These States Are Basically Begging You to Get a Heat Pump

Technology@lemmy.world – 143 points – 5 months ago

These States Are Basically Begging You to Get a Heat Pump::You need a heat pump, ASAP. Now nine states are teaming up to accelerate the adoption of this climate superhero.

You are viewing a single comment

View all comments

By 2040, these states—California, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Rhode Island—are aiming for 90 percent of those shipments to be heat pumps.

The coalition’s announcement comes just months after the federal government doubled down on its own commitment to heat pumps, announcing $169 million in funding for the domestic production of the systems.

These are the states, and the article doesn't seem to go into detail on what the actual programs are in each state. However, i only skimmed the article

For anyone like me wondering why NE states like Maine and Massachusetts are pushing them despite their cooler temps (and heat pumps poorer performance in said temps) it's down to the lack of existing Natural Gas infrastructure and that heat pumps are still significantly more efficient and emissions friendly than the region's legacy heating method: oil furnaces.

NGL hating in heat pumps is like hating on EVs because they need charged longer than it takes to fill up a tank of gas. Yes the use case is not exactly 1:1 to the existing system, but it's an improvement for energy use and emissions overall. (Not saying you're hating on heat pumps, just a general observation)

Yep I wasn't hating on heat pumps. I was just curious why those states decided to go with HP rather than two stage gas furnaces, at that latitude band furnaces have a slightly higher efficiency(~3-4%), a much better price point (5-10k difference just for the equipment), and only a little worse emissions (given the local power generation facilities). The lack of existing natural gas infrastructure combined with the required upgrade to the electrical grid to accommodate EVs explains why incentivizing HPs is much more attractive to the state govts in the NE US. There is also the possibility that installing a hydronic system will be better for some of the older boiler system homes and HPs can be used for both hydronic and central air systems.

That said the existing NG system in the midwest means there probably won't be as high a rate of adoption in states like ND, SD, MN, MT, and ID, even before you consider the political landscape.