Berlin.
Russia’s gas embargo caused a boom in electric heating in 2022. But does a purchase make sense? What is to be considered?
electric heaters were among the top sellers in the energy industry in 2022. According to a survey by the comparison platform “Verivox” from August last year, ten percent of Germans already have at least one electric heating element. A fifth of the population also considered a purchase. In the meantime, the gas price has leveled off at around the pre-war level. This raises the question: does electric heating still make sense? And what is there to consider when purchasing?
Electric heating: electricity price crisis, best sellers, modes of action
41 cents per kilowatt hour calculated according to the specialist portal “electricity report” energy supplier in September 2022 for new contracts. Consumers thus paid around twice as much as they did ten years ago. However, the stock exchanges only recorded the biggest jump in prices in the past eleven months since the Russian army invaded Ukraine. In the wake of skyrocketing gas prices, electric heaters experienced an unprecedented boom. More than 600,000 electric heaters went over the counter in the first half of 2022, an increase of 61 percent.
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Who is one of the 358,000 Germans who will unite in July and August 2022 alone radiator have gained weight, but still don’t have to worry. Because even in the face of the electricity price crisis, the electrical alternative to oil, gas or pellet heating has one or the other advantage. Used intelligently, electric heaters can not only be financially worthwhile, but also bring an advantage in terms of well-being compared to conventional systems. However, it is important to distinguish between the two main models.
Convection heating: cheap to buy, expensive to run
The conventional method of generating space heating using electrical energy is via the convection method. Similar to non-electric heaters, a liquid, usually water or oil, is in a radiator. The heating liquid is heated by means of induced current. The arisen warmth is released into the ambient air and thus heats up the apartment.
A large budget is just as unnecessary as a complex installation. Models praised by consumers and experts can be found on the internet from as little as 100 euros. In the apartment, the radiators can then be used as needed. The only requirement is one Power outlet. The trump card of convection heating over conventional heating systems is the speed at which rooms can be heated. Depending on the size of the room, the effect can be felt within minutes.
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Infrared heating: microwave for the room
Unlike the convection method, infrared heating does not heat the surrounding air, but emits heat waves that are similar to a microwave, heating objects. From there, the heat is transferred to the room air. The desired effect is achieved even faster than with electric radiators. The fact that the air does not dry out is an advantage, as is the fact that the heat produced lasts longer.
But cost effective infrared heaters more than their counterpart. But the devil is in the detail, because both heating models are often used in examples that have been advertised as infrared heating. In the past, therefore, many manufacturers made a business out of selling radiators as infrared heaters. In 2021, the German Institute for Standardization (DIN) reacted and set the minimum proportion of heat generated by infrared waves at 40 percent. Consumers are in even safer hands with a device that has been certified by IG Infrared.
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Special case of night storage heating: out of the moth box
Night storage heating is also enjoying growing popularity again. In the 1950s, this heating model was installed across the board in the young Federal Republic. At that time, the change from Money, wood and oil to electricity as a clean innovation. Electricity was converted into thermal energy during the night and conserved in storage core stones at several hundred degrees Celsius. During the day, the heat was then distributed in the radiators.
The method was not primarily developed to power grid to decouple from dirty energy sources, but because of the day-night discrepancy in terms of power consumption. The comprehensive installation of night storage heaters prevented power plants from having to be shut down too much overnight, thus ensuring the stability of the power grid. In the 1970s, night storage heating lost its popularity and was mothballed by the then black-yellow federal government, only to be pulled out of the mothball four years later. The technology is becoming lucrative again because of wind energy. On stormy nights, it blows so much electricity into the grid that an overload collapse is no longer an impossible scenario.
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Advantages of electric heating
Many plus points for electric heating are obvious. The usually cheap purchase, for example, or that no craftsmen are required for installation, just a working socket. thanks to the mobility and ease of use, rooms can be brought to a comfortable temperature in minutes. No storage for oil, gas or pellets is required, after all, the energy comes from the socket. Since no complex infrastructure needs to be created in the house, there are no maintenance costs in purely electrically heated households.
Disadvantages of electric heating
Electric heaters cannot replace conventional heating systems. Even before the price of electricity went into an upward spiral, there was no model in which an electric heater as the primary heating system made financial sense. So high operating costs are the “deal breaker”. Fatal affects the low efficiency the end. While oil, gas and wood are usually housed in domestic storage, electricity is usually transported over long distances. This results in costly transmission losses. Supplied by your own photovoltaic system, the disadvantage would be eliminated, but additional heating is rarely required in bright sunshine.
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Last but not least, electric heaters also leave it on efficiency lack. Rooms can be heated quickly and precisely. However, to supply a room or even an entire household with heat requires too much energy.
When and where does electric heating make sense?
Electric heaters are best understood as Addition to conventional technologies. Their value is particularly evident in transitional periods. When temperatures rise again in spring and the central heating is switched off, an electric heater can provide heat exactly where it is needed, at work, in the bathroom or in front of the TV set.
So that private consumers before further price jumps are protected on the electricity market for 2023, the traffic light coalition has passed the electricity price brake. Anyone who feels encouraged to buy an additional electric heater should think it through carefully. Consumers would have to pay for the consumption of an energetically inefficient electric heating with a non-protected electricity price.
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