Does it need to be?

Wonder why they went with 400kW for CCS when they could have opted for 600kW?

Well, let's see what Scania is saying... "The MEGA satellites enable charging capacities of up to 560 kW and are prepared for the Megawatt Charging System (MCS)" 😉

"Reuters confirmed", this isn't true, Reuters Connect is an aggregator and licensing platform, similar to AP, the source for that story is ANADOLU AGENCY.

Average MCS certified heat pump install (excluding ground source as those are unusual & more expensive) is ~£13,700, so still £6,200 with the grant deducted, and that's without solar & battery. You can get them cheaper than that, clearly, but not for everyone.

Is that the same as your existing battery?

Yeah I'm not counting petrol/EV costs in the cost/benefit of getting a heat pump.

BREAKING: UK heat pump sales hit a record in 2025: 125,037 units sold (+27% vs 2024).

Growth across all segments:
• Air-to-water +26%
• Ground/water source +32%
• DHW +36%
• UK-made units +38%

The ultimate question(s): Assuming this is the ultimate peaking of Chinese emissions, how long is this plateau and how quickly and emissions start to fall.

1500 including fitting, what kWh size battery?

13k (battery, solar, heat pump?), elecy bills from 1500->600, saving 900pa, assuming that stays the same (big assumption), then 14 year payback? If 13k includes capping off the gas then down to 13 years roughly. That assumes all other operating expenses (servicing, maintenance) are equal to a boiler

How much are you getting a second battery for?

And it's still a ~14 year payback period?

Without knowing more, it looks like the battery is making all the difference, I'd be a little wary of making future saving projections on that basis - all that arbitrage is very tempting, so more people & businesses will jump on board, diminishing it, a bit like solar feed-in.

I did wonder if solar feed-in was being included, makes sense.

We used ~900kWh in Jan, which came out to £268 on flexible tariff (have so far optimised for SCOP and domestic comfort, rather than bills, and also WFH, so ~21C downstairs all day).

DIY, nicely done!

60pcm is 720pa right? 😉 Might be time for me to check out getting a battery, although we can easily use 20kWh+ or even 30kWh+ on a cold day during the 5:30am-11:30pm period. So a typical battery would only shift half to a third of that, but I guess still worth it.

£600pa! Wow, that sounds very good if costs used to be £1500, even accounting for 2022/23 being more expensive due to gas crisis. If you don't mind me asking, how large is the battery? Are you using agile/cheap overnight tariffs? Do you know your SCOP?

Not to be a downer, but a SCOP of <4 might mean you're actually paying more than you would with gas, depending on tariff & assuming a 95% efficient boiler. Interesting that you went with A2A, is this a very new install or no BUS grant? bsky.app/profile/dunc...

Fortunately petrol is expensive enough and EVs are efficient enough that the spark gap isn't an issue for home charging, but it hurts public charging, so addressing the spark gap will help there too.

The gas standing charge, I'd guess (haven't worked it out, so happy to see a crack at it) makes minimal difference. Especially as in most cases you'll be paying for the capping of the gas out of pocket, which might take a decade to pay back in savings. bsky.app/profile/josh...

MCS certification requires a SCOP of >=2.8, I'd hope most installs would be getting >3. But to put it in perspective, an install of 2.8 could result in a homeowner seeing their heating costs rise by ~60%, that's not just a tough sell, that is going to make a lot of people very, very upset.

Currently, with a spark gap of potentially 4.6, you'd need a SCOP of roughly 4.6 just to break even (I suppose 4.5 or 4.4 when you price in not having to pay a standing charge for gas). Most installs are not currently achieving that sort of SCOP, many are a long way off.

The hope that it reduces hasn't played out so far, with the highest spark gap since the start of 2022. That said, some (not all) of the reasons can be dealt with, like green levies on electricity...we're making electricity more expensive while trying to get people to switch from gas/petrol to it 😵‍💫

Forcing is, I think, not the right mechanism, and could generate a lot of backlash. Instead we need to look at how the spark gap can be addressed, if you can save money with a heat pump, even if the install isn't top notch, then that will improve uptake.

That doesn't address the spark gap bsky.app/profile/josh...

Spark gap might actually be getting worse, it really needs to be less than 3 to see uptake start to gain momentum. The Dutch install a lot of heat pumps, is it any wonder when they have a spark gap of less than 1 (I'm not even sure how that's possible)

Rounding?

This doesn't necessarily deal with the spark gap though, addressing this is the most crucial way to encourage heat pump adoption imo.