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

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

#271

Post by janpieterz »

TheOsiris wrote: post #263
gnicholas wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

isn't that an attack? removing/reducing subsidies removes incentives for people to install more solar

Depends how you see it. If you assume a neutral state of no incentives, adding benefits to stimulate growth and later removing this benefits once growth is achieved can be seen as "attacking this positive state" or simply "bringing back to neutral".

I moved to SoCal recently and didn't realize things like net metering even existed, so when people started to rant about these new measures I was very surprised to learn about them, and especially about people presuming these things to be "normal".

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

#272

Post by tomschlick »

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.

For context of how crazy that is... here in OH we pay ~$0.12/kwh

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

#273

Post by lex-lightning »

nkingsy wrote: post #256
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…

Let’s say 30 kWh per day is the norm to run ac in the summer. Assuming $.40 per kWh, which is lower than my PGE rate, that’s $360 per month just to run the ac. Not sure what kind of setup you have. $100 is my bill if I’m not home in the winter and leave everything off.

I’m picking up a sentiment from the downvotes so let me defend: I’m not lying lol.

SMUD time of day. Ran the AC super cold during the night (so it would run the entire off-peak period). Ran it somewhat cool during mid-peak. Didn’t use it at all during peak.

Other appliances I only ran at night.

Installed lots of insulation at move-in.

Like I said in OP, Sacramento. YMMV.

But in any case I’d argue $360 is still not expensive per se given the value you’re getting. How many square feet were you cooling? What else was operating?

It’s just about perspective. I was responding to the claim that electricity is expensive.

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

#274

Post by dahinds »

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?

Gas fired heat pumps do exist, they're called absorption heat pumps.

https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/absorption-heat-pumps

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

#275

Post by what_ever »

gnicholas wrote: post #243
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.

> 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?

Is net metering a subsidy?

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

#276

Post by bluGill »

theteapot wrote: post #268
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…

> Heat pumps do work into freezing New England temperatures, but they're a bit less efficient as it gets to zero fahrenheit. What's the temperature in the ground? Did you look at a ground source heat pump ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_source_heat_pump )

I have - the cost of installing such a system makes it questionable if it will ever be worth it. I've seen a few places that have it and they work great year round and are cheap to operate. However the payoff from the install if 50+ years despite the cheap costs. Everyone hopes the install lasts that long, but a lot can go wrong in 50 years. (the equipment probably won't last 50 years, but that will be cheap enough to replaces, it is the pipes in the ground that better last 50 years)

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

#277

Post by mauvehaus »

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.

I looked into doing my own heat pump install. At least here in Vermont, you can't buy one without a refrigeration license[0] because of the ozone depletion issues with refrigerants. You also have to buy one from an in-state supply house to qualify for some of the incentives. Not all supply houses will sell to muggles.

My experience was that it was simpler and quicker to pay someone despite having basically the simplest possible installation: inside and outside units on opposite sides of the same exterior wall. The guy was great, and recommended a unit with an easily removable blower wheel for the dusty wood shop application[1]. I wouldn't have gotten there on my own, for sure. And he made sure that it qualified for the incentives. The list is long, and the models that are actually in production/available change pretty regularly.

Technically, it can be a pretty simple job. Practically, local regulations and circumstances might sway things towards hiring it out.

I say all this as someone who is a fairly competent shade-tree mechanic. I've done an engine swap and replaced a couple of clutches (transmission seal failure and previous owner's poor work; I know how to drive stick)

[0] I'm playing fast and loose with the exact words; it's been a few months since I looked into it.

[1] Cooper-Hunter, which is a Midea brand

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

#278

Post by TheOsiris »

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…

yeah, there's absolutely no "maybe" about it, you are definitely out of touch :). I don't know in what way exactly, but something is off. What is your per kwh rate exactly? You might be getting some kind of subsidies that you are not aware of, perhaps? I used to live in a 1200 sqft house in LA without any AC or anything consuming too much electricity, and 10 years ago before all the rate hikes I was still paying more than $100/month in west LA.

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

#279

Post by gnicholas »

gertlex wrote: post #162
shadowpho wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's now more expensive to fuel a vehicle with electricity than gas How is that possible? Even at 20c/kWh it's still a good 4x cost difference I though

20c/kWh? Not in California... Try 35c/50c peak or worse. Even if you have solar, and got in before NEM3.0, that's still not an incentive to electrify, when you're just selling the non-peak energy to the grid for the increasing rates that PG&E is charging/planning... (if that income-based minimum monthly bill thing happens, this maybe changes a bit) Not sure about the current gas/electricity per mile costs as I'm stil…

> (if that income-based minimum monthly bill thing happens, this maybe changes a bit)

FYI, some legislators (including very left-leaning ones) are moving to repeal this pending change: https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-progressive-california-epipha...

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

#280

Post by bluGill »

gregwebs wrote: post #262
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.

There are second order effects from natural gas use in an actual furnace that aren't taken into account in price of energy comparisons. A furnace has to either 1) exhaust out air initially drawn from the house which must be replaced by cold outdoor air coming into the house (this requires more heating of the house) 2) take in fresh cold air for combustion and exhaust that (which requires extra energy to heat up the c…

All modern furnaces I've seen take #2 - use air from outside. Despite that they can get to 99% efficient. It doesn't take much energy to heat up that cold air.
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