4 ms·

Heating causes more green house gas emissions than air conditioning.

ajuc 5y ago
What causes emissions is deviation from optimal temperature. And with global warming there's more extreme deviations both ways. Also - in my country recently the peak electricity usage moved from winter to summer because of AC. Nobody had AC 30 years ago, now it's common in offices and people start installing it in their homes. Heating still uses more energy overall, and in worse forms (burning coal and gas, mostly), but this slowly changes.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  > Also - in my country recently the peak electricity usage moved from winter to summer because of AC. Yes, that's the goal. This is good. In countries that have winters, this increase should be offset by much greater drop of energy usage in winter. Couple factors play into this: - AC (heat pump) used for heating is 2-5x more energy-efficient than anything else people normally use, including in particular burning any source of fuel for heat. - Insulation works better at reducing heating costs than cooling costs (people and equipment generate heat too, which insulation will try to keep in). As a result, you should expect peak electricity usage to shift to summer, and total energy usage per capita to drop.
  - ajuc 5y ago
    We're both Polish (I think?) so I'll talk about my experience: last few years there has been a huge boom in solar panels because of EU and state-funded incentives. But most people don't invest in heat pumps, just replace coal with solar panels + electric resistive heating + possibly AC, because that's cheaper and return on investment is higher. This puts a huge strain on the electric network and actually increases demand for electricity both in the summer and in the winter. The boom will likely stop this year because government changed the rules to incentivize installing batteries together with solar cells to protect the electrical network from unpredictability. This means heat pumps make more sense economically (cause you can't use electric network as free battery so efficiency matters), but solar cells in general (heat pumps or not) become much less profitable for average house. So I expect the boom to slow down or stop completely. I've looked into it recently because my parents upgraded their house from coal to solar panels + heat pump + separate AC. It's very expansive to update the coal central heating installation to work as both heating and cooling so people mostly buy independent AC even when they have a heat pump. Heat pump/AC combo makes sense only in new houses. So, in conclusion I'm not that optimistic about energy usage in Poland. I've also worked in a company that did software for trading energy so I know a little from the other side and Polish electric grid isn't prepared for renewables and won't be in near future. Transport capabilities are even more of a bottleneck than installed power. Also - average yearly energy usage in Poland isn't dropping AFAIR - it slowly increases. It was 21 629 MW in 2010 and 23 451 in 2019. Maybe lockdowns lowered it slightly but it will bounce back. More data: https://wysokienapiecie.pl/27524-energetyka-w-polsce-w-2019-roku-moc-produkcja-energii-wg-danych-pse/ https://wysokienapiecie.pl/27524-energetyka-w-polsce-w-2019-...

ajuc 5y ago

What causes emissions is deviation from optimal temperature. And with global warming there's more extreme deviations both ways. Also - in my country recently the peak electricity usage moved from winter to summer because of AC. Nobody had AC 30 years ago, now it's common in offices and people start installing it in their homes. Heating still uses more energy overall, and in worse forms (burning coal and gas, mostly), but this slowly changes.

TeMPOraL 5y ago
> Also - in my country recently the peak electricity usage moved from winter to summer because of AC. Yes, that's the goal. This is good. In countries that have winters, this increase should be offset by much greater drop of energy usage in winter. Couple factors play into this: - AC (heat pump) used for heating is 2-5x more energy-efficient than anything else people normally use, including in particular burning any source of fuel for heat. - Insulation works better at reducing heating costs than cooling costs (people and equipment generate heat too, which insulation will try to keep in). As a result, you should expect peak electricity usage to shift to summer, and total energy usage per capita to drop.
- ajuc 5y ago
  We're both Polish (I think?) so I'll talk about my experience: last few years there has been a huge boom in solar panels because of EU and state-funded incentives. But most people don't invest in heat pumps, just replace coal with solar panels + electric resistive heating + possibly AC, because that's cheaper and return on investment is higher. This puts a huge strain on the electric network and actually increases demand for electricity both in the summer and in the winter. The boom will likely stop this year because government changed the rules to incentivize installing batteries together with solar cells to protect the electrical network from unpredictability. This means heat pumps make more sense economically (cause you can't use electric network as free battery so efficiency matters), but solar cells in general (heat pumps or not) become much less profitable for average house. So I expect the boom to slow down or stop completely. I've looked into it recently because my parents upgraded their house from coal to solar panels + heat pump + separate AC. It's very expansive to update the coal central heating installation to work as both heating and cooling so people mostly buy independent AC even when they have a heat pump. Heat pump/AC combo makes sense only in new houses. So, in conclusion I'm not that optimistic about energy usage in Poland. I've also worked in a company that did software for trading energy so I know a little from the other side and Polish electric grid isn't prepared for renewables and won't be in near future. Transport capabilities are even more of a bottleneck than installed power. Also - average yearly energy usage in Poland isn't dropping AFAIR - it slowly increases. It was 21 629 MW in 2010 and 23 451 in 2019. Maybe lockdowns lowered it slightly but it will bounce back. More data: https://wysokienapiecie.pl/27524-energetyka-w-polsce-w-2019-roku-moc-produkcja-energii-wg-danych-pse/ https://wysokienapiecie.pl/27524-energetyka-w-polsce-w-2019-...