Fan heaters as helpers in the gas crisis?
Experts warn - including scary scenario
Created: 07/31/2022 10:33 am
By: Felix Herz
The demand for electrically operated fan heaters increased significantly during the gas crisis.
But they are not a replacement for heaters, officials warn.
Munich – Shivering in winter or dizzying energy bills: scenarios that are currently playing out in many German minds.
What to do when heating becomes a financial ordeal in January when temperatures are below zero?
Products are already disappearing from supermarkets because of the gas crisis and people are starting to look for a way out.
You also see this apparently in electrically operated fan heaters.
But that brings with it a new problem, which the Federal Network Agency and the Energy Association are now warning consumers about.
Gas crisis: fan heaters are probably an expensive alternative
Fan heaters will be very popular in 2022 - many people see the devices as a way out of the expenses of heating and Co. According to
tagesspiegel.de
, 600,000 fan heaters were sold in the first six months of this year - which is an increase of 35 percent compared to correspond to the same period of the previous year.
Objective: The electrically operated devices should provide heat in private households without having to resort to expensive gas.
However, it is not that simple.
Fan heaters bring with them two problems that spokesmen for the Federal Network Agency and the Energy Association have now warned of: One should not forget that electricity prices are still very high.
Electrically operated fan heaters, whose power consumption is very high, are therefore not the cheap alternative that many people think they are.
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Warning to consumers: Fan heaters pose a risk
The second problem would be the entire power grid in Germany.
If suddenly hundreds of thousands of fan heaters, which have a high power consumption, are also connected to the grid, they could overload it - and there would be a widespread power failure.
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A scary scenario, reinforced by the fact that the fan heaters cannot be switched off by the network operator, according to
tagesspiegel.de
.
Because they are only connected to a normal socket.
In the event of a power outage, you have to use a loudspeaker or an app to tell the public to turn off their devices to get the power grid running again - not an easy task.
(fhz)
