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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

#591

Post by inferiorhuman »

nonethewiser wrote: post #470
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.

> If California is serious about this, they need to reign in the utilities to reduce prices and or stop the attacks on solar installation. Why do you think electricity prices are high?

  Why do you think electricity prices are high?
Because PG&E:

* spent billions over the past few decades on stock buybacks

* spent billions on fines and restitution for malfeasance like falsifying call-before-you-dig records

* spends tens of millions annually on stock dividends (down from billions annually pre-bankruptcy)

* used their safety budget to pay executive bonuses

* stacked the CPUC in their favor

* rakes in billions in profit (roughly $1/share EPS) annually

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

#592

Post by inferiorhuman »

nsfmc wrote: post #499
fragmede wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fwiw, San Francisco is at $0.51/kWh for peak usage.

oooooph

It's a bit more nuanced than that (and PG&E deliberately makes their bills difficult to read). In Oakland for the baseline tier on the time of use plan:

Peak is $0.51536 (delivery) - $0.10556 (baseline credit) + $0.16225 (generation via East Bay Community Energy / Ava) or just over of $0.57 per kWh.

Off-peak is $0.48701 - $0.10556 - $0.13772 or just shy of $0.52/kWh.

Add that baseline credit back in for when you reach tier 2 (currently 12.9 kWh/day for my apartment which factors in winter usage and electric heat). I have about 3.5 kW of baseboard heaters (and use 2.75 kW at most). Whatever the duty cycle is to keep the apartment at 60°F 24x7 is well more than 12.9 kWh so obviously I don't do that anymore. Rates are set to go up again in March or April.

Gas is $2.43888/therm with tier 2 kicking in at 6.72 therms/month and minimum charge of $0.13151/day.

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

#593

Post by slicktux »

readingnews wrote: post #86

I just replaced a furnace... everyone I called for a quote would not touch a heat pump with a 20foot pole, or they wanted prices that were 2X what a separate furnace and AC would cost to install. It was very strange. This is the second home where I had this experience.. basically, they really did not want to install it. I ended up going with gas as no local person would install/warranty a heat pump, or, it was priced…

Any HVAC tech worth their salt should be able to work on a heat pump…

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

#594

Post by jcalvinowens »

bagels wrote: post #529
jcalvinowens wrote: post #442

I have NEM2 solar, so obviously a heat pump is a big win. But I'm convinced the heat pump I installed a couple years ago would save money even without the solar: I pay $0.30-$0.40/KWh for electricity, and $0.08/KWh for natural gas ($2.35/therm) *. My heat pump has a COP of 3.62 when the outdoor temperature is 47F: it uses 1KWh of electricity to move 3.62KWh of heat into my home. The old gas furnace was 80% efficient…

Converting from a gas furnace to a heat pump costs tens of thousands of dollars, needs to be factored in as well.

It should absolutely be under $10K, unless you live in a big house or you need other stuff done.

I don't think it would ever make economical sense to replace a working furnace: my pitch assumes the furnace needs to be replaced, and you're deciding whether to install another furnace or a heat pump.

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

#595

Post by whatindaheck »

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 grew up in western PA with a heat pump. We’d easily hit sub-20F. Maybe not as cold as New England but it worked into some serious cold weather.

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

#596

Post by iraqmtpizza »

Retric wrote: post #349
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.

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…

I would like to see HN recommend looking at historical averages before buying an EV.

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

#597

Post by daleswanson »

ta8645 wrote: post #587

Asking this question out of sheer ignorance: Aren't (air-to-air) heat pumps simply bidirectional air-conditioning units? If so, was AC incorrectly maligned for years as being inefficient and expensive?

Heat pumps are air conditioners that are run in reverse, ie, you are air conditioning the outside. Another way to think of any AC/heat pump/refrigerator is as a heat mover, you can move (or pump) heat from one place to another. So in the summer you move heat from inside to outside, and in the winter you move heat from outside to inside.

ACs/heat pumps are over 100% efficient (in terms of joules of heat energy moved/joules of electrical energy consumed), because they aren't turning electrical energy into heat, but rather using electrical energy to move existing heat.

So, a heat pump should always be more efficient than normal resistive electrical heating, because that is just converting just about 100% of the electrical energy into heat energy. Heat pumps may or may not be cheaper than gas/oil/whatever fossil fuel based heat, depending on fuel and electric prices in your area, and that will likely change over time.

The reason that AC is seen as wasteful/inefficient, I think, is just because historically most places people live, you can get away with just opening windows and being a bit uncomfortable during the warmest parts of the year. The opposite isn't really true, it's not really feasible to live without heat in most places people live. Additionally, heating or cooling in any form is just very energy intensive. So, any "optional" form of that can be seen as a luxury.

To be clear, I'm a big fan of AC, and am not suggesting people should go without it if they need it, just trying to answer the question of why it was seen as inefficient when it is technically very efficient.

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

#598

Post by rmm »

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.

It will stay cheap in most of Australia and United States. Rest of world (europe) though….

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

#599

Post by BatFastard »

readingnews wrote: post #86

I just replaced a furnace... everyone I called for a quote would not touch a heat pump with a 20foot pole, or they wanted prices that were 2X what a separate furnace and AC would cost to install. It was very strange. This is the second home where I had this experience.. basically, they really did not want to install it. I ended up going with gas as no local person would install/warranty a heat pump, or, it was priced…

I had the same experience, twice as much for a heat pump as a traditional gas/electric AC here in Atlanta GA. Got quotes for multiple companies, then on a whim I talked to the guy at Costco who stands by the door on the way out. Turned out you get a ~15% discount for going thru Costco, so I saved the 1500 bucks and got Costco credit! And they used top of the line equipment!

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

#600

Post by torpid »

jackson1442 wrote: post #438
clhodapp wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't space heaters and emergency heat essentially the same thing? It seems strange for the city to ban space heaters when they really ought not to be worse than any other resistive heater

I imagine the ban on space heaters refers more to their fire risk, since emergency heat would be permanently installed in a location where there’s not any flammable materials but a space heater can be placed right next to any number of flammable things.

It's one step better than people turning their stoves on.

And hilariously, if too many people artificially heat their apartments, it actually crashes the system somehow because if too many zones in the mini split have heat, it flips to AC mode.

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