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A comment on The Third Phase of Clean Energy Will Be Most Disruptive Yet. Parent comment

Re:The Third Phase of Clean Energy Will Be Most Disruptive Yet by jabl on Wednesday April 03, 2019 @02:28PM (#19565906)
Over here heat pumps are quite popular (both ground source and air). Problem is people size them so they can get through most of the winter, but for cold spells they're not enough and you need supplemental resistive heating.

Sure, cost optimal for the individual consumer, but for the entire grid?

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Re:The Third Phase of Clean Energy Will Be Most Disruptive Yet by Scoundreller on Wednesday April 03, 2019 @02:42PM (#19566015)
Depends where you are: in a lot of places, it only gets cold when a weather system moves in, which means lots of wind power available.

The backup power could be propane, but electric-resistive is still cheaper.

The other issue is that air source heat pumps should really create blocks of ice from municipal water and then dump them in the yard, instead of trying to squeeze heat out of cold air.

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Re:The Third Phase of Clean Energy Will Be Most Disruptive Yet by jabl on Thursday April 04, 2019 @02:43AM (#19569836)
Where I live, cold spells unfortunately tend to coincide with very low winds.

And yeah, adding a supplemental resistive heater to a heat pump is certainly a lot cheaper than adding a separate combustion based backup heating source.

For some reason, we don't really use propane over here, except for running grills in the summer, or for boat stoves etc. Fossil fuel heating for houses tends to be fuel oil, though that is on the way out.

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