I had a look at local gas vs. electricity prices. Electric clocks in at $0.33/kWh, gas at an eqv. of $0.08/kWh. My heating system maxes out at 120F supply come wintertime, so I’m likely getting close to the 96% AFUE advertised on my boiler, if not more.
Few ASHP manage a COP of 4 in my climate. So unless natural gas prices rise a lot faster than electrical rates, the payback is nonexistent unless I spend $$$ for a GSHP.
That’s the fundamental problem locally with trying to get people to convert. I doubt it’s better elsewhere since so much of our electrical grid currently relies on gas even for baseline power generation.
Never mind that 2/3 of the bill for natural gas and electricity is T&D and thus will never go away. Regulators also allowed local natural gas and electrical T&D assets to be owned by the same utility company as if that isn’t an inherent conflict of interest.
In remote areas where there is no natural gas network, the conversion from heating oil makes a lot more sense, esp. when folk are used to supplementing with wood heat.
I see a lot of CCHPs in upstate ME (Millinocket and further north) and attribute that to a generous rebate program, very high heating oil prices, a lack of natural gas infrastructure, and abundant wood to supplement heat with.
The market for oil-fired appliances is slowly circling the drain at the moment. Maybe 20k oil fired furnaces were sold last year, a 5x decline over the last 20 years.
Many so-called CCHPs have tiny heat exchangers, cannot be expected to perform well in temperature extremes, whether heat mode or cooling, no matter how fancy the variable-speed compressor control algorithm, etc.
Hence the supplemental heating options observed in ME.
I have no plans to get rid of my natural gas boiler even though natural gas rates were artificially jacked up in my area by adding a number of decarbonization charges to the T&D side of the bill.
I have what you would call a hybrid heating system, where a ccASHP works in tandem with a natural gas furnace. On very cold days the furnace does the bulk of the heating whereas on warmer days the ccASHP does the heavy lifting. The total heating degree days in my area was 4845, which was about the same as in the author’s area. My cost for heating was about $800 during those 4 months, which is almost exactly what the author paid. As the author said, heating solely with a ccASHP could be considerably more expensive than heating solely with an efficient natural gas system. That’s not the case when comparing a hybrid system to a natural gas heating system.
As electric rates rise faster than gas prices, any form of heat that relies on electric resistance will during very cold weather, which of course is common in all northern states, increasingly be more costly.
It's the same old story - if it takes mandates and subsidies and tax credits to push a business, there's something wrong with that business.
I had a look at local gas vs. electricity prices. Electric clocks in at $0.33/kWh, gas at an eqv. of $0.08/kWh. My heating system maxes out at 120F supply come wintertime, so I’m likely getting close to the 96% AFUE advertised on my boiler, if not more.
Few ASHP manage a COP of 4 in my climate. So unless natural gas prices rise a lot faster than electrical rates, the payback is nonexistent unless I spend $$$ for a GSHP.
That’s the fundamental problem locally with trying to get people to convert. I doubt it’s better elsewhere since so much of our electrical grid currently relies on gas even for baseline power generation.
Never mind that 2/3 of the bill for natural gas and electricity is T&D and thus will never go away. Regulators also allowed local natural gas and electrical T&D assets to be owned by the same utility company as if that isn’t an inherent conflict of interest.
In remote areas where there is no natural gas network, the conversion from heating oil makes a lot more sense, esp. when folk are used to supplementing with wood heat.
I see a lot of CCHPs in upstate ME (Millinocket and further north) and attribute that to a generous rebate program, very high heating oil prices, a lack of natural gas infrastructure, and abundant wood to supplement heat with.
The market for oil-fired appliances is slowly circling the drain at the moment. Maybe 20k oil fired furnaces were sold last year, a 5x decline over the last 20 years.
Many so-called CCHPs have tiny heat exchangers, cannot be expected to perform well in temperature extremes, whether heat mode or cooling, no matter how fancy the variable-speed compressor control algorithm, etc.
Hence the supplemental heating options observed in ME.
I have no plans to get rid of my natural gas boiler even though natural gas rates were artificially jacked up in my area by adding a number of decarbonization charges to the T&D side of the bill.
I have what you would call a hybrid heating system, where a ccASHP works in tandem with a natural gas furnace. On very cold days the furnace does the bulk of the heating whereas on warmer days the ccASHP does the heavy lifting. The total heating degree days in my area was 4845, which was about the same as in the author’s area. My cost for heating was about $800 during those 4 months, which is almost exactly what the author paid. As the author said, heating solely with a ccASHP could be considerably more expensive than heating solely with an efficient natural gas system. That’s not the case when comparing a hybrid system to a natural gas heating system.
That is a pragmatic approach. Unfortunately NYS demands zero emissions so this will not be an option someday in NY
That’s too bad. Another example of “the perfect is the enemy of the good.”
As electric rates rise faster than gas prices, any form of heat that relies on electric resistance will during very cold weather, which of course is common in all northern states, increasingly be more costly.
It's the same old story - if it takes mandates and subsidies and tax credits to push a business, there's something wrong with that business.
Force all in New York to install them. Then maybe they’ll awaken and realize they’ve been had and will reverse course. I did say maybe.