This is a totally bizarre argument to put - electric heating is not green and it is considerably more expensive. Compared to a heat pump, electric central heating consumes 3 times as much energy. Hitherto, that energy has been produced by burning coal and hence putting CO2 and yet more noxious gases into the atmosphere.Going forward, every additional electric heater will burn more gas. After transmission losses and conversion losses in the power station, this is far less efficient than burning gas at home in a modern (condensing) boiler.There may come a time when extra electricity use will be provided by renewable sources. This is really a long way away - decades. At present, incremental electricity use is met by burning gas and as we gradually convert from petrol to electric vehicle use, this will continue to be the case, as there is at present nowhere near enough power generation capacity to cope with this.We need something like ten times the current amount of offshore wind power before incremental electricity use for home heating stands a chance of being "green".At that point, the whole grid could be highly dependent upon intermittent sources - the wind does not always blow. Even if the current new nuclear stations under construction manage to get finished, we will still be burning gas as back-up. There is as yet no practical energy storage method available which would smooth out demand across weather variation.Anyone who thinks that electric heating is "green" or "renewable" is living in a dream world.
Michael Winstanley ● 1549d