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Heat pumps are probably vastly under-installed in the southern part of the US because natural gas has been cheap and plentiful. If you live where natural gas i
by OldSchool 1mo ago
Heat pumps are probably vastly under-installed in the southern part of the US because natural gas has been cheap and plentiful. If you live where natural gas isn't available your fuel option is propane. Propane tracks the price of gasoline, perhaps slightly lower in my experience.
Here in Texas, electricity is only about $0.11/KWH so heat pumps work out like this:
Heat Pump 5.0 COP : $6.50 per MMBtu
Natural Gas : $12 - $15 per MMBtu
Propane at $3.00 / gallon : $32 per MMBtu
The unfortunate characteristic of heat pumps is that they become less efficient the more you need them, i.e. cold weather, but if weather is generally above freezing, heat pumps are close to their spec range that is based on 47F outdoor temperature.
A buried heat exchanger or a water well makes it a weather-proof geothermal system- this seems like the ideal; if you also need air conditioning it will make your cooling more efficient too.
- SergeyKa 1mo agoCalifornia PG&E charges an average of $0.45/kWh. They know EVs are going to increase demand. They killed NEM1 and NEM2 to prevent folks from installing solar, and those with solar have to pay a monthly fee for the privilege of being connected. Heat pump my a$$.
- OldSchool 1mo agoYep, electricity cost kills its viability in California.
- jerlam 1mo agoAlso, old homes don't have the outlets for heat pumps. If you're lucky, it's just a breaker, wire, and outlet. If you're unlucky, it requires an electrical panel upgrade or worse.
- raincom 1mo agoIf they want to drive electric cars, they need a panel upgrade too. Just combine everything in one go.
- dragonwriter 1mo agoThe shift to NEM3 moves from providing an extra unqualified subsidy for solar generation by reimbursing distributed generation at near retail rates to reduce the subsidy and tie it to installing storage, which is what the grid needs far more than additional solar generating capacity. The subsidies succeeded to the point where it no longer made sense to subsidy what was originally subsidized at the rate it was subsidized. That’s not a conspiracy, that’s the goal of a subsidy.
- gwittel 1mo agoModern heat pumps easily keep efficiency below freezing. Ours goes to 22F before there’s any efficiency drop. A different model goes below 0F (we just didn’t need it). But yes, many makers push the crappier old tech models that bail around 50F.
- OldSchool 1mo agoMine are from 2011, R410a and on the rare occasion that it gets to 22F here in Austin, they are painfully ineffective!
- ericd 1mo agoI installed a cold weather variant a couple years ago, it blasted out heat during the -5 degree cold snaps of last winter, maintained its full capacity, and did it surprisingly efficiently. But probably not worth it to go cold climate in Austin :-)
- gruez 1mo ago>Modern heat pumps easily keep efficiency below freezing. Ours goes to 22F before there’s any efficiency drop. A different model goes below 0F (we just didn’t need it). No they don't. Their efficiency is linearly correlated with the ambient temperature. They don't "keep efficiency" nor is there a concept of "efficiency drop". It's just a straight line down. https://docs.energytransitionmodel.com/main/heat-pumps/ https://docs.energytransitionmodel.com/main/heat-pumps/