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Heat pumps are defying Maine’s winters and oil industry pushback

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Re: Heat pumps are defying Maine’s winters and oil industry pushback

#71

Post by twobitshifter »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #31
mkozlows wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that ironic. Electrification isn't a "welp, we're done now, yay" thing, it's one of two parallel paths that works together for decarbonization. 1. Electrify all the things 2. Clean up the electrical supply Obviously if you only look at one of the paths in isolation, it doesn't solve problems ("it's great that everything's electric, but electricity is still high carbon"/"it's great that electricity is clean,…

Why electrify all the things instead of decarbonize all the things? Lots of places use zero carbon nuclear district heating to take advantage of the hot water for building heat. It can be pumped 100 km from the plant as it is at Beznau. This makes nuclear more cost effective as well since you're using a valuable product (heat) that is otherwise wasted.

The idea of nuclear power plants in the US near residential communities is a non-starter.

Solar thermal or geothermal might be an option, but I believe heat pumps outperform those options on cost.

Re: Heat pumps are defying Maine’s winters and oil industry pushback

#72

Post by hedgehog »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #51
Scoundreller wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too bad few backup generators have the capability of dumping their heat output into the home via coolant loops or exhaust heat capture.

Because the residential ones are mostly small enough to be air cooled. Exhaust heat is fine in theory but HN would be screaming bloody murder if even one person died from CO as a result of a shoddy install or cracked heat exchanger so it's basically a nonstarter if you're a big juicy lawsuit target like a business. While there's nothing fundamentally different from a forced hot air furnace the novelty factor makes fe…

The way to do it is probably to colocate the generator with the condenser unit and use a thermostat-controlled second loop to move heat to/from the main refrigerant loop as needed. This gives some options to keep the generator from getting too cold to start as well as recover waste heat when it's up to temperature.

Re: Heat pumps are defying Maine’s winters and oil industry pushback

#73

Post by loudmax »

losvedir wrote: post #65

I know heat pumps are all the rage on HN these days, but I looked into them for myself in Indiana, and they don't seem to make financial sense at all, unfortunately. My utility, NIPSCO, charges $0.25699/therm for gas. There are 29.3 kWh of energy in 1 therm of gas, and my furnace is 95% efficient, so this works out to an electric equivalent of $0.009/kWh. That's more than an order of magnitude cheaper than the electr…

Heat pumps don't just convert electricity into heat. They work like an air conditioner in reverse, concentrating heat from outside into your house. Compared to a traditional heating element they're over 100% efficient.

Re: Heat pumps are defying Maine’s winters and oil industry pushback

#74

Post by timmg »

losvedir wrote: post #65

I know heat pumps are all the rage on HN these days, but I looked into them for myself in Indiana, and they don't seem to make financial sense at all, unfortunately. My utility, NIPSCO, charges $0.25699/therm for gas. There are 29.3 kWh of energy in 1 therm of gas, and my furnace is 95% efficient, so this works out to an electric equivalent of $0.009/kWh. That's more than an order of magnitude cheaper than the electr…

The thing with heat pumps is that they don't create heat, they pump it. So they are "more than 100% efficient" (meaning: they move more heat than what the equivalent energy is).

Re: Heat pumps are defying Maine’s winters and oil industry pushback

#75

Post by scythe »

pen2l wrote: post #46
flyingfences wrote: post #3

There was a thread [0] on /r/Maine in the aftermath of the extreme cold snap last weekend, when outdoor temps dropped into the negative double digits, where people chimed in on how their heat pumps held up. By and large, they confirmed that the manufacturers' claims are correct -- they do keep working (albeit less efficiently) down to the rated temperatures and in some cases even below. The winning strategy, at least…

In addition to this, I think we should go back to doing things the hard way, the old-school way: adapt and adjust your lifestyle to temperature changes like our ancestors did. Let the temperature dictate your cooking: do the dishes that require oven use, that require you to have 3 stoves on at the same time (and crucially, avoid these dishes in the summer!). Go on a bulk in the winter time so that you are more resili…

>Go on a bulk in the winter time so that you are more resilient to cold with that extra weight on you (and go on a cut in the summer).

Do not do this:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/obr.12251

Just wear some clothes. I wear fleece-lined hoodie and sweatpants in the winter. There's also that crazy guy who recommends long underwear, but as a skier (with plenty of experience wearing it), you'll never convince me to put that stuff on inside.

Re: Heat pumps are defying Maine’s winters and oil industry pushback

#76

Post by [deleted] »

hammock wrote: post #60
pen2l wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to this, I think we should go back to doing things the hard way, the old-school way: adapt and adjust your lifestyle to temperature changes like our ancestors did. Let the temperature dictate your cooking: do the dishes that require oven use, that require you to have 3 stoves on at the same time (and crucially, avoid these dishes in the summer!). Go on a bulk in the winter time so that you are more resili…

Your ideas are good for today, however I question how accurate they are for "our ancestors." Most people in e.g. the colonial days didn't have an oven - they went to the town baker to use theirs when needed. They also didn't have three stoves and all the pots and utensils required to use them simultaneously

[deleted]

Re: Heat pumps are defying Maine’s winters and oil industry pushback

#77

Post by trynewideas »

losvedir wrote: post #65

I know heat pumps are all the rage on HN these days, but I looked into them for myself in Indiana, and they don't seem to make financial sense at all, unfortunately. My utility, NIPSCO, charges $0.25699/therm for gas. There are 29.3 kWh of energy in 1 therm of gas, and my furnace is 95% efficient, so this works out to an electric equivalent of $0.009/kWh. That's more than an order of magnitude cheaper than the electr…

> My utility, NIPSCO, charges $0.25699/therm for gas

Well, there you go. Natural gas in Maine is $1.95 to $3.58 per therm. https://www.maine.gov/energy/heating-fuel-prices

Re: Heat pumps are defying Maine’s winters and oil industry pushback

#78

Post by strgcmc »

losvedir wrote: post #65

I know heat pumps are all the rage on HN these days, but I looked into them for myself in Indiana, and they don't seem to make financial sense at all, unfortunately. My utility, NIPSCO, charges $0.25699/therm for gas. There are 29.3 kWh of energy in 1 therm of gas, and my furnace is 95% efficient, so this works out to an electric equivalent of $0.009/kWh. That's more than an order of magnitude cheaper than the electr…

I don't understand how you can compare the price of gas (which you convert into an equivalent $/kWh price, no issues so far), with the price of electricity, without trying to account for how long or how often either heating system has to run for... it's almost certainly not the same amount of time.

For example, let's imagine an experiment where 2 heating systems are tasked with doing the same thing -- let's say, to keep a 2000 sq ft home at an even 70F degrees, when the outside air temperature is 0F while the ground temp is whatever-it-is:

- How much gas would the gas system consume, over how many hours, to maintain that 70F temp? Maybe it uses X1 amount of gas, over Y1 hours, for Z1 price of gas, so you can multiply that out.

- How much electricity would a heat pump consume, over how many hours? Maybe it uses X2 amount of electricity, over Y2 hours, for Z2 price.

You're only comparing Z1 and Z2, how could that possibly tell you the whole story? Heat pumps can be >100% efficient (I've seen claims of up to 300% efficiency in ideal conditions), while gas maxes out at about 95%, so I don't know why you wouldn't try to measure/estimate the X and Y variables too, and why you'd only focus on the Z.

Re: Heat pumps are defying Maine’s winters and oil industry pushback

#79

Post by actsasbuffoon »

teeray wrote: post #54
londons_explore wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For 'enthusiasts', a dual heat source system is a good plan. But regular folk want to just pay the energy bill and have a warm home, whatever the weather outside. They don't care to worry about lighting the wood stove on super cold days. They don't want to have to have a wood delivery separate from their energy bill, and be carting it around in boxes. They don't want to huddle into the room with the wood stove becaus…

This is a dangerous mindset in NH/ME though, because redundancies are what will keep your house from freezing. Your primary heat source may “just work” until it doesn’t (when you need it most). Then you’re doing battle in Home Depot with others in the same situation to try to claim the last space heater so your pipes don’t freeze.

Yeah, there have been numerous times when having a fireplace and/or natural gas stove saved my family from freezing. When you live in a place that routinely gets cold enough to kill, you need multiple heat sources that don’t share a single point of failure.

Re: Heat pumps are defying Maine’s winters and oil industry pushback

#80

Post by ravel-bar-foo »

hammock wrote: post #60
pen2l wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to this, I think we should go back to doing things the hard way, the old-school way: adapt and adjust your lifestyle to temperature changes like our ancestors did. Let the temperature dictate your cooking: do the dishes that require oven use, that require you to have 3 stoves on at the same time (and crucially, avoid these dishes in the summer!). Go on a bulk in the winter time so that you are more resili…

Your ideas are good for today, however I question how accurate they are for "our ancestors." Most people in e.g. the colonial days didn't have an oven - they went to the town baker to use theirs when needed. They also didn't have three stoves and all the pots and utensils required to use them simultaneously

While three stoves was probably ahistorical for most homes, a fire which heats the home and is also used to cook (food in ceramic containers) was absolutely commonplace. In particular, a controlled cooking fire in the center of a single-room thatched-roof home was the template for much of Europe, Asia, and for some of the North American natives, albeit at different points in their history.
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