As always with these things, if they actually increase the value for home-owners, then people will naturally begin to select them on their own over time. However, if they do not increase value, then you will just be hamstringing your state by forcing people to use inferior products.
Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps
341–350 of 766 posts
Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps
#342Earlier 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?
California specific: income based minimum pricing, and 'wholesale' pricing for power sent to the grid.
Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps
#343Earlier quoted context omitted.
We've owned three homes, our first one had a heat pump. In Virginia. It generally sucked. It wasn't as good as real A/C in the summer and wasn't as good as gas or electric heat in the winter. I hope to never end up in a place that uses a heat pump.
... what do you think real ac is?
https://www.thisoldhouse.com/heating-cooling/reviews/heat-pu...
"Heat pumps use refrigerant to condition the air in your home by adding or removing heat through thermal exchange."
"Air conditioning is a cooling system that circulates cool air into an enclosed space, creating a comfortable atmosphere and improving indoor air quality."
"Air conditioners generally last longer than heat pumps because air conditioners only run when the air needs cooling, while heat pumps operate year-round."
Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps
#344Earlier 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?
> > stop the attacks on solar installation > I've not heard of any attacks, just reductions in subsidies. Can you share what you're referring to? I do appreciate a softball. https://duckduckgo.com/?va=c&t=he&q=political+attacks+on+sol...
I guess you didn't actually click through to the links; they refer to windmills, solar panel pricing issues in SE Asia, and various other topics (I'm sure some links involve the CA govt attacking solar, but the first several didn't). Maybe next time you can post a couple links that you've actually read, instead of just giving the impression that there are scads of attacks at your fingertips?
Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps
#345Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
I think you are back to where you started. If it was cheaper to use gas to run a heat pump then everybody would just run generators in their houses off of gas instead of using electrical lines.
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Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps
#346Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are all kinds of complications - commercial solar isn't dispatchable so it does tend to get lower rates than most other sources. In my jurisdiction residential (net metering) customers are only allowed to install a certain numbers of panels - corresponding with household energy consumption and assumed production levels (i.e. your monthly bill will never be negative - at lowest you'll be paying distribution char…
> Paying them nothing would be even more unfair (and that's the only option available where I am at least - net metering or no household generation) I wasn't suggesting this. The phased rollback of net metering in California (the state mentioned in my original parent comment as "attacking" solar installation) means that solar owners will still get paid, just not as much as before. I'm sorry that you live somewhere th…
The "phased rollback of net metering" is a bit more extreme than you suggest. Have you heard of income-based billing? [1]
[1] https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/working-for-you/sdge...
Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps
#347I hear a lot of horror stories on HN every time the subject of heat pumps comes up. Things like high costs, units not defrosting properly in winter, etc. Most of these stories tend to be for central air conditioning units.
I think that mini-splits could be a much better introduction to heat pumps for a lot of folks. They are cheap, easy to install, and the units in my house have been running 12 years as our only source of heating/cooling with zero maintenance. (The manufacturer recommends replacing after 10 years, but they are still working fine). This is in an area where we get a lot of snow in winter, but temps almost never fall below -10c.
And you can keep your existing furnace as a backup or secondary heat source.
Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In a way this is the market doing what it's supposed to. There's a shortage of electricity because of everyone doing electrification upgrades, so the price of electricity rises PG&E electricity rates have absolutely nothing to do with free markets. The only thing setting PG&E rates is corruption and incompetence, but mostly corruption.
Customer choices in response to electric rates is absolutely free markets, though. I think that there's a lot wrong with the utility system in California (and the corruption actually incentivizes incompetence - the only way for executives to increase profits, make the stock go up, and get higher bonuses is to increase their costs, so PG&E is very good at inflating costs by doing stuff like burning down cities). But g…
They are using their lobbying power to prevent this. They want their cut regardless of service. Income based minimum monthly payment of $92/mo and nem 3 changes.
Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps
#349One 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.
In the continental US you get ~2x the heat from burning natural gas in a combined cycle turbine to run a heat pump than you would from using a high efficiency gas furnace.
The market price of electricity vs gas varies quite a bit through time and various distortions of the market. Currently gas is cheap, but you want to compare historical averages when buying something that lasts 15+ years not simply look at current rates.
Re: Nine US states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of heat pumps
#350One 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 in Canada and we have heat pumps with secondary heat sources for when it gets really cold. Mine is with gas.
Yup, me too. And with my Nest thermostat, I can manually configure the crossover point. I did so at the economic balance point (where the heat pump is cheaper than my gas furnace).