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

Post by naijaboiler » Sat, Feb 10, 2024, 4:01 PM UTC

lelandbatey wrote: post #449

GloriousKoji wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the Bay Area California and get electricity from PG&E. I use a minimal amount of electricity and I paid 43 cents/kWh last month. Gas from Costco is $4/gal right now. I have a plugin-hybrid which does 4miles/kwh and 45mpg or in terms of money: 9.3miles/$ on electricity and 11.25gas-miles/$ on gasoline. But maybe you don't actually care about fuel efficiency, then you have an argument that it's cheaper to fue…

> I paid 43 cents/kWh last month Whoooooa ok that makes more sense why folks are complaining; I paid 13 cents/kWh last month, less than 1/3 of what you're talking about. Note for others, paying $0.45/kWh is highly unusual for the US as a whole; see the US Gov published stats on average electricity prices by region which puts the average at ~$0.17/kWh: https://www.bls.gov/regions/midwest/data/averageenergyprices...

Post by mercutio2 » Sat, Feb 10, 2024, 4:05 PM UTC

hedora wrote: post #675

iraqmtpizza wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

People have; it's a obvious win. There are sites that do this for your zip code correctly, but an efficient EV gets 4 miles / kWH. An efficient hybrid gets under 60 MPG. California's insanely high electricity rates are about $0.15 / kWh, so the energy costs $0.0375 per mile. Gas has hovered around $4 / gallon or higher for a long time, giving a fuel cost of $0.0666 per mile. Big energy guzzling EVs get about 2 miles…

Post by naijaboiler » Sat, Feb 10, 2024, 4:08 PM UTC

floatrock wrote: post #146

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

Napkin math: My crossover EV gets 2.5-3.5 mi/kWh. Call it 3. / $0.2/kWh = 15 mi/$ Avg fuel economy in US ~ 25mpg. At $3.50/gal that's 7 mi/$ So at 20c/kWh, your dollar goes roughly twice as far on electric. California has been seeing brutal rates, though -- 40c/kWh not uncommon. Californians can play games with Time-of-Use rates (charge at night), get onto EV-specific rates, be on a CCA which tend to not have the try…

Post by tomschlick » Sat, Feb 10, 2024, 4:20 PM UTC

secabeen wrote: post #359

tomschlick wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Another factor is topography. Ohio is pretty flat and running power lines around it is not that hard. California is big and has lots of rugged terrain. It costs a lot more to bring power to the small town in the California mountains, and those costs have to be paid by the urban and sub-urban customers of our large state-wide utilities.

Post by lsllc » Sat, Feb 10, 2024, 4:34 PM UTC

kenmacd wrote: post #679

lsllc wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big issue in New England is that heat pumps (ASHP or GSHP) are only really possible for new builds. Most existing homes will likely be forced hot water and there isn't any heat pump out there that will produce water hot enough (e.g. 185F), so your only option is to retrofit ducting (or go mini-split but then you need one in every room). Even homes with ducted AC, it's likely they are sized for cooling only, not h…

> here isn't any heat pump out there that will produce water hot enough (e.g. 185F) For 185: https://www.arcticheatpumps.com/high-temperature-heat-pump.h... Or much more common, if you can deal with 176F, the SANCO2 ones will generate that down to -20F. The hydronic temperatures you're talking about are only required if you have to stick with the existing radiators. They make radiators with little fans that work at l…