Our goal is to create a theoretical comparison of the costs of heating your home with gas, electricity, and wood. We want to know which option gives you the most heat for your money. Here's how we do it:
We start with the price you pay per kilowatt-hour (kWh). Because air conditioners and heat pumps can provide more heat than the energy they consume (thanks to the SCOP value), we divide the kWh price by the SCOP of your device. This gives us the effective price per kWh for electricity.
For gas, we look at the price per cubic meter (m³) and how much energy is in that m³ (expressed in kWh). Then we apply the efficiency of your boiler - not all energy is converted into heat due to losses in the boiler. By dividing the price by the energy content and then by the efficiency, we find out how much it really costs to heat one kWh with gas.
For wood, we calculate how much heat you get from one kilo of wood, based on the energy content. We take the price per cubic meter of wood and divide it by the weight to find the price per kilo. We then divide that price by the energy content to get the price per kWh.
After we do these calculations, we compare the effective prices per kWh. The energy source with the lowest price per kWh is the cheapest to use. This way, you can easily see how the costs of different energy sources compare!
