coast with a shallow slope to the sea bed and then the shipping lanes. Might be good, however, in Jersey. Then again, it is quite sunny, but not v. windy here. It's horses for courses and I agree that somebody should be investing in the future, but who?

We are being left behind by 15+ countries including Sweden, China, Russia and India who are current building 60 plus nuclear reactors. None of these players have any intention of going tidal, which is an impossible dream as is wind and solar. Anyway there is no rush or panic is there! We have plenty of time to work out and debate the correct logical path to follow that avoids bankrupting the country.

Our nuclear electricity generation programme is indeed in a sorry state and needs a kick start. But on its own it is not likely to be enough, even if we can get fusion going. There is so much investment needed in street cabling, transformers and so on to convert to electric transport and heating (resistance or heat pump) that we'd be stuck for many years even  even if the electricity was free at point of generation.

Right now nuclear is somewhere between twice and four times the cost of wind, but the figures are so distorted by politics that direct comparison is dangerous.

Again I really do not think the politicians have any sort of  grip on any of this.

Mike

As there is so much misunderstanding on this thread I am not even going to explain thermodynamics to anyone. COP of 4 is on a warm summer day, assuming the output is to radiators at 60c. If at 40C it might get to 5. On a cold day at -10 outside (Norway) and direct air to air, about 3 or so is achievable. If you have a wet system it will be about 1.5 or less. Gas is about 1/4 of the price of electricity (and always will be) so you need a COP of 4 to cost THE SAME. To save money you need very low cost electricity, which cannot ever happen unless all the subsidies are removed, and a penalty for failure to supply the power promised (as FF stations have) is instituted for wind and solar. If your political view is that we can stop or control the climate and weather, you are already so deluded it is not worth discussing anything. The Norway situation is completely different to the UK, and saying "they work in Norway" is comparing apples and bananas. Most electricity is from hydro and very cheap (thus the resistence heating in many houses). We have almost no hydro, and wind is NOT cheap.