28 ms·

Electric heat to cost 77 percent more than natural gas, federal agency says

42 points by alex_young 3y ago

dgllghr 3y ago
Does electric heat mean heat pumps or radiant? Because we have saved a bunch of money switching our heat from natural gas to heat pump
- V__ 3y ago
  > One issue in the debate is that "electrification" doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone. For one thing, the definition of “using electricity to heat their homes” used by the federal energy office appears to mean the use of electrical resistance baseboard heating versus natural gas heated-air furnaces. > But, in the Energize Denver initiative, city officials are talking about heat pumps versus gas furnaces, which means a different set of cost calculations.
  - graywh 3y ago
    the report is from the US Energy Information Administration
- throwawaaarrgh 3y ago
  The article addresses that
- shosti 3y ago
  It's buried in the article, but the 77% number seems to be based on resistance heating instead of heat pumps: > the annual energy bill to operate a standard gas furnace/AC combination is about $633 a year. With a heat pump, she said, it would likely be $609 to $718 annually, depending on the heat pump technology chosen and its configuration.
  - abeppu 3y ago
    But, to be fair, the first sentence of the article is "The average American household that uses electricity to heat a home this winter will pay hundreds of dollars more than those who use natural gas." How many households have heat pumps, vs how many have old electric baseboards? I think it's entirely appropriate for a government report to be looking at the actual costs to households today. If most American's can't handle a $500 surprise expense, how many can afford to upgrade to a heat pump? And 35% of Americans rent -- how many old neglected apartments have electric heat which the landlord has no incentive to upgrade?
    - dgllghr 3y ago
      It really sucks because even with the government rebates, it’s still a big capital expense that takes years to be paid back. The good news is that since we have started investing in and incentivizing heat pump technology now, it will be the cheap option as heating systems fail over the next few decades. I think the government report should include this reality but also highlight heat pump adoption as it is currently incentivized and adoption is growing. It’s weird to me that they didn’t highlight the heat pump aspect as much
      - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
        I just heard on NPR yesterday that 13% of all house sales last year were new construction. As much as I am loath to have stringent regulations dictating building technology, just imagine the pace of adoption if every piece of new residential construction used electric air-source heat pumps.
      - landemva 3y ago
        > The good news is that since we have started investing in and incentivizing heat pump technology Yes, good tax news for those who own their house and can afford discretionary purchases. Also good news for those who peddle increased govt debt. Described differently, heat pump and ElectrifyTodayCorp lobbyists had Congress write tax incentives for their businesses which are funded by taxes on working class that are renters or can't afford to replace their existing functional furnace.
- scythe 3y ago
  It depends on the ambient temperature. Heat pumps can obtain a coefficient of performance of about 2.5 in very cold conditions (-20 C) or as much as 5 in warmer conditions (+5 C). In theory, you could get even better performance by using a heat pump during the day to melt calcium chloride hexahydrate (mp 29 C = 84 F), and then freezing it at night to recover the stored energy. But now your system cost is even higher, since you need a ton of calcium chloride.
anovikov 3y ago
That pertains to the direct heating with electricity? Of course it's ought to be expensive because of naturally low efficiency of electricity production from same natural gas with power plant being a heat engine that can't overcome natural limit put in place by Carnot cycle. Try heat pumps.
- datadrivenangel 3y ago
  Heat pumps are usually ~5x the efficiency of direct resistance heating, so they should be cheaper than gas! (this depends on climate though, as lower outside temperatures reduce the efficiency of the heat pump and increase the stress on the device)
  - travoc 3y ago
    That's true unless it gets really cold, where heat pumps become almost completely useless. In many parts of the US, heat pumps have to be augmented by the installation of emergency resistance heating elements. In the conditions where those system have to operate, they are less effective than gas and extremely expensive to run.
    - pydry 3y ago
      Modern heat pumps can work down to 0F https://homeinspectioninsider.com/heat-pump-work-subzero-temperatures/ https://homeinspectioninsider.com/heat-pump-work-subzero-tem... Denver pretty much never gets that cold. Most of the continental US doesnt ever get that cold.
  - slackfan 3y ago
    Heatpumps work as heat only in climates where temps never hit 0c for a prolonged period of time. You go below 0c for a month, enjoy your baseboard-levels of efficiency. Some anecdata: Neighbor is on heatpumps and has a comparable house (in terms of size) to mine. My house is significantly older than his, worse in terms of insulation, I have a number of old leaky windows, all of his are brand new, etc. I primarily heat with wood, with a oil furnace backup that runs a forced hot air system. His bill for four straight months last winter for electricity was 800 dollars a month (3200). My total for oil+wood was 2400 total and I still had firewood left over. He also got to deal with the fun of heatpumps just not working in the dead of winter because it was too cold outside.
1-6 3y ago
If only there were such a thing as a gas-based heat pump. It would be a hybrid of electrical motors but the cold element would be heated with gas.
- afandian 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_refrigerator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_refrigerator
yterdy 3y ago
Does this include externalities?
- djbusby 3y ago
  Of course not. "Too hard"
dbreunig 3y ago
Funny, they don't link to the report. Wonder why.
- dbreunig 3y ago
  There it is, the 9th and 10th paragraph: > One issue in the debate is that "electrification" doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone. For one thing, the definition of “using electricity to heat their homes” used by the federal energy office appears to mean the use of electrical resistance baseboard heating versus natural gas heated-air furnaces. > But, in the Energize Denver initiative, city officials are talking about heat pumps versus gas furnaces, which means a different set of cost calculations. This writer knows which headline to write to get clicks. Now it'll circulate on everywhere people think heat pumps and electrification are scams to make people dependent on big companies and the government. Great work, Scott Weiser.
- jeffbee 3y ago
  https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/perspectives/2023/10-winterfuels/article.php https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/perspectives/2023/1...
edkennedy 3y ago
This article was Sponsored by WhatTheFrack Drilling Company. Fracking/Natural Gas follows the same playbook as big Tobacco, they hire experts and sponsor all kinds of studies that align with what they want people to believe. The main cost here seems to be the energy monopolies, not the method of heating.
- hijinks 3y ago
  ya electric baseboard are expensive to tun heatpumps are really cheap to run
  - qwytw 3y ago
    > heatpumps are really cheap to run But still more expensive than gas in most areas? Unless you get a ground pump etc. which has a much higher upfront cost.
    - Aachen 3y ago
      As a nonamerican, I'm not sure how to read "most places" here. Do you mean most places in the USA or actually most places in the world?
    - hijinks 3y ago
      i would say if you have a gas HVAC there is little point in replacing unless you also have a lot of solar on the roof and sending a lot back to the grid. If I was building a new home today and in an area that might get down to 10-15F as a low i'd 100% do heat pumps. The nice part about heat pumps for me is that they might get to temp and run at 10% all day long and keep the heat right at 71. Where a gas will turn on at 69 and heat till 73 and continue that cold/hot cycle being cheaper also depends on current utility rates also
    - throw0101b 3y ago
      > But still more expensive than gas in most areas? Using numbers from the non-profit Efficiency Maine, with natural/methane gas at $2.561 per CCF (therm), and electricity at $0.1595 per kWh, standard efficiency heat pumps have better $/MMBtu down to about 0F/-18C, and high performance HPs down to about -10F/-25C, per this presentation: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcwIz6heDss&t=39m30s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcwIz6heDss&t=39m30s You'll have to do the math with your local prices. The same channel also has a presentation on dual fuel / hybrid setups: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_9P3Dn7is0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_9P3Dn7is0 Generally: if you're buying new HVAC+D equipment for your home, you might as well buy a heat pump instead of a 'simple' AC unit, and there are heat pumps that can work down below freezing quite well (which is probably good enough for most of the US population, except in the coldest locations).
karaterobot 3y ago
Most people don't really have a choice to switch to gas from electricity: it either runs to your home or it doesn't. Even having stored natural gas requires a yard, so good luck if you live in that high density housing everyone wants more of. On the other hand, people with natural gas could switch to electricity if they wanted to, and if they had a large pile of money sitting around and felt compelled to spend all of it and get a little bit of it back on their heating bill. What I'm saying is that this is an argument that people who write building codes should be having, it has almost nothing to do with homeowners.
- zdragnar 3y ago
  Stored gas is usually propane, not natural gas. Nobody would choose propane over natural gas given the option, as it is much more expensive. I'm living in an area where propane is actually pretty cheap compared to other parts of the US, and it would still be cheaper to switch to natural gas if the utilities ever ran lines out to me.
  - theossuary 3y ago
    Now that'd be an interesting comparison; Propane vs electricity + solar + batteries. I'd guess we're near the point electric could win there.
    - zdragnar 3y ago
      Depends on where you live, really. I'm near the great lakes, but I don't get lake effect snow. Even so, it's not unlikely for the sky to be cloudy and overcast for weeks around the coldest time of the year. When we do get a lot of snow, it isn't uncommon for the larger commercial solar installs to just go dormant for awhile. Rooftop is a bit better in that regard, but even so it isn't a question of solar+batteries+electric OR propane. You'd need propane just to keep up overnight to avoid an overwhelming electricity bill. Places that are farther south and which already rely on resistive heat for emergencies would be much better off going that route over propane.
- jes5199 3y ago
agilob 3y ago
Anyone who has electric heaters in the UK knows that well. When at some point gas prices went up by 350% and electricity by 200% I compared by heating bill with someone who had has heating. I was paying ~£400 per month between November-February, they were paying ~£40. We had electric shower, they had a gas boiler. I should not this wasn't completely fair, as my bills includes also 2 laptops and a TV.
- konschubert 3y ago
  You’re not supposed to heat with electric heaters like it’s 1930. You’re supposed to use heat pumps, aka AC units.
  - agilob 3y ago
    Tell that to the 1500 new built flats they developed since 1995 in my area. All come with 9k-14k Watts storage heaters.
    - konschubert 3y ago
      It’s true that updating these systems will be a challenge.
      - repeekad 3y ago
        One might even say, expensive…
        konschubert 3y ago
        If they were happy heating electric the last 30 years, maybe they can keep at it.
- jahnu 3y ago
  Did you know that a heat pump can generate 4 times as much heat per unit energy than an electric heater?
hospitalJail 3y ago
While that is pretty huge, its not that bad IMO. Its not an order of magnitude higher. If I had the option to eat lab grown meat for 77 percent more, I'd take that in the blink of an eye. With my income, I can afford this. I even imagine most families could afford this. They might not like having to cut from their luxury budgets(drugs/gambling/live events/prepared food), but its not like this would be impossible to pay for.
- encoderer 3y ago
  Something to consider - You are nonplussed by paying ~2x as much for heating and you prefer engineered meat to the real thing. Absolutely nothing wrong with these preferences but this is not where most of your fellow humans are at.
- jes5199 3y ago
  also, renewables are getting cheaper but gas isn’t. 77% today may be 0% in a couple years
ashayh 3y ago
Search "who owns Denver Gazette": "Clarity Media, which is the parent company of the Denver Gazette and is owned by GOP billionaire Phil Anschutz, purchased the assets and rights." Now read his wikipedia page.
- marcusverus 3y ago
  Ad Hominem is a poor substitute for an actual argument.
pydry 3y ago
They buried the lede - about half way down it points out that heat pumps cost about the same even in Denver's climate. Using electric furnaces like it's 1995 is yes, inefficient.
- vel0city 3y ago
  From the article: > It’s 2.5 times more expensive for a heat pump for a 2,000-square-foot home versus gas forced air. So if the running costs are about the same but the upfront costs are 2.5x more, which is cheaper? I've done the math a few times over the years for a heat pump in my area. I live in a place where electricity is cheap and our winters aren't very cold, practically an ideal situation for a heat pump. But natural gas around me is also pretty cheap meaning the running costs are practically the same. However, all the quotes I've seen for getting a heat pump installed with the capacity for my house leads to an upfront cost of several thousands dollars more. I don't know why seemingly the same AC unit is way more expensive as a heat pump in my area, but they are. And because a lot of AC people in my area refuse to work on them, the few that do charge a premium despite being practically the same thing as a traditional AC unit.
notatoad 3y ago
does this also account for the next time a petrostate dictator decides to stage an invasion of one of it's neighbours and cause the price of gas to rise 77%?
wildekek 3y ago
Everyone that has > 5KWp solar and a heatpump is laughing right now.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- qwebfdzsh 3y ago
  How efficient is solar in winter? Also it seems that with no subsidies etc. overall heat pumps are considerably more expensive than gas
  - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
    Ill-formed question. You must put solar in context: latitude, insolation. Here in northern New Mexico, at 6000', my 7kW PV array(s) work extremely efficiently in winter, arguably slightly more efficiently than in summer because the panels prefer it cold. They collect somewhat less energy than in summer due to shorter days, but that's not a question of efficiency.
    - qwebfdzsh 3y ago
      Yeah makes sense, I was thinking mainly about Europe and somehow forgot that the climate is considerably colder in the US but there is still much more sunlight during the winter.
  - wildekek 3y ago
    There is a lot of 'it depends' on the efficiency of solar in winter. Solar is actually more efficient in winter, but depending on your latitude you get less hours of sun, and a lower angle of incidence. Heat pump up-front cost are higher indeed. But depending on your local grid situation, they can drastically decrease the amount of electricity you shove and pull from the grid, by adapting to your solar performance. You can use them to convert your house into a thermal battery. Managing the time when you consume and produce energy will become the most important cost factor in the next few years in countries that advance towards renewable energy sources.
gary_0 3y ago
The article doesn't make any mention of the massive government subsidies and other economic incentives that have kept fossil fuel prices artificially low for decades. I'm sure the green energy industry is lobbying itself up a little government pork of its own, but nobody compares to the corruption engine of the fossil fuel sector.
- yttribium 3y ago
  Give an example of an American fossil fuel subsidy.
  - gary_0 3y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_subsidies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_subsidies https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-5-trillion-in-fossil-fuel-subsidies/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-5-trillion-in-fossi... In 2019 governments spent $51 billion on natural gas consumption subsidies, which is why it's cheaper in a lot of places to heat your home with gas rather than electric.
    - yttribium 3y ago
      That's worldwide, not US. No one seems to know what these "subsidies" are in the US context other than vague complaints about tax treatment of profits. The numbers are never netted out of, eg, fuel tax either.
  - jahnu 3y ago
    https://e360.yale.edu/digest/fossil-fuels-received-5-9-trillion-in-subsidies-in-2020-report-finds https://e360.yale.edu/digest/fossil-fuels-received-5-9-trill...
    - yttribium 3y ago
      Those aren't American numbers. Many countries for instance subsidize fuel, the US taxes it.
abeppu 3y ago
The last paragraph isn't about cost, and I think is quite important: > “I think the United States is heading for a very catastrophic situation in terms of reliability,” said Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner Mark Christie during a May 4 Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on Capitol Hill. “The core of the problem is actually very simple. We are retiring dispatchable generating resources at a pace and in an amount that is far too fast and far too great and is threatening our ability to keep the lights on.” In California, we're on track to move to a new electricity pricing scheme, one major goal of which is to make the marginal cost of electricity cheaper (by moving a lot of costs to a fixed-rate fee to be connected to the grid), with the idea that lower marginal costs will encourage everyone to use more electricity, convert appliances to electric, switch to EVs etc. But we _already_ get warnings to not use our AC too much during peak hours in heat waves. It's not obvious that the grid will handle everyone trying to electrify everything. The pace at which we add capacity and demand need to be at least somewhat in sync. Combine this with intentional power shutoffs to reduce wildfire risks, and just accidental outages (tree branches etc), and I think it's fair to ask whether "basic" services will be less reliable.
- gaptoothclan 3y ago
  I use AC because I am hot, electricity for AC generates CO2 as a bi product, everyone gets hotter?
- AJ007 3y ago
  The financials of electric utilities don't make sense to me. Most of them (like PG&E) have been massively cash flow negative over the past 10-20 years. They issues shares and debt to, literally and figuratively, keep the lights on. For PG&E, they emerged from bankruptcy with even more debt and outstanding shares than they entered in with. Margins exist on paper but it isn't clear what that really means. From an infrastructure standpoint the US is clearly we are a very long way (many trillions of dollars) from a grid that will support a fleet of passenger EVs.
  - downrightmike 3y ago
    Yes, public goods should not be run by private interests. They are a service and a cost, both get cut by private interests trying to make a buck and shirking their responsibility. Power is no different than roads, almost all are public goods and supported like that. If you want your own road, you can. Shit like Enron and PG&E fires shouldn't have been possible, but private interests buy off governments.
thrill 3y ago
Then take the gas and make electricity in highly efficient turbines.
mattpallissard 3y ago
I was looking to get rid of our old oil boiler. Crunching the numbers on heat pumps and their efficiency at certain temperatures, I was surprised to find that a propane boiler actually came out ahead. And propane isn't cheap where I live. I decided to put in a modern wood stove instead.
TheLoafOfBread 3y ago
It is like in Eastern Europe in the 1990s. Electricity was abundant and cheap (commies have built massive steel industry to make a lot of weapons for upcoming war with the West, which has never come) so people started installing electric heaters, well guess what? Prices for electric energy rocketed up as demand for energy went up. So people have migrated to coal heating, which was much cheaper than electricity.
gaptoothclan 3y ago
Don't want to post an inflammatory statement, certainly do not want to offend anyone, just trying to understand, but I am reading through these comments and is there a sub set of these comments that seem to be leaning against climate change. Coming from Europe I find this strange, there is little support for the conspiracy theories against climate change?
ZeroGravitas 3y ago
> the definition of “using electricity to heat their homes” used by the federal energy office appears to mean the use of electrical resistance baseboard heating versus natural gas heated-air furnaces. > But, in the Energize Denver initiative, city officials are talking about heat pumps versus gas furnaces, which means a different set of cost calculations. I'd argue that with a sensible cost of carbon and a decent rollout of cheap reneweables even direct electric heating would win. But no one is suggesting that is the way to go, since we have much better options, so methane salesmen taking a victory lap feels like an attempt at misdirection. Why are they afraid of doing the real sums? Did they do them and discover they didn't help sell methane?

42 points by alex_young 3y ago

Does electric heat mean heat pumps or radiant? Because we have saved a bunch of money switching our heat from natural gas to heat pump

V__ 3y ago
> One issue in the debate is that "electrification" doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone. For one thing, the definition of “using electricity to heat their homes” used by the federal energy office appears to mean the use of electrical resistance baseboard heating versus natural gas heated-air furnaces. > But, in the Energize Denver initiative, city officials are talking about heat pumps versus gas furnaces, which means a different set of cost calculations.
- graywh 3y ago
  the report is from the US Energy Information Administration
throwawaaarrgh 3y ago
The article addresses that
shosti 3y ago
It's buried in the article, but the 77% number seems to be based on resistance heating instead of heat pumps: > the annual energy bill to operate a standard gas furnace/AC combination is about $633 a year. With a heat pump, she said, it would likely be $609 to $718 annually, depending on the heat pump technology chosen and its configuration.
- abeppu 3y ago
  But, to be fair, the first sentence of the article is "The average American household that uses electricity to heat a home this winter will pay hundreds of dollars more than those who use natural gas." How many households have heat pumps, vs how many have old electric baseboards? I think it's entirely appropriate for a government report to be looking at the actual costs to households today. If most American's can't handle a $500 surprise expense, how many can afford to upgrade to a heat pump? And 35% of Americans rent -- how many old neglected apartments have electric heat which the landlord has no incentive to upgrade?
  - dgllghr 3y ago
    It really sucks because even with the government rebates, it’s still a big capital expense that takes years to be paid back. The good news is that since we have started investing in and incentivizing heat pump technology now, it will be the cheap option as heating systems fail over the next few decades. I think the government report should include this reality but also highlight heat pump adoption as it is currently incentivized and adoption is growing. It’s weird to me that they didn’t highlight the heat pump aspect as much
    - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
      I just heard on NPR yesterday that 13% of all house sales last year were new construction. As much as I am loath to have stringent regulations dictating building technology, just imagine the pace of adoption if every piece of new residential construction used electric air-source heat pumps.
    - landemva 3y ago
      > The good news is that since we have started investing in and incentivizing heat pump technology Yes, good tax news for those who own their house and can afford discretionary purchases. Also good news for those who peddle increased govt debt. Described differently, heat pump and ElectrifyTodayCorp lobbyists had Congress write tax incentives for their businesses which are funded by taxes on working class that are renters or can't afford to replace their existing functional furnace.
scythe 3y ago
It depends on the ambient temperature. Heat pumps can obtain a coefficient of performance of about 2.5 in very cold conditions (-20 C) or as much as 5 in warmer conditions (+5 C). In theory, you could get even better performance by using a heat pump during the day to melt calcium chloride hexahydrate (mp 29 C = 84 F), and then freezing it at night to recover the stored energy. But now your system cost is even higher, since you need a ton of calcium chloride.

anovikov 3y ago

That pertains to the direct heating with electricity? Of course it's ought to be expensive because of naturally low efficiency of electricity production from same natural gas with power plant being a heat engine that can't overcome natural limit put in place by Carnot cycle. Try heat pumps.

datadrivenangel 3y ago
Heat pumps are usually ~5x the efficiency of direct resistance heating, so they should be cheaper than gas! (this depends on climate though, as lower outside temperatures reduce the efficiency of the heat pump and increase the stress on the device)
- travoc 3y ago
  That's true unless it gets really cold, where heat pumps become almost completely useless. In many parts of the US, heat pumps have to be augmented by the installation of emergency resistance heating elements. In the conditions where those system have to operate, they are less effective than gas and extremely expensive to run.
  - pydry 3y ago
    Modern heat pumps can work down to 0F https://homeinspectioninsider.com/heat-pump-work-subzero-temperatures/ https://homeinspectioninsider.com/heat-pump-work-subzero-tem... Denver pretty much never gets that cold. Most of the continental US doesnt ever get that cold.
- slackfan 3y ago
  Heatpumps work as heat only in climates where temps never hit 0c for a prolonged period of time. You go below 0c for a month, enjoy your baseboard-levels of efficiency. Some anecdata: Neighbor is on heatpumps and has a comparable house (in terms of size) to mine. My house is significantly older than his, worse in terms of insulation, I have a number of old leaky windows, all of his are brand new, etc. I primarily heat with wood, with a oil furnace backup that runs a forced hot air system. His bill for four straight months last winter for electricity was 800 dollars a month (3200). My total for oil+wood was 2400 total and I still had firewood left over. He also got to deal with the fun of heatpumps just not working in the dead of winter because it was too cold outside.

1-6 3y ago

If only there were such a thing as a gas-based heat pump. It would be a hybrid of electrical motors but the cold element would be heated with gas.

afandian 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_refrigerator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_refrigerator

yterdy 3y ago

Does this include externalities?

djbusby 3y ago
Of course not. "Too hard"

dbreunig 3y ago

Funny, they don't link to the report. Wonder why.

dbreunig 3y ago
There it is, the 9th and 10th paragraph: > One issue in the debate is that "electrification" doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone. For one thing, the definition of “using electricity to heat their homes” used by the federal energy office appears to mean the use of electrical resistance baseboard heating versus natural gas heated-air furnaces. > But, in the Energize Denver initiative, city officials are talking about heat pumps versus gas furnaces, which means a different set of cost calculations. This writer knows which headline to write to get clicks. Now it'll circulate on everywhere people think heat pumps and electrification are scams to make people dependent on big companies and the government. Great work, Scott Weiser.
jeffbee 3y ago
https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/perspectives/2023/10-winterfuels/article.php https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/perspectives/2023/1...

edkennedy 3y ago

This article was Sponsored by WhatTheFrack Drilling Company. Fracking/Natural Gas follows the same playbook as big Tobacco, they hire experts and sponsor all kinds of studies that align with what they want people to believe. The main cost here seems to be the energy monopolies, not the method of heating.

hijinks 3y ago
ya electric baseboard are expensive to tun heatpumps are really cheap to run
- qwytw 3y ago
  > heatpumps are really cheap to run But still more expensive than gas in most areas? Unless you get a ground pump etc. which has a much higher upfront cost.
  - Aachen 3y ago
    As a nonamerican, I'm not sure how to read "most places" here. Do you mean most places in the USA or actually most places in the world?
  - hijinks 3y ago
    i would say if you have a gas HVAC there is little point in replacing unless you also have a lot of solar on the roof and sending a lot back to the grid. If I was building a new home today and in an area that might get down to 10-15F as a low i'd 100% do heat pumps. The nice part about heat pumps for me is that they might get to temp and run at 10% all day long and keep the heat right at 71. Where a gas will turn on at 69 and heat till 73 and continue that cold/hot cycle being cheaper also depends on current utility rates also
  - throw0101b 3y ago
    > But still more expensive than gas in most areas? Using numbers from the non-profit Efficiency Maine, with natural/methane gas at $2.561 per CCF (therm), and electricity at $0.1595 per kWh, standard efficiency heat pumps have better $/MMBtu down to about 0F/-18C, and high performance HPs down to about -10F/-25C, per this presentation: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcwIz6heDss&t=39m30s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcwIz6heDss&t=39m30s You'll have to do the math with your local prices. The same channel also has a presentation on dual fuel / hybrid setups: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_9P3Dn7is0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_9P3Dn7is0 Generally: if you're buying new HVAC+D equipment for your home, you might as well buy a heat pump instead of a 'simple' AC unit, and there are heat pumps that can work down below freezing quite well (which is probably good enough for most of the US population, except in the coldest locations).

karaterobot 3y ago

Most people don't really have a choice to switch to gas from electricity: it either runs to your home or it doesn't. Even having stored natural gas requires a yard, so good luck if you live in that high density housing everyone wants more of. On the other hand, people with natural gas could switch to electricity if they wanted to, and if they had a large pile of money sitting around and felt compelled to spend all of it and get a little bit of it back on their heating bill. What I'm saying is that this is an argument that people who write building codes should be having, it has almost nothing to do with homeowners.

zdragnar 3y ago
Stored gas is usually propane, not natural gas. Nobody would choose propane over natural gas given the option, as it is much more expensive. I'm living in an area where propane is actually pretty cheap compared to other parts of the US, and it would still be cheaper to switch to natural gas if the utilities ever ran lines out to me.
- theossuary 3y ago
  Now that'd be an interesting comparison; Propane vs electricity + solar + batteries. I'd guess we're near the point electric could win there.
  - zdragnar 3y ago
    Depends on where you live, really. I'm near the great lakes, but I don't get lake effect snow. Even so, it's not unlikely for the sky to be cloudy and overcast for weeks around the coldest time of the year. When we do get a lot of snow, it isn't uncommon for the larger commercial solar installs to just go dormant for awhile. Rooftop is a bit better in that regard, but even so it isn't a question of solar+batteries+electric OR propane. You'd need propane just to keep up overnight to avoid an overwhelming electricity bill. Places that are farther south and which already rely on resistive heat for emergencies would be much better off going that route over propane.
jes5199 3y ago

agilob 3y ago

Anyone who has electric heaters in the UK knows that well. When at some point gas prices went up by 350% and electricity by 200% I compared by heating bill with someone who had has heating. I was paying ~£400 per month between November-February, they were paying ~£40. We had electric shower, they had a gas boiler. I should not this wasn't completely fair, as my bills includes also 2 laptops and a TV.

konschubert 3y ago
You’re not supposed to heat with electric heaters like it’s 1930. You’re supposed to use heat pumps, aka AC units.
- agilob 3y ago
  Tell that to the 1500 new built flats they developed since 1995 in my area. All come with 9k-14k Watts storage heaters.
  - konschubert 3y ago
    It’s true that updating these systems will be a challenge.
    - repeekad 3y ago
      One might even say, expensive…
      - konschubert 3y ago
        If they were happy heating electric the last 30 years, maybe they can keep at it.
jahnu 3y ago
Did you know that a heat pump can generate 4 times as much heat per unit energy than an electric heater?

hospitalJail 3y ago

While that is pretty huge, its not that bad IMO. Its not an order of magnitude higher. If I had the option to eat lab grown meat for 77 percent more, I'd take that in the blink of an eye. With my income, I can afford this. I even imagine most families could afford this. They might not like having to cut from their luxury budgets(drugs/gambling/live events/prepared food), but its not like this would be impossible to pay for.

encoderer 3y ago
Something to consider - You are nonplussed by paying ~2x as much for heating and you prefer engineered meat to the real thing. Absolutely nothing wrong with these preferences but this is not where most of your fellow humans are at.
jes5199 3y ago
also, renewables are getting cheaper but gas isn’t. 77% today may be 0% in a couple years

ashayh 3y ago

Search "who owns Denver Gazette": "Clarity Media, which is the parent company of the Denver Gazette and is owned by GOP billionaire Phil Anschutz, purchased the assets and rights." Now read his wikipedia page.

marcusverus 3y ago
Ad Hominem is a poor substitute for an actual argument.

pydry 3y ago

They buried the lede - about half way down it points out that heat pumps cost about the same even in Denver's climate. Using electric furnaces like it's 1995 is yes, inefficient.

vel0city 3y ago
From the article: > It’s 2.5 times more expensive for a heat pump for a 2,000-square-foot home versus gas forced air. So if the running costs are about the same but the upfront costs are 2.5x more, which is cheaper? I've done the math a few times over the years for a heat pump in my area. I live in a place where electricity is cheap and our winters aren't very cold, practically an ideal situation for a heat pump. But natural gas around me is also pretty cheap meaning the running costs are practically the same. However, all the quotes I've seen for getting a heat pump installed with the capacity for my house leads to an upfront cost of several thousands dollars more. I don't know why seemingly the same AC unit is way more expensive as a heat pump in my area, but they are. And because a lot of AC people in my area refuse to work on them, the few that do charge a premium despite being practically the same thing as a traditional AC unit.

notatoad 3y ago

does this also account for the next time a petrostate dictator decides to stage an invasion of one of it's neighbours and cause the price of gas to rise 77%?

wildekek 3y ago

Everyone that has > 5KWp solar and a heatpump is laughing right now.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
qwebfdzsh 3y ago
How efficient is solar in winter? Also it seems that with no subsidies etc. overall heat pumps are considerably more expensive than gas
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  Ill-formed question. You must put solar in context: latitude, insolation. Here in northern New Mexico, at 6000', my 7kW PV array(s) work extremely efficiently in winter, arguably slightly more efficiently than in summer because the panels prefer it cold. They collect somewhat less energy than in summer due to shorter days, but that's not a question of efficiency.
  - qwebfdzsh 3y ago
    Yeah makes sense, I was thinking mainly about Europe and somehow forgot that the climate is considerably colder in the US but there is still much more sunlight during the winter.
- wildekek 3y ago
  There is a lot of 'it depends' on the efficiency of solar in winter. Solar is actually more efficient in winter, but depending on your latitude you get less hours of sun, and a lower angle of incidence. Heat pump up-front cost are higher indeed. But depending on your local grid situation, they can drastically decrease the amount of electricity you shove and pull from the grid, by adapting to your solar performance. You can use them to convert your house into a thermal battery. Managing the time when you consume and produce energy will become the most important cost factor in the next few years in countries that advance towards renewable energy sources.

gary_0 3y ago

The article doesn't make any mention of the massive government subsidies and other economic incentives that have kept fossil fuel prices artificially low for decades. I'm sure the green energy industry is lobbying itself up a little government pork of its own, but nobody compares to the corruption engine of the fossil fuel sector.

yttribium 3y ago
Give an example of an American fossil fuel subsidy.
- gary_0 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_subsidies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_subsidies https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-5-trillion-in-fossil-fuel-subsidies/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-5-trillion-in-fossi... In 2019 governments spent $51 billion on natural gas consumption subsidies, which is why it's cheaper in a lot of places to heat your home with gas rather than electric.
  - yttribium 3y ago
    That's worldwide, not US. No one seems to know what these "subsidies" are in the US context other than vague complaints about tax treatment of profits. The numbers are never netted out of, eg, fuel tax either.
- jahnu 3y ago
  https://e360.yale.edu/digest/fossil-fuels-received-5-9-trillion-in-subsidies-in-2020-report-finds https://e360.yale.edu/digest/fossil-fuels-received-5-9-trill...
  - yttribium 3y ago
    Those aren't American numbers. Many countries for instance subsidize fuel, the US taxes it.

abeppu 3y ago

The last paragraph isn't about cost, and I think is quite important: > “I think the United States is heading for a very catastrophic situation in terms of reliability,” said Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner Mark Christie during a May 4 Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on Capitol Hill. “The core of the problem is actually very simple. We are retiring dispatchable generating resources at a pace and in an amount that is far too fast and far too great and is threatening our ability to keep the lights on.” In California, we're on track to move to a new electricity pricing scheme, one major goal of which is to make the marginal cost of electricity cheaper (by moving a lot of costs to a fixed-rate fee to be connected to the grid), with the idea that lower marginal costs will encourage everyone to use more electricity, convert appliances to electric, switch to EVs etc. But we _already_ get warnings to not use our AC too much during peak hours in heat waves. It's not obvious that the grid will handle everyone trying to electrify everything. The pace at which we add capacity and demand need to be at least somewhat in sync. Combine this with intentional power shutoffs to reduce wildfire risks, and just accidental outages (tree branches etc), and I think it's fair to ask whether "basic" services will be less reliable.

gaptoothclan 3y ago
I use AC because I am hot, electricity for AC generates CO2 as a bi product, everyone gets hotter?
AJ007 3y ago
The financials of electric utilities don't make sense to me. Most of them (like PG&E) have been massively cash flow negative over the past 10-20 years. They issues shares and debt to, literally and figuratively, keep the lights on. For PG&E, they emerged from bankruptcy with even more debt and outstanding shares than they entered in with. Margins exist on paper but it isn't clear what that really means. From an infrastructure standpoint the US is clearly we are a very long way (many trillions of dollars) from a grid that will support a fleet of passenger EVs.
- downrightmike 3y ago
  Yes, public goods should not be run by private interests. They are a service and a cost, both get cut by private interests trying to make a buck and shirking their responsibility. Power is no different than roads, almost all are public goods and supported like that. If you want your own road, you can. Shit like Enron and PG&E fires shouldn't have been possible, but private interests buy off governments.

thrill 3y ago

Then take the gas and make electricity in highly efficient turbines.

mattpallissard 3y ago

I was looking to get rid of our old oil boiler. Crunching the numbers on heat pumps and their efficiency at certain temperatures, I was surprised to find that a propane boiler actually came out ahead. And propane isn't cheap where I live. I decided to put in a modern wood stove instead.

TheLoafOfBread 3y ago

It is like in Eastern Europe in the 1990s. Electricity was abundant and cheap (commies have built massive steel industry to make a lot of weapons for upcoming war with the West, which has never come) so people started installing electric heaters, well guess what? Prices for electric energy rocketed up as demand for energy went up. So people have migrated to coal heating, which was much cheaper than electricity.

gaptoothclan 3y ago

Don't want to post an inflammatory statement, certainly do not want to offend anyone, just trying to understand, but I am reading through these comments and is there a sub set of these comments that seem to be leaning against climate change. Coming from Europe I find this strange, there is little support for the conspiracy theories against climate change?

ZeroGravitas 3y ago

> the definition of “using electricity to heat their homes” used by the federal energy office appears to mean the use of electrical resistance baseboard heating versus natural gas heated-air furnaces. > But, in the Energize Denver initiative, city officials are talking about heat pumps versus gas furnaces, which means a different set of cost calculations. I'd argue that with a sensible cost of carbon and a decent rollout of cheap reneweables even direct electric heating would win. But no one is suggesting that is the way to go, since we have much better options, so methane salesmen taking a victory lap feels like an attempt at misdirection. Why are they afraid of doing the real sums? Did they do them and discover they didn't help sell methane?