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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

#711

Post by young_rutabaga »

ajross wrote: post #157
epistasis wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your experience is extremely common. Residential HVAC contractors tend to be extremely conservative, and don't adopt new technologies quickly, or even attempt to understand them. I had some flexibility in time in replacing my 50 year old gas furnace, so I was able to call about 8 contractors before I finally found one who was comfortable with the tech and wanted to do it.

Yeah, it's not an innovative sector, though a lot of the blame belongs with the hardware manufacturers and not the installers. FWIW, the quotes I got for installation weren't that awful. But getting it hooked up to the Nest thermostat turned out to be a 2-day process and require a subcontractor to show up.

Inverter heat pumps shouldn't be controlled by dumb "smart" thermostats like Nest. They send only on-off signals, while a compatible communicating thermostat sends a numerical setpoint, allowing the unit to modulate

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

#712

Post by justin66 »

jrockway wrote: post #381
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…

> 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.

If you'd followed the topic long enough you'd know that what the heat pump advocates are recommending is suffering. It sounds like the OP's building has that covered.

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

#713

Post by letitbeirie »

xbmcuser wrote: post #669
letitbeirie wrote: post #605

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends where you are. In the US natural gas is a byproduct of shale oil extraction and we have a limited capacity to move or export it so it's almost priced as a waste product. It's unlikely that electricity will be any cheaper than gas soon either, since that's where 40% (and growing, as our coal and nuclear fleet are retired) of our electricity comes from.

Today solar electricity is already cheaper than natural gas and by 2030-31 solar and wind electricity cost will be 1/4 to 1/8 of today's prices looking at the avg 10% cost decline we are seeing. The advantage of natural gas being cheaper than solar was 4-5 years ago now it's no longer the case. Natural gas advantage now is of having being able to produce electricity when needed but as battery storage prices drop it w…

> solar electricity is already cheaper than natural gas

Does that include transmission? Most population centers already have the pipeline network needed to bring them gas but the getting power from giant solar projects in the desert (where it's sunny) to the eastern interconnection (where most people live) is still an unmet need.

> as battery storage prices drop

Eventually, but at present our grid-scale storage has a capacity of ~30GW on a grid of ~1200GW; it's going to take something like a trillion dollars and a generation to build out grid-scale storage to the point where we can even support a 100% renewable grid.

We'll get there eventually but until grid-scale storage is installed and ready, the gas plants (with their fast start/stop ability) are what's enabling the renewables to come online and replace our older coal and nuke plants.

We're probably going to have to lean even more on gas since the first ~500GW of renewables are replacing existing coal/nuclear we're losing, but once the grid storage tech catches up we can start installing that in lieu of new gas plants and replacing the ones we've already built.

Tl;dr: we'll get there but not in the lifetime of a furnace

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

#714

Post by Tiktaalik »

jbarham wrote: post #590
paranoidrobot wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> will do nothing for emissions How can that be? Direct consumption emissions are eliminated. Those with solar (a growing percentage) reduce their indirect emissions from grid non-renewable generators. And there is a growing percentage of green generation on the grid.

>> will do nothing for emissions > How can that be? Because a reduction of domestic gas usage will just be diverted to less efficient LNG exports. Given that by far the largest source of Victoria's electricity generation capacity is from dirty brown coal [1] if anything banning domestic gas usage might even make emissions worse since it will force people to use only electricity for cooking and heating. > Direct consu…

Seems like the main issue here is Victoria burning coal and they should stop doing that.

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

#715

Post by HumblyTossed »

moribvndvs wrote: post #465
HumblyTossed wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does your thermostat allow you to "over cool" in order to get the humidity down to a comfortable level?

Trying to run it longer means it gets downright frigid and wastes electricity. Currently we just run a couple of dehumidifiers. Not ideal, looking into other solutions but it is cheapest and most practical.

The overcool setting should only run it a couple degrees lower, if you have a thermostat that handles it.

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

#716

Post by oooyay »

LUmBULtERA wrote: post #650
oooyay wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a 5 channel heat pump with a single condenser. As the other commenter wrote it was mostly wrapped up in labor. For what it's worth, they're 24 SEER Daikin units. It's priced at replacing the AC and heat for an entire house, so compare it to a large AC installation.

That feels like a lot of electricity usage for such high seer, in Oregon. Are you positive that electric backup wasn't being triggered for some reason?

You mean the heat strip? It likely was turning on, but I have no way to know.

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

#717

Post by scrozart »

bongodongobob wrote: post #582
gmerc wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Essentially: We will only accept climate change action if it’s not degrading our standard of living which is predicated on consuming unsustainably. The end.

Yeah, people should freeze or die of heat stroke. Tell me more about your frictionless spherical world.

[flagged]

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

#718

Post by s1artibartfast »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #646
s1artibartfast wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pretty strongly disagree. There is some liability on the state and voters for anti burn policy. However, there is more liability on the PG&E for failure to adequately mitigate risk, and failure to asses and frontload charges for probable payment. If homes are uninsurable, then they shouldn't be. That should only be an issue for an insurer and home owner to work out. If people want to live somewhere uninsurable, or…

> However, there is more liability on the PG&E for failure to adequately mitigate risk, and failure to asses and frontload charges for probable payment. Mitigating the risk is pointless. Wildfires are a natural occurrence in California. The ignition source is irrelevant. The fire is happening, you can't stop it. > I fully support them doing whatever makes them happy, as long as they don't expect me to pay for it But…

Ignition source matters, because frequency happens. Take the camp fire. If not for PG&E, 85 people would be alive, and 16 billion in damages would be averted.

>But that's exactly what they expect you to do. Their houses are in a tinder box. There is some absurdly high probability that they'll burn.

I dont know what you think is "high probability", but it doesnt really matter. The point is that it should be between them and the power company.

I think you have a pretty distorted view of reality. PGE didnt and doesn't get sued for natural wildfires, only what they cause.

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

#719

Post by jhallenworld »

jhallenworld wrote: post #497
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…

It's a big problem for electric cars too... Here are the current prices per kwh for me in MA: Electricity = $.26 / kwh Propane (LPG) = .134 / kwh Heating oil = .095 / kwh Gasoline = .091 / kwh Natural Gas = .082 / kwh

I found the coal price:

https://www.blaschakanthracite.com/dealers/pricing/

6250 kwh / ton... "$200 / ton at the mine" in Pennsylvania..

So this works out to: $.032 / kwh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TewWb8xmyzk

$.06 / kwh bagged and delivered (to Ontario) according to above video.. ($7.50 / 40 lb bag)

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

#720

Post by gnicholas »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #635
gnicholas wrote: post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> folks with solar will get socked That's not quite right. Existing installs are grandfathered for 20 years, right? [1] 1: https://www.ecowatch.com/solar/net-metering/net-metering-3-0

Right but we're talking the effect on new installs (and upgrades beyond a certain amount, and eventual maintenance on older NEM 1.0 and 2.0 installs). With NEM 1 exports were paid out at retail rates and there were no interconnect fees. With NEM 3 exports are paid at roughly wholesale rates with a $145 monthly interconnect fee. NEM 3 is absolutely an attack on solar installs.

> we're talking the effect on new installs

Happy to have that conversation. I was replying to this language, which was not talking about new installs, or at least did not indicate so in any way:

> means that folks with solar will get socked with high monthly fees

"folks with solar" makes it sound like you're talking about people who have solar, not people who are considering putting in solar. Anyway, now that you've limited your comment to new installs, we are in agreement. There is a lower incentive for new solar installs, but IMO "lower incentives" do not amount to attacks. If other people think that it's an attack to give less free money to the purchasers of a product, they are welcome to do so (not saying you are, but others seem to think this).

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