Re:'Greener, cheaper, much warmer' – heat pump owners laud t...
by acdha on Monday January 08, 2024 @08:01AM
(#38911327)
> Also, those periods of hot weather are getting hotter and longer in duration.
This is why I’d characterize it as potentially earlier use of AC: we’re already seeing many people who didn’t previously need it buying ACs so the greater efficiency of most heat pumps is going to be welcome as that trend accelerates. I live in the mid-Atlantic region and our heat pump system lowered our annual electricity consumption even though we got rid of a gas heater because the savings over our old AC in the summer outweighed our increased winter demand (obviously the numbers in winter are worst for more extreme climates but recent years have really brought significant efficiency improvements vs. older AC designs).
The other thing to remember is that summer is the easiest problem: the times when you need it also tend to be when solar is producing well and that’s cheap and easy to deploy. Winter is much harder because its demand has less sunlight and often coincides with cloudy weather.
This is why I’d characterize it as potentially earlier use of AC: we’re already seeing many people who didn’t previously need it buying ACs so the greater efficiency of most heat pumps is going to be welcome as that trend accelerates. I live in the mid-Atlantic region and our heat pump system lowered our annual electricity consumption even though we got rid of a gas heater because the savings over our old AC in the summer outweighed our increased winter demand (obviously the numbers in winter are worst for more extreme climates but recent years have really brought significant efficiency improvements vs. older AC designs).
The other thing to remember is that summer is the easiest problem: the times when you need it also tend to be when solar is producing well and that’s cheap and easy to deploy. Winter is much harder because its demand has less sunlight and often coincides with cloudy weather.