Sealing instead of breaking off: Why oil heating could still be of good service as a variant in the event of a power shortage. One should trust the price mechanisms instead of falsifying them.
The authorities themselves are destroying energy diversity and the “emergency supply” in heating matters.
Is it wise to abandon oil heating when switching to electricity with a heat pump? Cantonal subsidies require this – everything for the energy transition. But it’s not wise, because it pushes hundreds of thousands of houses into a renewed, one-sided dependency, this time on the electricity grid. But the authorities – and the private sector – are already trembling in the face of a shortage for next winter.
It is easy to have both types of heat supply: the oil heating can be sealed without any other controls, so that it really is idle during normal times. The authorities can then allow the temporary return to oil heating in power emergencies, and have the seal reattached afterwards, for example by the chimney sweep.
This really does not jeopardize the climate target. In addition, you don’t have to shut down the industry in the event of a power shortage. Above all, Switzerland lives up to the tried and tested “emergency stock” that was widely admired at the time: a spontaneous, nationwide supply of the country by private individuals.
In the offers for the subsidy application, the demolition costs for the oil heating figure roughly in the amount of the subsidy for the heat pump. Therefore, the smart homeowner already forgoes it today and keeps the choice, but he does not feel encouraged. In power emergencies, the price of electricity is likely to quickly exceed the cost of diesel, and then every private person switches from time to time and back again – without orders.
But today the sluggish average tariffs of the electricity companies, which are only set annually, are not giving the necessary signals.
It would probably be enough to trust the price mechanisms instead of falsifying them in many ways. But today the sluggish average tariffs of the electricity companies, which are only set annually, are not giving the necessary signals. As in the UK, they should become “more nervous” and pass on the peak costs immediately. However, it is short-sighted that the energy authorities, with their sweet subsidy, are tempting people back to a monolithic energy source, i.e. electricity.
The authorities themselves are destroying energy diversity and the “emergency supply” in heating matters. Because if you keep the oil heater contrary to the subsidy regulations, you also fill the tank. Hundreds of thousands of full reserve tanks for power emergencies would be the result, and all at no cost to the state. The prudent private individual would also be promoted with subsidies plus sealing. He makes a private contribution to the public good “supply security”.
Instead of the price mechanism, there would probably still be the centralized reversal in emergencies. Because if the mobile phone already allows you to control your own heating from outside, then it should even be possible for the authorities – with the consent of the homeowner – to switch the entire heating system over in the event of a shortage.
However, the pricing mechanism is preferable. But for the price mechanism and for the official order in emergencies, the alternative above all does not have to be reduced with gentle coercion. The “changeover lever” must also be provided technically during the conversion, otherwise it will be more expensive.
Another argument put forward by the authorities in favor of the monolithic switchover to electricity alone can safely be left to the individual, namely that the basement is sometimes not enough for the previous oil heating and the new water boiler: everyone judges that for themselves can sacrifice the garage and scrap the car – two birds with one blow. Such radicalism is not (yet) in demand. But neither is the radical one-way solution to the fluttering current. It is therefore necessary to subsidize and seal.
Beat Kappeler is an economist and author. Recently published: “The superstate: Of bureaucracy and party headquarters and how to win back the lean state” (NZZ Libro, 2020).