3 ms·

I would be very interested in stats on the gradient of home energy use by average outdoor temperature. I imagine that "Places where it gets too cold for heat pu

I would be very interested in stats on the gradient of home energy use by average outdoor temperature. I imagine that "Places where it gets too cold for heat pumps" represent a large percentage of heat usage; That is, there's (made up numbers) 10% of the population living in those areas, but they represent 90% of heating energy use. If every home that could use your heat pumps year-round installed one and used it exclusively, what's the upper bound on energy saved? If every home across the country installed one and used it primarily (whenever it was warm enough outside), what would be the energy savings? Not to disparage, I'm certain it's still significant, but I'm curious to quantify it.

mikeyouse 4y ago
This is quantified by "heating degree days" and I don't think your intuition is correct here. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/United_States_Heating_Degree_Day_map%2C_1961-1990.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/United_S... The difference between "Can use a heat pump" and "can't" is only maybe 10º or 15º. The coldest places are only ~20% colder than much more populated areas with millions of more residents. Metro Boston has around 5 million people -- that's more than 3x as many as who live in North Dakota and South Dakota combined. Their climate is cold and they get around 6,000 HDD every winter compared to the frigid upper plains who average something like 8,000 or 8,500. So 1.3x more heat requirement per person but spread out across 1/3 as many people. Not to mention all of e.g. Chicago, Denver, Des Moines, Cleveland, Detroit, New York, the rest of New England, etc. etc. where heat pumps do just fine.