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One of the big problems with heat pumps in New England is that our electricity costs 1.7x the US average (https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grap
by mdasen 3y ago
One of the big problems with heat pumps in New England is that our electricity costs 1.7x the US average (https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_5_6_a https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...).
If you're in the South, a heat pump makes perfect sense. You're going to want AC anyway and it'll be way more efficient and save a ton of money when you want heat. In most of the country, even if it gets cold your electricity prices are still a ton cheaper. Iowa/Kansas/Missouri/Nebraska get cold, but their electric rates are less than half ours.
Heat pumps do work into freezing New England temperatures, but they're a bit less efficient as it gets to zero fahrenheit. That wouldn't matter if our electric rates were more reasonable, but at our high rates a heat pump would probably cost me an additional $50/mo in the winter (compared to natural gas). That isn't so bad and our electric rates might come down as offshore wind actually starts happening. Plus it might actually be cheaper than gas given that mini-splits would mean I could choose which rooms I want to heat rather than heating the whole place as a single zone. Plus there's the option to get solar power to drive down prices.
But I think the biggest issue in New England (and California) will probably be the high cost of electricity. In most of the country, heat pumps are a huge no-brainer.
- bruce511 3y agoI'm not in NE, so forgive me if this is obvious, but high electricity prices might make solar attractive to you. (Unrelated to the heat-pump question.) I'm in a similar high-priced environment, but we get a fair amount of sun. I'm getting around a 16% return on capital based on electricity usage reduction.
- jauntywundrkind 3y agoNew England just doesn't have a lot of light. The time to return on investment is commendurately longer. And in the winter it's much worse. NREL has solar availability maps. Alas the scale sucks; there's great monthly average views, but all done with the same yearly average scale, so during the summer everything is the same full-red potential (>5.75 kWh/m^2/d) and during the winter everything is (mostly) the same low potential (<4kWh/m^2/d). Still, one can kind of read some pattern from fall/spring & see how a lot of NE looks a lot like, say, Seattle (<<4 average). https://www.nrel.gov/gis/solar-resource-maps.html https://www.nrel.gov/gis/solar-resource-maps.html
- colechristensen 3y agoSolar is so cheap it usually still makes sense financially even in areas without a lot of sun, but less so. Lots of cold places in northern latitudes have short winter days that are overcast more often than not yielding only a little solar energy for a big chunk of the year.
- david422 3y agoI use solar, but using heat pumps and an electric car uses maybe 3x more electricity than my roof can produce.
- newZWhoDis 3y agoHigher efficiency panels + vertical panels would help. Most houses have decent south-facing walls. Ground mount is also an option in many places.
- k12sosse 3y agoLive underground and convert your whole yard to arrays of panels!
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago6.7kW ground mount here in NM, still can't heat my home in winter in this climate (would need 21kW with my Mitsubishi hyper-heat units). We have relatively OK passive solar contributions too.
- newZWhoDis 3y ago6.7kw is tiny. The smallest install I’ve personally seen is 15kw.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y agoPretty standard size for New Mexico. I have numerous neighbors with 6-12kW systems.
- cde-v 3y ago20kW ground mount array in NH produces twice as much as we need for our 4 heat pumps heating 3000 sqft. Went into the last two winters expecting to deplete our summer credits with the power company but we have only used about 1/6th of it. Definitely doable.
- lex-lightning 3y agoAlright, maybe I’m out of touch, but I don’t think electricity is expensive in California. Even during 115 degree heatwaves in a 70-year-old, 3-bedroom, single-family home. Most I paid was $100 in a month with 2 people with gaming computers working from home. Not everyone has that kind of money, but my point is that most people have cell service and other services which add up to more than electricity costs. That’s fine, I make no judgement of what people spend. I’m just setting a comparison. For how much value electricity provides us and how much we use it, I wouldn’t call it expensive, even in California. YMMV by city, but it wasn’t an issue in Sacramento. The real monster is climate change, and so here we have a chicken-and-egg problem combined with wealth disparity. I think we need comprehensive social program packages to address this.
- bagels 3y agoHow? It's $0.52/kwh here, and before that rate increase, we were paying (edit) $278/mo in the summer for similar (70 year old 3 bedroom house), and slightly lower temepratures.
- lex-lightning 3y agoTime-of-day program with SMUD. Ran the AC as cool as it could go before peak, turned it off during peak. At move-in we dumped multiple feet of insulation (more than code requires) into the place. At worst it got to 80 degrees. Might have been a bit over $100, but I’m just as flabbergasted at your $278.
- lex-lightning 3y agoLol. Dogpile away. Imma count my money I saved and sit here in my early retirement.
- what_ever 3y agoI think you are out of touch. You need to compare the PGE rates with SMUD to get the picture. https://www.smud.org/en/Rate-Information/Residential-rates https://www.smud.org/en/Rate-Information/Residential-rates https://www.pge.com/assets/pge/docs/account/rate-plans/residential-electric-rate-plan-pricing.pdf.coredownload.pdf https://www.pge.com/assets/pge/docs/account/rate-plans/resid... (PDF File) PGE's off-peak rates are 3x SMUD's off-peak rates. PGE's peak rates are 1.5x to almost 2x of SMUD's peak rates.
- bagels 3y agoRight, the heat pump will reduce energy use to maybe 1/3 of a gas furnace, but natural gas is something like 6x cheaper for the same amount of energy, so it is an expensive folly. If California is serious about this, they need to reign in the utilities to reduce prices and or stop the attacks on solar installation.
- tootie 3y ago> 6x cheaper It will have a lower price but not a lower cost. At this point we can't wait for price efficiency we have to pay whatever dollar amount to avoid the catastrophic human costs of burning fossil fuels.
- mullingitover 3y agoSouthern Cali resident here: I got a mini split system installed a couple years back, and last year's eye-popping surprise gas bill inspired me to start running it backward for heat instead of using the furnace. Pricewise, it's actually a wash. My electric bill went up by about $100 a month, whereas during the winter my gas bill was running about $100 a month to run the furnace (aside from that one random $600 bill one month last year that inspired this change). I've been using the mini split all winter and it's been great.
- CaliforniaKarl 3y agoThank you for posting that. Although the cost of electricity is important, when deciding on using a heat pump for heat, the big question is the cost of electricity for heating, relative to the cost of the fuel you are already using (natural gas, propane, oil, etc.). It's definitely annoying to calculate! Since a heat pump's efficiency can vary with the outside temperature, it takes a bit of work to estimate your potential added electricity cost.
- lazide 3y agoAlso cost of capital for installing the heat pump, if a new installation.
- oooyay 3y agoYeah, I made this mistake this year. I pumped $20k into a heat pump system, coming from what used to be Natural Gas. I wasn't given any kind of relief because I live in Oregon where most relief is income based. Then at the beginning of the year PGE announced a 20% rate hike. My house is covered in trees, so solar isn't really an option. I really regretted my decision once I got a $300-$400 bill for heating three months in a row. In the summer I now have AC where I didn't at all before, but it hardly makes up for the cost of a heat pump during winter. I probably won't be doing any of these kinds programs again.
- jdeibele 3y agoI'm moving from Portland to McMinnville in a couple of months. Price of kwh goes from $.1945/kwh to about $.0720. I've noticed that McMinnville Water & Light doesn't help pay for EV connections, etc. compared to Portland General Electric but at almost 1/3rd the cost, they probably don't need to. MW&L is community-owned, PGE is traded on the NYSE. They both buy a ton of hydro from the Bonneville Power Administration. https://findenergy.com/providers/mcminnville-water-and-light/#:~:text=Price%20Per%20kWh%20Average%20Bill%20%240.075%20%2FkWh%20%240.063%20%2FkWh https://findenergy.com/providers/mcminnville-water-and-light... gives an average. Actual per kwh rate is cheaper but there's a $16.10 customer charge to have an account. https://www.mc-power.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/pdf/rates/Residential-2023.pdf https://www.mc-power.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/pdf/ra... https://portlandgeneral.com/about/info/pricing-plans https://portlandgeneral.com/about/info/pricing-plans
- softbuilder 3y agoIIRC there's also a legacy superfund cleanup charge that PGE customers have the privilege of paying.
- oooyay 3y agoYeah, this is the move, imo. I think once my mortgage goes positive I'm going to look at where to go next. This is not worth it.
- newZWhoDis 3y ago
- theteapot 3y ago> Heat pumps do work into freezing New England temperatures, but they're a bit less efficient as it gets to zero fahrenheit. What's the temperature in the ground? Did you look at a ground source heat pump (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_source_heat_pump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_source_heat_pump)
- bluGill 3y agoI have - the cost of installing such a system makes it questionable if it will ever be worth it. I've seen a few places that have it and they work great year round and are cheap to operate. However the payoff from the install if 50+ years despite the cheap costs. Everyone hopes the install lasts that long, but a lot can go wrong in 50 years. (the equipment probably won't last 50 years, but that will be cheap enough to replaces, it is the pipes in the ground that better last 50 years)
- htek 3y agoA large chunk of cost is drilling the holes for the loop. New, compact drilling rigs that use 10' drill sections are a good deal cheaper to run labor-wise and require less space to maneuver. Costs will come down as more companies switch to these rigs.
- martythemaniak 3y agoWhat are some examples of these new drilling rigs?
- aurizon 3y agoThe big cost for ground source HP, is the large area you have to dig with 4 foot deep trenches. I have seen one where the installer digs 2 trenches about 16 feet apart and 30 feet long down to 6 feet. They then use a soil drill to make about 50-60 holes between the trenches and insert 17 foot plastic pipes(1 inch diameter) They then connect the pipes on each side to a common pipe(3"), all well sealed ABS pipes below the frost line. This allow for a large volume of coupled and warm(55 degrees) that the heat pump extracts/deposits heat as needed for heating/cooling the home. This drilling is a lot cheaper than a dozen or more 3 foot trenchs for the water loops.
- xutopia 3y agoI'm in Canada and we have heat pumps with secondary heat sources for when it gets really cold. Mine is with gas.
- jefftk 3y agoThese sorts of programs generally require you to disable your existing heating system, and don't allow you to run it only in warmer weather. Ex, Massachusetts: https://www.masssave.com/-/media/Files/PDFs/Save/Residential/rebate-forms/2024-Rebate-Matrix_Announcement.pdf https://www.masssave.com/-/media/Files/PDFs/Save/Residential...
- sokoloff 3y agoNote that's for the whole home $10K rebate only. For the per-ton rebate, you can leave the existing fossil fueled appliance installed and connected. (It's also new for 2024; the 2023 rules allowed you to leave the appliance in to be used for supplemental heat during extreme cold or during an equipment outage. https://www.masssave.com/-/media/Files/PDFs/Save/Residential/rebate-forms/2023-Rebate-Matrix_Announcement.pdf https://www.masssave.com/-/media/Files/PDFs/Save/Residential... )
- fnbr 3y agoYup, me too. And with my Nest thermostat, I can manually configure the crossover point. I did so at the economic balance point (where the heat pump is cheaper than my gas furnace).
- Scoundreller 3y agoIs there any capability in having a "smart" economic balance point? IE: Accounts for time of day/market pricing of kwh? I guess there needs to be occasional reprogramming of gas prices?
- fnbr 3y agoNo, unfortunately. But my gas/electricity is fixed price, so it doesn’t matter. I’m sure this will be coming as heat pumps get more common. It’s a pretty easy calculation to do.
- jefftk 3y agoThat's right. In MA I'm paying a marginal $0.316/kWh for electric and $1.999/therm for natural gas, heating a two-family 10-person building. Switching to a heat pump would be an additional $1k/y in heating costs, and that's ignoring the cost of the system (which is substantial even after the $20k MA subsidy this article discusses). More: https://www.jefftk.com/p/running-the-numbers-on-a-heat-pump https://www.jefftk.com/p/running-the-numbers-on-a-heat-pump
- 1minusp 3y agoLarge drilling costs from where I am in the south due to ground being mostly (lime?)stone: makes it cost-infeasbile. Other areas might have it easier though.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y agoIt can vary over the micro-scale. Where I live in NM, we could go down very deep and never hit rock, because we're sitting on the soft sandy soil(ish) alluvial deposits at the bottom of large (20 mile diameter) basin. But neighbors who live less than 1 mile away are sitting on metamorphic rock just inches below the surface.
- thelastgallon 3y agoIf electricity is costly, it makes sense to put solar panels. Consolidate all energy (transportation - EV, HVAC - electric, induction stove, heat pump water heater), put solar panels, and wipe off all energy bills. Every household can save $400 - $800 on utility bills.
- lotsoweiners 3y agoI’m not in New England but I’m imagining that the cold winters there are accompanied but plenty of cloudy skies as well. In that case solar might not be a great option.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y agoThere's an opposite of that too: solar-powered A/C in the south in summer time: lots of heat, lots of humidity ... and lots of clouds.
- taude 3y agoAlso, doesn't states like MA import a not-insignificant amount of natural gas from elsewhere to convert to electricity? Would like to hear about what's more efficient: direct natural gas heating vs natural gas -> electricity -> heat pump...
- twoodfin 3y agoYes, and for nominally climate-driven reasons MA has constrained the construction of pipelines and other facilities that would allow the cheaper delivery of natural gas for cheaper electricity… thus discouraging consumers like me from moving to electrical utilities that would net reduce emissions.
- MajimasEyepatch 3y agoIt's probably more accurate to say the concerns are about the environment rather than climate per se. There's more to protecting than the environment than limiting carbon emissions. (I'm not saying they're right to make that tradeoff in this particular case.)
- Scoundreller 3y agoAnd you have Maine getting in the way of hydroelectricity from Quebec making its way over: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/hydro-quebec-1.6816752 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/hydro-quebec-1.68167... https://www.hydroquebec.com/projects/appalaches-maine-interconnection/ https://www.hydroquebec.com/projects/appalaches-maine-interc...
- deepsun 3y agoWhy wouldn't heat pump work on gas? It's already done -- RV fridges work on propane directly, without converting it to electricity. A fridge is a heat pump.
- RandallBrown 3y agoApparently they do, but they're not common for houses yet. https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/absorption-heat-pumps https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/absorption-heat-pumps
- bitbckt 3y agoI didn’t pay anywhere near that price per kWh here in Maine. It was $0.16 in November 2023, and is $0.10 as of January 1. [ETA] I just did the math to include delivery as well as generation cost if that’s what the table is meant to reflect, and I’m still below $0.20/kWh in November. Shrug. I was paying nearly $0.50 in California before moving here…
- lr4444lr 3y agoThing is, HVAC people rob you blind when you need emergency repairs to gas or oil furnaces in the middle of the season. If you have a heat pump as a backup, that can tide you over until you can get off season repair pricing again. That's well worth it to me, even at the higher electricity rates.
- beerandt 3y agoWe tried one in the south and it was a pretty horrible experience, because of our high humidity in the cold. The outside unit constantly froze up, which even ideally requires a defrost cycle (wasting energy pumping heat back outside), or worse, uses heating element outside just to make operable. While those cycles run, heat couldn't. Except that even emergency heat (heating element inside) would disable the outside defrost, supposedly to meet EPA set energy budget, not technology limits. That's not the kind of BS you want to put up with on frozen nights, whether from a technology or policy standpoint.
- newZWhoDis 3y agoYou likely had an old, low SEER heat pump. The fact that it had emergency heat at all says so.
- bilsbie 3y agoIf heat pumps get inefficient at low temps could we not program them to run full blast during the warmest parts of the day and preheat the home. Thus needing to run less at night.
- smeej 3y agoMaybe, but unless your house is very well insulated, this would probably require making the home so warm as to be very uncomfortable. I live in New England in a small house (<700 sqft), and it easily drops 5 degrees an hour when it's 65 inside and 15 outside.
- delfinom 3y agoPretty much the majority of north east homes are not that well insulated. Then you get to bigger buildings where by health and building code you must always have a certain % of fresh air intake otherwise you'll end up choking on your own carbon dioxide lol.
- evandev 3y agoWith an air to water heat pump, you typically add a buffer tank that among other things helps keep preheated water warm. It is basically a hot water tank so doesn't last through the night However for other hydronic applications such as solar water heaters there is typically a thermal storage tank which can help store heat like a battery. Keep in mind a few things. One is some heat pumps are now operating down around -22*F. Second is geothermal is a water to water heat pump that isn't affected as much by the limitations of air temperature (but has other limitations). Third is radiant heat flooring with tubes in concrete acts as a thermal storage tank. Finally heat pumps for heating work best at low temperature hydronic water and can also be used for other applications such as DHW (domestic hot water) which needs to be at slightly higher temperatures than a buffer tank has.
- jhallenworld 3y agoIt's a big problem for electric cars too... Here are the current prices per kwh for me in MA: Electricity = $.26 / kwh Propane (LPG) = .134 / kwh Heating oil = .095 / kwh Gasoline = .091 / kwh Natural Gas = .082 / kwh
- Reason077 3y agoYou still need to account for efficiency of the various fuels when working out which one is cheapest. An electric vehicle is on the order of 5X more efficient than a gasoline vehicle per kWh (that is, an EV that will go 5 km on 1 kWh of electricity would be lucky to get 1 km per kWh if it were running on gasoline). So in this case, it's still cheaper to operate an EV than a gasoline vehicle in MA, even if electricity costs more per kWh.
- jhallenworld 3y agoIt's more like 2.5 to 3x for good ICE cars (they are around 30% efficient- I think it's been going up over the years, in the past I assumed 15%): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_efficiency#:~:text=in%20more%20drag.-,Gasoline%20(petrol)%20engines,used%20to%20power%20a%20car https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_efficiency#:~:text=in%2.... But anyway, the big issue is for electric cars fast chargers, more like $.48 / kwh.. For carbon emissions, the WTW (Well to wheel) efficiency is more important- they are about the same unfortunately (we need more solar): https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2020SJRUE..24..669A/abstract#:~:text=The%20total%20WTW%20efficiency%20of,from%2012%20%25%20to%2022%20%25 https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2020SJRUE..24..669A/abstra....
- Reason077 3y agoThe fleet average real-world fuel efficiency for light petrol vehicles in my country, based on government data, is 9.2 litres/100km. (I'm guessing it's significantly worse than this in the USA where the average vehicle is larger and there is less focus on fuel efficiency) At 8.9 kWh per litre, that means gasoline takes 81.88 kWh to get you 100 km. A typical EV, on the other hand, will use about 18 kWh to go 100 km (at 5.5 km per kWh). That makes the EV around 4.5 times more efficient. As for carbon emissions, burning 1 litre of gasoline creates 2.3kg of CO2. At 9.2 litres per 100 km, that works out around 210g per km. Grid carbon intensity varies greatly by country and region. In France at only 42g/kWh, an EV's energy would emit less than 10g per km, even after accounting for grid and charging inefficiencies! But even in coal-dependent Germany at 354g CO2/kWh (2023), an EV would be well under 100g per km, still better than an average petrol car. (Also, remember that auto industry emissions/efficiency numbers are based on testing protocols which produce far lower figures than the real world. And do not account for upstream emissions in the fossil fuel supply chain - there is an awful lot of upstream carbon emitted to produce 1 litre of gasoline!)
- ijhuygft776 3y agoThe heat pump that I had also had an heating element.. so it could possibly automatically switch from one method of heating to the other....
- lsllc 3y agoThe big issue in New England is that heat pumps (ASHP or GSHP) are only really possible for new builds. Most existing homes will likely be forced hot water and there isn't any heat pump out there that will produce water hot enough (e.g. 185F), so your only option is to retrofit ducting (or go mini-split but then you need one in every room). Even homes with ducted AC, it's likely they are sized for cooling only, not heat (not enough CFMs).
- evandev 3y agoWhile I agree that a heat pump can't work with hot water baseboard, there is an alternative. The alternative is removing the baseboard and with a calculated heat load, replacing with panel radiators which run with much lower temperatures. The retrofit wouldn't be too difficult (compared to ducting) as it would involve running 1/2 inch PEX to each room.
- kenmacd 3y ago> here isn't any heat pump out there that will produce water hot enough (e.g. 185F) For 185: https://www.arcticheatpumps.com/high-temperature-heat-pump.html https://www.arcticheatpumps.com/high-temperature-heat-pump.h... Or much more common, if you can deal with 176F, the SANCO2 ones will generate that down to -20F. The hydronic temperatures you're talking about are only required if you have to stick with the existing radiators. They make radiators with little fans that work at lower temperatures, or larger panel radiators. There's lots of options for lower temperature forced hot water.
- lsllc 3y agoThat's interesting, I hadn't yet seen any heat pumps capable of producing water that hot. As far as replacing baseboard goes, if you're going to go to that expense, then probably it's just best to switch to forced air since you also get AC. But you'd be looking at probably close to $40K to entirely replace a forced hot water system with a heat pump and forced air (and/or replacing baseboards) as well as a DHW system of some sort -- so quite cost prohibitive.
- gmerc 3y agoEssentially: We will only accept climate change action if it’s not degrading our standard of living which is predicated on consuming unsustainably. The end.
- horns4lyfe 3y agoWell good luck trying to get people to lower their standard of living in pursuit of an abstract solution to a problem that can only be represented with predictive modeling.
- gmerc 3y agoNah, failure to act on climate change will also reduce their standard of living unless they are rich enough to buy their way to a bunker in NZ.
- sokoloff 3y agoThat's a large part of the issue: it probably won't. It will reduce the standard of living of future generations, but for people in the prime earning and consuming phase of their life (say 40-65 years old), climate change isn't going to have anywhere near as detectable, let alone large, effect on their life as spending $20K on heat pumps, giving up a car and taking more public transit, taking fewer tropical vacations, or even setting the heating thermostat to 69°F rather than 71°F.
- bongodongobob 3y agoYeah, people should freeze or die of heat stroke. Tell me more about your frictionless spherical world.
- malfist 3y agoMaybe I missed the point, but I don't see anything in GPs post that indicates they want people to freeze or die of heat stroke. Or suggest anything that would lead to folks freezing or dying from heat stroke.
- coryrc 3y agoWarning: two- and three-head units are 30% less efficient than single-head units, and units with more than three heads are 50% as efficient (based on real-life measurements, in MN IIRC). So at least pick one single-head hyper-efficient unit, like a Gree Sapphire, to heat the largest and most-used room. If you don't mind the extra condensers, one outdoor unit per head is the best
- inferiorhuman 3y agoBut I think the biggest issue in New England (and California) will probably be the high cost of electricity. In most of the country, heat pumps are a huge no-brainer. PG&E charges about $2.44/therm (100,000 BTU) here. So yea that's well cheaper than electricity – I think it works out to about half to a third the cost of resistive electric heat. So (for now) a heat pump that's about twice as efficient as a gas furnace would work out to about the same cost. Unless you do something like a mini split where you're heating a smaller area. The big thing to keep in mind is that California natural gas prices spiked for a bit last year. All of a sudden gas heat was very, very expensive.
- whatindaheck 3y agoI grew up in western PA with a heat pump. We’d easily hit sub-20F. Maybe not as cold as New England but it worked into some serious cold weather.
- rr808 3y ago> less efficient as it gets to zero fahrenheit Here in NJ there aren't any days like that any more. Its like heat pumps wouldn't be great in the old days but in today's new climate they're great.