it sounded like a neat idea but I was sceptical when I read The Register article a month ago. The economics, who's paying for what, what the tax and insurance implications are, weren't clear to me. I'll have to take the occupier's word it has knocked 90% off energy bills. They also had solar panels installed so it's not clear what benefit came from the HeatHub itself.Not sure how long it would take to pay back the cost of the unit and also not sure what practical use such a data centre would be given the relatively low compute power of each Pi and the limited internet bandwidth available to most domestic premises.
The Register article said Thermify install a dedicated network link which I presume would be fibre. My guess is Thermify also have their own separately metered electrical supply and they get billed directly.
If it's all free to the home occupier - we put it in, pay for everything, you sink the heat for us, and we both benefit - I can't see any problem if it doesn't pan out. The worst case is your bills go back up when it doesn't. That's usually the deal during a trial but maybe not going forward.
It would get more complicated if the occupier has to pay for anything as they will have a much harder cost-benefit analysis facing them. Worst case there could be you have invested in having it and having it installed, are paying to keep it running, and it not being utilised enough to offset bills - and that's out of your control.
Statistics: Posted by hippy — Sun Nov 16, 2025 5:57 pm