511–520 of 766 posts
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Gas fired heat pumps do exist, they're called absorption heat pumps. https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/absorption-heat-pumps
This is how you can have propane powered refrigerators.
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The high fixed monthly cost regardless of utilization means that compared to previous, my total costs for solar go up, even if my total costs for PGE supplied power don't. That will cause many fewer people to switch to solar or solar + battery.
It doesn't change the calculus for switching. It's the same fixed cost either way. The price is simply going up for customers who are not poor. I don't see how this makes someone more or less likely to switch to solar, since the dollar amount they can save stays the same. An analogy: your kid's preschool has an option where you can volunteer once a month and save $50/month. One day, they announce that they are going…
Break even would then be much further in to the future.
Solar is a large capital expenditure, and this change reduces the return on that investment.
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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…
> it's not what heat pump advocates are recommending. sure seems like someone is. could it possibly be the heat pump salesmen? the idea behind heat pumps is to sell heat pumps. In the event you're cold, maybe you should get a furnace too. But that wasn't part of the sales pitch. Regardless, there are now two appliances you have to maintain. Tell me again how much money this saves?
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Shreyas here, one of the co-founders of Helios. So great to have you as a customer! We're stoked we were able to help you ditch natural gas and decrease your carbon footprint. Menlo park (and much of the peninsula) are such a no brainer for heat pumps. Like you mentioned, ~$5500 in incentives plus interest free financing can net to almost no out-of-pocket costs for most homeowners in San Mateo County. Many contractor…
I couldn't find detailed info on what incentives apply to my county, Alameda. From your site: "In the SF Bay area common incentives are the Federal 25C Tax Credit, Tech Clean CA and Peninsula Clean Energy." I'm assuming Federal 25C and Tech Clean CA apply but Peninsula does not. But I don't know how much these are without further research. It would be nice if you had a tool on your site to determine my net cost with…
We call a specific incentive API, automatically generate the net cost estimate, and send it to you. No issue for our software, pls add a note that you just want incentive info, and I'll know to remove you from our hounding salespeople (ME )
We're working on our live instant quote tool, but it's not ready yet.
... we love Alameda and have done a few projects there now.
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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.
Solar isn't a useful source of energy for heating in California, since the demand is almost entirely during winter mornings/evenings where the sun is down.
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…
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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…
The fossil fuel capitalists are so very unhappy about this ban, they are still going on about it in the financial news. I have to say, I love it. Low natural gas prices directly benefit me, and isn't it our gas? The price has certainly come down (look at henry hub chart..), but also winter has not been too cold.. They should ban oil exports next.. (for "national security") Actually export tariffs would be better than…
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> it's not what heat pump advocates are recommending. sure seems like someone is. could it possibly be the heat pump salesmen? the idea behind heat pumps is to sell heat pumps. In the event you're cold, maybe you should get a furnace too. But that wasn't part of the sales pitch. Regardless, there are now two appliances you have to maintain. Tell me again how much money this saves?
The builder of the apartment complex likely just undersized the unit, they'll do this with the normal kind of heat pumps-- air conditioners-- too, and hope its not so undersized that it becomes an actual problem.
Now that I think about it, that happened in both apartments I lived in in Chicago. I remember going for a bike ride one summer afternoon with a friend. Got home, AC didn't do anything, so I went to the grocery store and bought a bag of ice, poured it in my bathtub, and rolled around in it until I was numb. I was cold the rest of the day. Very effective but do the math correctly when you install building-wide air conditioning systems.
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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.
I think you are out of touch. You need to compare the PGE rates with SMUD to get the picture. https://www.smud.org/en/Rate-Information/Residential-rates https://www.pge.com/assets/pge/docs/account/rate-plans/resid... (PDF File) PGE's off-peak rates are 3x SMUD's off-peak rates. PGE's peak rates are 1.5x to almost 2x of SMUD's peak rates.
You’re missing the actual point of my original post