An AC unit is a heat pump running in reverse. So here in the PNW, we typically only heat during the winter. Most people here have never had AC in the summer ti

An AC unit is a heat pump running in reverse. So here in the PNW, we typically only heat during the winter. Most people here have never had AC in the summer time. So typically, power usage in the summer here is really low. Most of us just turn off the furnace for a number of months. We know it's fall when we finally turn on the heat. Now that more and more people are getting heat pumps, I suspect that the energy saved during the winter is going to be offset quite a bit by people running their AC in the summer. I don't know how much that will be, but I know I'll be running my new AC unit this summer. Hopefully I won't need it more than a couple of weeks. But it's been hotter the last few summers, and if the trend continues, we'll be running the AC a lot more.