Heating Costs this Winter
League Table
League Table
The basis of this little survey (and guys don't give me grief if I got the odd bit of maths wrong) is: The cost of heating 4 average modest domestic rooms for 1 day with an average power usage of 5Kw per hour, with the heating on for say 16 hours.
1. ELECTRICITY. Most expensive and the clear league topper, unless you are stoking the fire with €5 Euro notes, is Irish Electricity.
The price is a bit over 16 Euro Cent per kilo-watt-hour (one bar electric fire for 1 hour) written KhH including VAT and allowing for standing charges.
Cost of heating the 4 rooms for 24 hours: €12.80 per day
2. LPG. Bottled Propane gas works out at 14.5c per kwh
Cost of heating the 4 rooms for 24 hours: €11.60 per day
3. BULK LPG (Liquid Petroleum Gas) Bulk LPG is approximately 78 cents a litre or just under 11 cent per kwH
Cost of heating the 4 rooms for 24 hours: €8.80 per day.
OIL4. OIL. Heating oil prices in Ireland are currently around the 84c per litre mark - which works out at is 8.5 Cent per kilo-watt-hour.
Cost of heating the 4 rooms for 24 hours: €6.80 per day.
5. NATURAL GAS. Natural Gas basic price is around 8c per kwH.
Cost of heating the 4 rooms for 24 hours: €6.40 per day.
6. WOOD PELLETS. Wood Pellets – I’m looking at the bagged cost which is averaging around 33c per kg, this translates roughly into 6.7 cent per kwh
Cost of heating the 4 rooms for 24 hours: €5.36 per day.
7. COAL. Smokeless Coal is daylight robbery at around €450 a Tonne or 5.4 cent per kwH (8,333 KwH per tone approx – (I think I have this figure in the ballpark)
Cost of heating the 4 rooms for 24 hours: €4.32 per day.
And the REAL WINNER IS
8. PEAT BRIQUETTES. Peat Briquettes are selling around €3.50 a "bale" which works out at 5.22c per kwHCost of heating the 4 rooms for 24 hours: €4.17 per day.
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1 comment:
I am a regular reader of your blog and give you the thumbs up 9 times out of 10, howerver this time your league table scenario is seriously flawed.
Your league table would better be titled
Cost of producing 5Kw per hour of "energy using the following fuels :"
You take no account of things such as different types of oil boilers (condensing v normal, etc.)
You make no allowances for the heat output from the "raw" 5Kw of energy, i.e. I'm living in a 3000sq ft house, well insulated and heated by geothermal / heat pump / underfloor heating. The heat pump has an input of 4KW and a COP of approx 4 giving an output of approx 16Kw. If I left the thing running for 16 hours I'm not sure if I'd die of heat exhaustion or dehydration first :-)
I heated the house + Domestic Hot Water 24/7 + have an electric oven and all the lighting for approx Eur 1800 last year on Electricity - making good use of night rate where I could.
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