Hi forum,

I live in Sweden and work as a building heating and ventilation technician. I’m wondering what work opportunities might be available in the UK, as I’m contemplating returning for the remainder of my working life and onwards. I know this isn’t the exact right forum, but I’ve had such good help here in the past :)

The properties I work with are schools, flats, care homes, other municipal buildings. The main heat source is district heating – 80 – 110 degree hot water in to a heat exchanger; the amount exchanged controlled by a valve actuator, which is regulated by a table in a PLC-type computer that uses the outdoor temperature (via a sensor) to determine the radiator water temperature. Radiators run cooler than the UK, the colder it is outdoors, the higher the temperature exchanged from the heat exchanger. For example today, it’s about 5 degrees out, and the radiator water in my house is running at 38 degrees.

Other heat sources include ground and air/water heat pumps, wood pellet boilers, the odd electric boiler, there’s even a bit of solar, gas and some oil as a back-up.

Hot water is either exchanged directly from the district heating/pellets/gas/oil, or stored in the case of solar and heat pumps, stored in accumulator tanks. All hot water systems have a circuit, and a pump maintains a constant circular flow to reduce legionella risk.

I don’t have any gas certification, very few people do here, and it’s not something I’ll be able to get over here.

I know how to calculate (dimension) a heating system, including radiators, pump(s), expansion tank; but am happier building and maintaining such systems. We rarely drain down systems, we use e.g. magnetite removing/filtering devices, automatic air removal, freeze pipes for smaller/quicker jobs.

I’ve never worked in this profession in the UK so have no idea if these skills are transferable but suspect they probably are. I’m not looking to move until earliest 3 years due to children school situations.

Any help/advice appreciated

Thanks

Wow, so what will people do when their gas boiler expires?

Install a heat pump maybe?

Okay. What about bigger, commercial buildings? How are/will they be heated? E.g. a shopping Centre, or a school?

Posted By: minisaurusWhat about bigger, commercial buildings?

The Climate Change Committee envisage a similar switch to heat pumps and hydrogen. Across all buildings, they propose ending all natural gas boiler installations by 2033, with the public sector leading by 2030.

While district heating isn't common, there are still quite a few, some of them new - such as in the London Olympic Park. All new district heating is supposed to be low carbon by 2025, with all exiting ones converted to low carbon by 2040. All new boilers are supposed to by 'hydrogen ready' from 2025.

Posted By: minisauruslocally produced at the building?

How might that work? Especially in a carbon-free world?

Jonathan Porritt doubts hydrogen:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/16/hydrogen-nuclear-net-zero-carbon-renewables

"we need to be clear about what that green hydrogen should be used for: not for electricity; not for heating homes and non-domestic buildings; and not for cars, where electric vehicles will always be better. Instead we will need it for what are called the “hard-to-abate” sectors: for steel – replacing carbon-intensive coking coal – cement and shipping.

Much of the hype for hydrogen is coming from the oil and gas sector, in the hope that gullible politicians, seduced by an unattainable vision of limitless green hydrogen, will subsidise the vast investments needed to capture the emissions from gas-powered hydrogen. Their motivation couldn’t be clearer: to postpone the inevitable decline of their industry."

Interesting. Over here, they’ve started extracting hydrogen from, er, water. Using it for steel production and hopefully in cars, as well as making electricity; if I’ve understood correctly.

It’s fascinating how different societies come up different solutions.

Dead right - or that at least, plus the right kind of technology. Major important new demands on energy - like serious recycling
http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=16977&page=1#Item_9
so existing demands must be cut massively.

And we really could learn to live happily with sometimes intermittent supply
(my post of Feb 8th 2021 in http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=16926)
rather than prolonging, even building new, fast-response gas generation just so the lights never ever go out.

I just want to check I've understood correctly - so in the UK, hydrogen is being extracted from gas (with carbon as a waste product I guess?)

If so, why aren't people trying to extract it from water instead? The "waste" product is oxygen.

Posted By: minisaurusI just want to check I've understood correctly - so in the UK, hydrogen is being extracted from gas (with carbon as a waste product I guess?)

If so, why aren't people trying to extract it from water instead? The "waste" product is oxygen.

There's a reasonable explanation at https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/hydrogen_production.html

Cost is the main problem with electrolysis.

Don't think it's ever that simple! If there is spare green electricity available in Sweden, the green thing to do would be to sell it to Germany and Poland and displace some coal power.

Any kWh that is turned into hydrogen in Sweden, is one less kWh of green electricity available in Germany, so one more kWh worth of carbon emissions there. So every unit of Swedish hydrogen is accompanied by one unit of extra carbon emissions, so it isn't so green at all...

However if for every kW of hydrogen electrolyzer built in Sweden, they paid for a kW of a new hydro dam to be installed, that would/could not have been installed anyway, then that hydrogen would actually be 'green'. That might be happening unseen, if the electrolyzer pushes up the demand for electricity.

We get in similar tangles in UK, eg if I heat my house with a heatpump, is that green because I live near a wind turbine so most of my electricity is wind power? Or does it mean that somebody turns up a gas power station 200miles away to make up for the extra electricity I am using? Or does UK import a little more electricity from France, who then export a little less to Germany?

Indeed! So effectively Germany is 'passing on' Swedish hydro power to its neighbours. Eventually some might be said to end up in the UK. More will be when the various Norway-UK cables are completed.

Makes it complicated to say that power in any country (or county or city) has a higher or lower intensity or that there is 'spare' power for things like hydrogen or batteries.

There was a long thread about this recently.

The government has announced that fossil fuel boilers will be banned. Some boiler manufacturers and installers are hoping to get round this by putting stickers on their products saying 'hydrogen ready' and keep on selling them, in the knowledge that significant supplies of hydrogen will not arrive until after 2040 at the earliest, by when the boiler will have already been retired and replaced.

If they manage to pull off this greenwash, you could get a job installing those fossil-powered boilers, but if you are looking for a green job then look at heatpumps instead, there is a huge shortage of installers and they can charge a higher price.

Posted By: minisaurusAnyway, to return to the subject of possible employment ;) I'm a little confused regarding the future of the gas network.

It sounds as if the gas network's future is secure, but it will be used to supply hydrogen instead of gas?

It also sounds as if there is a future for boilers that can burn hydrogen?

Have I understood correctly?

FWIW, I'm currently going through the process of getting my gas safe certification. From what I have found out, the gas network is safe for the foreseable. As mentioned before, the plan is to stop installing new gas boilers into newbuild houses as of 2025, but not to stop replacement installations until about 2030 but no specific dates seem to have been set for this yet.

90% of UK properties have either oil or gas boilers, so there will be plenty of work for some time, plus the industry is carefully looking at the labour requirements for shifting supplies.

Apparently,the recent study using a 20% hydrogen mix in natural gas supplies at Keele has been successful, demonstrating this could be a next feasible step without the need to modify existing gas boilers.

I'm doing my gas certification because I'm interested in installing heat pumps. The weird thing about the industry is that for me to become qualified for installing and maintaining heat pumps, I either have to have gas or oil boiler heating certification, I can't do a heat pump certification on its own!

Anyway, there is good demand for heating engineers and I don't see this demand tailing off any time soon. As a friend of mine says who has a heating business, he can decide to work as much or as little as he wishes.

HTH

I can also just add that as a random domestic customer, we have a huge shortage of tradespeople in the UK, at least near where I live. I would be amazed if you struggled to find work.