Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 766 posts

Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps

#241

Post by colechristensen »

bagels wrote: post #214
mdasen wrote: post #174

One of the big problems with heat pumps in New England is that our electricity costs 1.7x the US average ( https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph... ). If you're in the South, a heat pump makes perfect sense. You're going to want AC anyway and it'll be way more efficient and save a ton of money when you want heat. In most of the country, even if it gets cold your electricity prices are still a t…

Right, the heat pump will reduce energy use to maybe 1/3 of a gas furnace, but natural gas is something like 6x cheaper for the same amount of energy, so it is an expensive folly. If California is serious about this, they need to reign in the utilities to reduce prices and or stop the attacks on solar installation.

Utilities cost excesses in California are largely PG&E paying for its liability for causing wildfires in places where people probably shouldn’t live anyway.

For example Silicon Valley Power which serves Santa Clara (or something like that) has rates that are literally half as much as PG&E.

In Minnesota I’m paying for Xcel Energy’s mistakes in Texas.

Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps

#242

Post by jauntywundrkind »

bruce511 wrote: post #190
mdasen wrote: post #174

One of the big problems with heat pumps in New England is that our electricity costs 1.7x the US average ( https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph... ). If you're in the South, a heat pump makes perfect sense. You're going to want AC anyway and it'll be way more efficient and save a ton of money when you want heat. In most of the country, even if it gets cold your electricity prices are still a t…

I'm not in NE, so forgive me if this is obvious, but high electricity prices might make solar attractive to you. (Unrelated to the heat-pump question.) I'm in a similar high-priced environment, but we get a fair amount of sun. I'm getting around a 16% return on capital based on electricity usage reduction.

New England just doesn't have a lot of light. The time to return on investment is commendurately longer. And in the winter it's much worse.

NREL has solar availability maps. Alas the scale sucks; there's great monthly average views, but all done with the same yearly average scale, so during the summer everything is the same full-red potential (>5.75 kWh/m^2/d) and during the winter everything is (mostly) the same low potential (https://www.nrel.gov/gis/solar-resource-maps.html

Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps

#243

Post by gnicholas »

bagels wrote: post #214
mdasen wrote: post #174

One of the big problems with heat pumps in New England is that our electricity costs 1.7x the US average ( https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph... ). If you're in the South, a heat pump makes perfect sense. You're going to want AC anyway and it'll be way more efficient and save a ton of money when you want heat. In most of the country, even if it gets cold your electricity prices are still a t…

Right, the heat pump will reduce energy use to maybe 1/3 of a gas furnace, but natural gas is something like 6x cheaper for the same amount of energy, so it is an expensive folly. If California is serious about this, they need to reign in the utilities to reduce prices and or stop the attacks on solar installation.

> stop the attacks on solar installation

I've not heard of any attacks, just reductions in subsidies (tax credits, net metering). Can you share what you're referring to?

Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps

#244

Post by colechristensen »

exe34 wrote: post #239
bagels wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, the heat pump will reduce energy use to maybe 1/3 of a gas furnace, but natural gas is something like 6x cheaper for the same amount of energy, so it is an expensive folly. If California is serious about this, they need to reign in the utilities to reduce prices and or stop the attacks on solar installation.

Is there a reason heat pumps use electricity? I would have thought the same approach would work with gas - you only need to burn a fraction of the gas to drive the "fridge" backwards?

You seem to be missing something fundamental here, I’m not sure what it is. How do you think heat pumps work?

Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps

#245

Post by gnicholas »

lex-lightning wrote: post #198
mdasen wrote: post #174

One of the big problems with heat pumps in New England is that our electricity costs 1.7x the US average ( https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph... ). If you're in the South, a heat pump makes perfect sense. You're going to want AC anyway and it'll be way more efficient and save a ton of money when you want heat. In most of the country, even if it gets cold your electricity prices are still a t…

Alright, maybe I’m out of touch, but I don’t think electricity is expensive in California. Even during 115 degree heatwaves in a 70-year-old, 3-bedroom, single-family home. Most I paid was $100 in a month with 2 people with gaming computers working from home. Not everyone has that kind of money, but my point is that most people have cell service and other services which add up to more than electricity costs. That’s f…

When I looked into this, I learned that we pay 2x what neighboring states pay.

Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps

#246

Post by aqfamnzc »

turtlebits wrote: post #218
IndrekR wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a fantastic opportunity for a fresh company to take over the market. Heat as a service. It costs about 2kUSD to get air to air exchange heatpump installed here (minisplit, includes the cost of the pump, EU). Takes approx 3 hours.

Yes, HVAC contractors in the US massively overcharge. I saved ~ 10k doing the install myself. The equipment is inexpensive, labor can be upwards of 2x equipment cost.

Do you feel like the number of invisible footguns was manageable? That's always my concern with diy trades stuff, the things that seem fine at install but come back to bite you 6mo later.

Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps

#247

Post by lex-lightning »

bagels wrote: post #216
lex-lightning wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright, maybe I’m out of touch, but I don’t think electricity is expensive in California. Even during 115 degree heatwaves in a 70-year-old, 3-bedroom, single-family home. Most I paid was $100 in a month with 2 people with gaming computers working from home. Not everyone has that kind of money, but my point is that most people have cell service and other services which add up to more than electricity costs. That’s f…

How? It's $0.52/kwh here, and before that rate increase, we were paying (edit) $278/mo in the summer for similar (70 year old 3 bedroom house), and slightly lower temepratures.

Time-of-day program with SMUD. Ran the AC as cool as it could go before peak, turned it off during peak. At move-in we dumped multiple feet of insulation (more than code requires) into the place. At worst it got to 80 degrees.

Might have been a bit over $100, but I’m just as flabbergasted at your $278.

Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps

#249

Post by colechristensen »

bruce511 wrote: post #190
mdasen wrote: post #174

One of the big problems with heat pumps in New England is that our electricity costs 1.7x the US average ( https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph... ). If you're in the South, a heat pump makes perfect sense. You're going to want AC anyway and it'll be way more efficient and save a ton of money when you want heat. In most of the country, even if it gets cold your electricity prices are still a t…

I'm not in NE, so forgive me if this is obvious, but high electricity prices might make solar attractive to you. (Unrelated to the heat-pump question.) I'm in a similar high-priced environment, but we get a fair amount of sun. I'm getting around a 16% return on capital based on electricity usage reduction.

Solar is so cheap it usually still makes sense financially even in areas without a lot of sun, but less so.

Lots of cold places in northern latitudes have short winter days that are overcast more often than not yielding only a little solar energy for a big chunk of the year.

Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps

#250

Post by newhotelowner »

We use PTAC at the hotel and we only buy with a heat pump. It reduces electricity bills significantly in winter. It's not a new tech, but it has gotten more efficient over the years.

I am surprised that all these companies are charging arms and legs for heat pump units. PTAC is about $100 extra if you get it with a heat pump.

If you don't have access to natural gas, heat pump water will save you a lot in winter.

Post reply on HN