[Andy Frew]

Thanks for the opportunity to feed back on this.

Metering for fuels other than electricity should also be carried on secure communications channels, to allow say heat metering and the sharing of more sustainable heat sources such as Combined Heat and Power plants or larger and more efficient community heat pumps.

The electrification of heat is currently (sorry) obstructed by the way that levies are loaded onto electricity, but not onto the price of fossil heating fuels. When families of different incomes tend to use a comparable amount of electricity, but those on higher incomes have bigger houses to heat, this is regressive, and could even be regarded as an environmental ‘Poll Tax’. The burning of fossil heating fuels requires electricity, so the cost of providing reliable and sustainable electricity supplies, and of developing Smart Communications and Control for electricity, should also be added onto the cost of fossil heating fuels.

Heat offers the fastest route to expand the use of zero carbon wind energy in heating homes, when biofuels are not yet available on a sustainable basis in the UK, and when biofuels be needed to generate electricity allow for the intermittency of renewable electricity. Grid scale flow battery technologies are in development, but wind energy is already a mature and competitive technology and should continue to be expanded.

It is very important that existing hot water storage cylinders and their immersion heaters are included as ‘Smart’ appliances, as they can provide a ready market for renewable electricity that would otherwise be ‘constrained off’, underpinning the economics of the expansion of offshore wind, with its more constant outputs. e.g. ‘Interruptable’ additional electric heating tariffs should be introduced to allow zero carbon electric heating when renewables are available, displacing the burning of hydrocarbons stored in fossil fuels, controlled to avoid the need for back-up generation or grid reinforcement. This is much more economic and less risky than unproven carbon capture and storage.

(Batteries are less sustainable due to the chemicals used, and joining them with Photovoltaic panels can be socially regressive, as the summer electricity savings result in relatively more use of electricity in winter when it is more expensive and the grid more stressed.
The reduction in purchased summer electricity also reduces the collection of contributions towards strengthening the grid for the winter peak.)

It will be useful to provide our responses with the indexing provided by BIES to ensure that they are not ignored, and to ensure that we provide responses to all important questions. This could be done as an appendix for clarity?

Blockchain technology may allow future electricity users to obtain supplies from particular sources, and standards should allow for this development. e.g. Power from community owned generation.

Best Wishes Andy

[Andy Frew]

I would think of using polystyrene bead. A cavity wall insulation contractor could blow it in if you had the tops stuffed with say mineral wool fixed in place and leakage to any neighbours was not a problem to them.

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