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Gas furnaces are about 95% efficient. Burning gas at a power plant, transmitting to your home, and then producing heat with an electric heater is nowhere near t
by megaman821 5y ago
Gas furnaces are about 95% efficient. Burning gas at a power plant, transmitting to your home, and then producing heat with an electric heater is nowhere near that.
What is striking to me, is that roughly 50% of Texas have gas furnaces and most of the rest have electric resistance heating. Nearly everyone has an AC. There was more demand for electricity from those using electric heaters during the cold snap than in the summer from AC's when the state has an average temperature near a hundred. It would probably be worth it to subsidize a heat pump for anyone stuck with resistance heating.
- bluGill 5y agoWhen the temperature is at 100 and you want your house at 70 there is a 30 degree difference. When the temperature is 30 and you want your house at 70 there is a 40 degree difference. Even with heat pumps (which are a good idea) you need more power to handle larger temperature differentials.
- pandaman 5y agoYes, but the comparison is not between the AC and a heat pump, but between an electric resistance heater and a heat pump. Heat pump's COP is greater than 100% as it takes less energy to heat the air inside than the energy of the heated air while a resistance heater is 100% so is less efficient. In other words: a 10K Watt resistance heater will consume 10 KWh in an hour, a 10K Watt heat pump will consume 2-5 KWh over the same time depending on the temperatures and construction.
- pandaman 5y agoI think it's the root of the problem: when you are running your 10K Watt resistance heater full blast it's very likely that every neighbor is doing the same at the same time (both because it's also cold for them and they also have electric heat as the whole neighborhood probably does not have a gas line).