The UK needs new ways to heat homes if it is to meet net zero goals. New technology is being developed every day including solar panels, battery storage, or ground and air source heat pumps. Nexgen heating have developed a heated ‘wallpaper’ that uses far infra-red electric heating and conductive heating to heat homes.
What is infra-red?
Those warm summer rays that you feel on a hot day heating your face as you turn to the sun include infra-red rays. Nexgen is tapping into that natural warmth and using it to heat homes.
They have created a far infra-red graphene electric ‘wallpaper’. Graphene is a type of carbon created here in the UK and forms the ultra slim panels. The graphene nano-technology is printed onto the sheet, similar to toughened wallpaper with copper strips running down the sides to connect up the system. The graphene sheet radiates warmth into the room. It runs on a very low electric current at 24 volts so it is safe to touch (Octopus Energy).
The advantages of far infra-red electric heating
Nexgen calls the system the ‘future of heating’. And here’s why. It has a number of advantages over the usual suggestions to solve heating.
The biggest advantage of infra-red is that it heats people and objects in the room and not the air in the home. The air doesn’t circulate in the same way it does with gas central heating or heat pumps and so areas of damp and mould do not form on walls.
Nexgen’s wallpaper can also be retrofitted. It does not need external space like a ground source heat pump or air source heat pump. It can be installed on ceilings, walls and even under floors by an electrician and a decorator to plaster over the panels once installed. The wiring is hidden in the skirting boards, so there is no evidence of the heating system once installed.
Installing Nexgen on 65% – 80% of the ceiling space provides consistent heating around a room. Beneficially, it can be used on a room by room basis by using a controller switch, so that the resident can heat only the room they are using.
The infra-red electric heating, when combined with solar power and smart batteries, is a net zero solution to heating homes. It is low Co2 and does not use fossil fuels (when powered by renewable electricity). More importantly, it does not require new infrastructure to deliver it to homes.
If you don’t have solar panels and a battery, it still compares favourably with the cost of gas central heating, according to customer feedback. And it is designed ‘for life’, with a 15-year guarantee.
All these reasons make it a great choice for older public sector buildings and social housing. For those living in fuel poverty, the Nexgen heating wallpaper is cost effective to run. Nexgen aims to reduce cost by 50% when compared to heat pumps. Ealing Council is testing both technologies, so it will be interesting to see the results.
“Gas heating causes around a fifth of the UK’s harmful emissions, so it simply cannot be ignored. We have committed to stopping installing, or replacing, gas boilers in our council homes by 2023 and, to do that, we have to be bold and look at different ways of securing cheap, efficient and environmentally friendly energy.”
– Councillor Deirdre Costigan, Ealing Council’s cabinet member for climate action (Around Ealing)
Nexgen’s infra-red electric heating system has the potential to provide homes around the UK with clean, net zero heating. We are excited to see if other councils take up the opportunity.
For more info on Nexgen visit their website at https://nexgenheating.com/
