The U.K. government on Tuesday introduced new rules requiring developers to install heat pumps and solar panels in all new homes across England, in policymakers’ latest response to the economic fallout of the Iran conflict.
U.K. ministers say the Iran war and the largest supply disruption in the history of the oil market reinforces the need to leverage clean power as an energy security tool.
The Future Homes Standard — a set of new-build regulations for England from 2028 — will establish requirements to ensure homes are built with on-site renewable electricity generation, the majority of which is expected to be provided by solar power.
The rules will also see homes built with low-carbon heating, such as heat pumps and heat networks.
The government added that plug-in solar panels, which homeowners can install on balconies, would be available within shops over the coming months.
You’re a little off on your 5 year for battery, its more like 15-20 years for grid scale LFP batteries and they still have ~80% power after that.
If they can find spots by existing water reservoirs that does seem like an ideal location.
Edit: Also newer Sodium based batteries are even better than that, but they do take more space than LFP. They might exceed 10,000 cycles which could be 25-30 years and the tech is very early.
Ahh my bad, I’m running off my knowledge of the lifetime of batteries we use at work and extrapolated out, the industries are a little less lenient on how long they can be used for (despite being functionally usable, insurers love to say “nah, swap them out, they’re safety critical.” So we send them off to get recycled/reused elsewhere)
Glad to hear the tech’s improving
Are the batteries you use smaller and in a high cycle environment? Like are you fully discharging and recharging it multiple times a day, like our older cell phone batteries? That can definitely wear them quicker, but ya that’s not typical for grid scale which would be closer to just a cycle a day.
Kinda lame about the early recycle (reuse would be better) but ya if they are that saftey critical I can see insurance being very conservative.
They’re not high cycle but when they are under drain it’s pulling a lot, and they’re consistently sat at high temps which can’t be the most comfortable.
The company that they go to is pretty good, the batteries only get recycled if there’s damage or they’re too far gone.