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heat pumps

Apr 15
Love130

Electrified Heating – Thinking it Through

By Energy Rant No Comments
Daylight Savings Rant It's looking bleak for my annual predictions from January. I must come from behind to realize a 50% hit rate. Last week, Trump implored Congress to make daylight saving permanent. Zerohedge provides a comprehensive assessment of issues from economic to safety. I sum it up this way – people like to complain. They don't like to think. If daylight savings is locked in, it will be dark until 9:00 AM in the winter. If standard time is locked in, the sun will rise at 4:00 AM in the summer. Which would you like? I remember when coming…
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Mar 04
Love123

The Next Energy Frontier in Texas

By Energy Rant No Comments
Pouring Into Texas Money talks, and if states were holding speech contests, Texas would be the frontrunner. While states like California boycott conferences in Florida and Texas over DEI and reproductive policies, those things, unfortunately, don’t matter to some of the most progressive private-sector companies. Last week, Apple announced plans for a new 250,000-square-foot facility to manufacture servers to serve the artificial intelligence market. Per The Wall Street Journal, Austin has the largest concentration of employees outside of Cupertino. I would guess within a decade that Apple will move its HQ to Austin. The Journal also reports Meta moved its…
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Feb 25
Love121

Electrification Gangsters

By Energy Rant No Comments
Last week, I explored the macro impacts of electrifying our heating systems and using ground source (aka geothermal) heat pump (GHP) systems rather than cold-climate air-source heat pumps (CCHPs). In a nutshell, deploying GHPs in the colder regions of the country would reduce necessary electric demand growth by 77 percentage points compared to CCHPs. Ground source heat pumps would also avoid the construction of 43,500 miles of transmission lines, enough to crisscross the United States 16 times. At $2 million per mile, that's $87 billion. That's a rounding error in Washington, but it's a lot of money for the rest…
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Feb 18
Love120

Boring DERs, Saving Billions with Geothermal Heat Pumps

By Energy Rant No Comments
Over the many years I have taught electrification basics for the Wisconsin Public Utilities Institute’s (WPUI) Energy Utilities Basics course, I dive deeply into heat pumps and their impact on the grid. I explain the messy chart in Figure 1 like a palm reader, except I have engineering behind my assertions rather than mystical conjectures. Cold-Climate, Air-Source Heat Pump Performance As outdoor temperatures fall below zero Fahrenheit, as they do from the panhandle of Idaho and Wyoming across the country to Maine and Massachusetts, cold-climate air source heat pump (CCHP) performance and capacity dive while heating loads increase. The chart…
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Dec 03
Love0

When Things Don’t Work Together: The Impacts of Poor Equipment Interoperability

By The Big Why of Evaluation
After about a year since it was installed, my heat pump is finally up and running correctly! Why did it take so long? Controls issues. More specifically, because it is a dual-fuel system (an air source heat pump with a backup oil furnace) all of the components did not communicate properly with each other. The heat pump, furnace, and thermostat are all different brands and their integration was far from seamless. The system finally worked correctly switching from the primary heat (the heat pump) to the auxiliary heat (the furnace) at the specified temperature when my contractor figured out that they needed…
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Aug 01
Love0

Counting Heat Pumps

By The Big Why of Evaluation
Heat pumps present one of the best tools for decarbonization. They are very efficient compared to other heating technologies, are similar in price to air conditioning systems, and rely on an electric grid that is getting cleaner over time. Because of this, many states and regions, as well as the federal government, aggressively promote heat pumps and have set ambitious goals for their installation. Given the importance of these goals, accurate tracking of the number of heat pumps installed and their impacts is crucial. Therefore, it is very surprising to see the lack of consistency in reporting heat pump installations. For example,…
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Feb 13
Love67

Decarbonizing District Steam and Chilled Water Plants

By Energy Rant No Comments
Let's begin with Oxford Dictionary's definition of decarbonization. Noun: reduction or elimination of carbon dioxide emissions from a process such as manufacturing or the production of energy. Last week, I introduced central or district plants that serve multiple buildings with steam, chilled water, and, in many cases, electricity. District plants serve colleges, healthcare, manufacturing campuses, and, in some cases, entire sections of cities. This week, I describe issues and strategies to save energy and decarbonize these plants. As I learned early in my energy efficiency career, it is essential to understand the design logic behind the system before recommending modifications. Steam moves…
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Sep 12
Love0

Electrify Most Things!

By The Big Why of Evaluation
Electrification can provide so many benefits, relating to efficiency, safety and comfort, and climate, that there is growing refrain to “electrify everything,” especially for buildings and transportation. I fully believe that electrification presents the best way to address climate change. However, retrofitting existing buildings is complicated. After recently running into some real-world roadblocks installing a heat pump in my home, a better battle cry might be: “Electrify Most Things!” Background Starting with my shift to an induction cooktop, I have been planning to shift my home in Massachusetts to all-electric as opportunities presented themselves. My house is a perfect candidate: it has cheap electricity provided…
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Apr 05
Love0

Heat Pumps and Supplemental Heating

By The Big Why of Evaluation
In case you haven’t heard, heat pumps are a thing now. As their efficiency and performance in cold climates continue to improve, heat pumps have become the backbone of energy efficiency and decarbonization efforts and are a focal point of the Inflation Reduction Act. The penetration of heat pumps has steadily increased to a majority of new equipment sales. Given heat pumps' increased share of installations, we need to understand their impact, especially when paired with supplemental heating equipment. But what is supplemental heating and how does it differ from primary, backup, and emergency heating? It wasn’t clear to me, so I decided…
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Aug 02
Love2

Better than Best Program Practices

By Energy Rant No Comments
When Val Jenson talks, I listen. When he writes, I read. His recent article in Energy Central triggered an avalanche of ideas for a program, portfolio, and industry overhaul needed to get us there, which is the next level of savings equal to the last 25 years of lighting replacements and retrofits. Those days are gone, and unfortunately, the line of thinking that got us here (light bulbs) won’t get us there. Downstream Days are Numbered Let’s start with my favorite need for an overhaul, which is my greatest peeve – rebates and cash incentives to customers, known as a…
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