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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

#381

Post by jrockway »

torpid wrote: post #367

I live in an old furniture factory converted into lofts. LEED certified of course, with mini splits instead of forced air in each unit. This is in the midwest. For the past 11 years, every season it's failed to maintain minimum temperature of 68 degrees when it hits below 5 degrees outside, or maintain cooling in the summer. Another adjacent building built 2 years after this one with the exact same setup, same story.…

Emergency heat was under-installed. In the midwest, you have to have it, and it will suck down a ton of electricity for the handful of days a year you need it. Being entirely reliant on mini-splits without resistive emergency heating is a very strange choice, and it's not what heat pump advocates are recommending.

The idea behind heat pumps is to eliminate the need for the natural gas distribution infrastructure. As the infrastructure ages, more pipes will crack (emitting greenhouse gasses, not to mention blowing up), and the cost will go up. Meanwhile, more renewable electricity is coming online, driving the cost down. (It is a much harder problem to replace every gas furnace in the US versus replacing every power plant in the US. That's why the process is starting early with "hey, maybe you don't want to replace your furnace".)

Right now, it probably doesn't make a lot of sense to have a heat pump for the average midwestern house unless you have a pretty big solar installation. But in the future, the day will come where "we're going to pipe explosive gas into your house" is simply not done anymore. That will come in the form of gas companies not being able to maintain their infrastructure at the prices they charge, declining fossil fuel reserves, international demand to lower emissions, etc. It's not a crisis today, but today is not a bad day to start looking towards the future.

(I'm looking forward to replacing my gas stove with an induction stove. CO2 levels are through the roof whenever I cook to the point I have to open windows. I don't need to be breathing all of that.)

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

#382

Post by smcleod »

nelblu wrote: post #380

I have mixed feelings about heat pumps. Where we live winters aren't too harsh - our coldest night would be around -18C and for the most part January/February hovers around -10C at night. Our main heating is oil-based hot water baseboard radiator which I think is THE BEST type of heating solution from comfort standpoint. But few years ago we installed two mini-split heat-pumps which work great and save us a ton of mo…

-18C is very cold!

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

#383

Post by bouncing »

nelblu wrote: post #380

I have mixed feelings about heat pumps. Where we live winters aren't too harsh - our coldest night would be around -18C and for the most part January/February hovers around -10C at night. Our main heating is oil-based hot water baseboard radiator which I think is THE BEST type of heating solution from comfort standpoint. But few years ago we installed two mini-split heat-pumps which work great and save us a ton of mo…

FWIW you can also get heat pumps that feed into regular central heating. The split units are nice because you can heat different rooms to your liking but if you prefer a central approach, that’s also possible, just like it is with a furnace.

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

#384

Post by smcleod »

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.

Natural gas won’t stay cheap. It was cheap here in Australia 10 years ago and now it’s so expensive no one can afford to run gas heating and it’s only going up. Now (thankfully) the government has banned the installation of new gas heating and a lot of people are getting rid of gas cooking, hot water heating etc… it’s for the best.

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

#385

Post by antisthenes »

demondemidi wrote: post #334
Fuut wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just not true at all. Why do you even respond if you don't know enough about heat pumps?

Oh, sorry, I guess I was brainwashed by the "anti heat pump mafia". I had this conversation with three HVAC installers but according to this thread any HVAC installer that speaks ill of heatpumps is old and stupid. Recently, I stayed at an AirBNB recently that had a heatpump and the temps dropped during the deep freeze and it was running 100% of the time and failing. The AirBNB owner said it was brand new and I would…

I mean, instead of an argument you responded with some kind of rant about your Airbnb experience.

So his point still stands.

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

#386

Post by brlewis »

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?

I'm not the OP, but probably https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2024/01/30/arizona-proposes-sola...

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

#387

Post by Spivak »

thelastgallon wrote: post #360
mullingitover wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Southern Cali resident here: I got a mini split system installed a couple years back, and last year's eye-popping surprise gas bill inspired me to start running it backward for heat instead of using the furnace. Pricewise, it's actually a wash. My electric bill went up by about $100 a month, whereas during the winter my gas bill was running about $100 a month to run the furnace (aside from that one random $600 bill o…

Its a wash when gas prices are at historical lows: https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/rngwhhdm.htm

That isn't the table you actually care about because it doesn't hit the residential customer like that. The nominal $/therm in my area has been stable for the last 10 years which might be artificial but to my bank account it's all the same.

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

#388

Post by jrockway »

secabeen wrote: post #355
wongarsu wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If few people use net metering it's kind of fair. Your solar installation generates electricity, any excess gets delivered to your neighbors. The electricity is providing the infrastructure for that without making any money on that specific transaction (it gets deducted from your meter and added to your neighbors' meter), but that's easy enough to account for in base fees. The issues start if too many people do net m…

> You can still maintain the infrastructure with base fees In theory yes, but the grid has not used properly scoped base fees to pay for infrastructure. Delivery costs of power are more than half the total cost; to get to a base+generation model, you'd probably see monthly connection fees for Electricity in the $100+ range for many Americans.

I don't think there's any obligation for people's financial trickery to be sustainable. Like, a new power pole costs (say) $1000 regardless of how many watts are going through the wires attached to it. Someone has to pay the person that cut down the tree and hauled it to its final location money. That they loan you money on the infrastructure and you repay through using electricity isn't the actual cost model, it's just a pricing model people are OK with. When it stops working, the model will have to change.

I always laughed about the pricing structure of the business ISP that I worked at. We charged $1000 to install your service, then $1000 per month (without a contract). This was a financial game; we would lose money if you cancelled after your first month. I always thought the pricing should be $15,000 to install, and then $5 per month. That's closer to what the actual costs are. But instead of you going to the bank to get a loan to pay the $15,000, we hid that for you. It made more people sign up, and we had a better source of funding than bank loans. But, at the end of the day, we would have been out of business if a bunch of people signed up and didn't pay. If that happened, I imagine the pricing would have changed to reflect actual costs.

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

#389

Post by martythemaniak »

htek wrote: post #298
bluGill wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

A large chunk of cost is drilling the holes for the loop. New, compact drilling rigs that use 10' drill sections are a good deal cheaper to run labor-wise and require less space to maneuver. Costs will come down as more companies switch to these rigs.

What are some examples of these new drilling rigs?

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

#390

Post by maxglute »

smcleod wrote: post #384
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.

Natural gas won’t stay cheap. It was cheap here in Australia 10 years ago and now it’s so expensive no one can afford to run gas heating and it’s only going up. Now (thankfully) the government has banned the installation of new gas heating and a lot of people are getting rid of gas cooking, hot water heating etc… it’s for the best.

I remember a recent investor report posted on HN about declining health of permian basin, and the economics of extraction will increasingly not make sense in 10 years. Seems like no brainer if shale and by connection LNG is on way out. Might also explain Biden stalling LNG expansions especially with NATO on the hook, maybe it's cynical electioneering to his base, but maybe the future of cheap US LNG is not bright vs renewables.
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