Advocates want new building codes to include a heat-pump provision that could benefit consumers and the climate. But regulators have cooled on the proposal.
Where I live, electricity costs around $0.28/kWh, but generation is typically >85% renewable (predominantly hydroelectric).
My heat pump (4.7 COP when heating) would cost $0.06 to run for every 1kWh of heat it produces, with only 0.03kWh of that electricity coming from fossil fuel sources.
Gas - which I don’t have at my house - would have pricing in the neighbourhood of $0.15/kWh. Even at 95% efficiency getting 1kWh of heat from gas would cost $0.16, using 1.05kWh of gas.
35x the fossil fuel usage and 2.5x the price, for the same quantity of heat. Some luck of living in a moderate climate where an air-source heat pump almost never loses efficiency, to be fair.
It is a good question.
Where I live, electricity costs around $0.28/kWh, but generation is typically >85% renewable (predominantly hydroelectric).
My heat pump (4.7 COP when heating) would cost $0.06 to run for every 1kWh of heat it produces, with only 0.03kWh of that electricity coming from fossil fuel sources.
Gas - which I don’t have at my house - would have pricing in the neighbourhood of $0.15/kWh. Even at 95% efficiency getting 1kWh of heat from gas would cost $0.16, using 1.05kWh of gas.
35x the fossil fuel usage and 2.5x the price, for the same quantity of heat. Some luck of living in a moderate climate where an air-source heat pump almost never loses efficiency, to be fair.