Cara Buckley at The New York Times reports on a thing:
The percentage of households burning home heating oil is the highest in the country. Yet no other state is adopting climate-friendly heat pumps as fast.
(Full-access link)
Heat pumps can heat (and also cool) — and all they need is electricity to do it. (Explanation here.) If the electricity's from carbon-free renewable sources, even better. As reported by Buckley, Mainers are adopting them at a rapid rate, thanks to rebates, new designs that can handle colder temperatures, the cost of heating oil, and despite fossil fuel industry FUD.
It may have been a warmer than usual winter in Maine, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t gotten mighty cold. In mid-January in Farmingdale, a town outside Augusta where Kaylie McLaughlin lives, the temperature dipped to 6 degrees Fahrenheit. “The kind of cold that hurts,” she said.
But this winter, Ms. McLaughlin’s bungalow is toasty, thanks to two heat pumps she installed to replace her oil furnace. “I’m just so comfortable,” said Ms. McLaughlin, a pharmaceutical sales representative. She’s also saving money, no longer paying $400 every four weeks for an oil delivery.
Unlike a space heater, a heat pump extracts heat from outside air, even in subzero temperatures, and then runs it through a compressor, which makes it even hotter, before pumping it indoors. In the summer, it can operate in reverse, pulling heat from inside a building and pumping it outside, cooling the indoor spaces.
In 2023 heat pumps outsold gas furnaces in the United States for the second year running, a climate win. Electrical heat pumps are the cheapest and most energy efficient ways to heat and cool homes, and they do not emit the carbon pollution that is overheating the planet.
There’s no question rebates and low-interest financing help — the biggest barrier to changing technology for greener alternatives is the upfront costs. The savings are real, but take time to accumulate. It’s not just about reducing greenhouse gas emissions either; switching to heat pumps also improves air quality.
An unlikely figure is cited as sparking the enthusiasm — former governor Paul LePage, who by many accounts was a real piece of work even for a conservative Republican, but who got people looking at the the technology when he had it installed at the official residence and his waterfront home ten years ago. The results were good enough to convince people to give it a try.
Some numbers from the article:
- According to Efficiency Maine, replacing propane or oil with a heat pump can save $1,000+ annually.
- If every U.S. home adopted heat pumps, it’d be the equivalent of taking 32 million cars off the roads.
- Maine met a goal of installing 100,000 heat pumps 2 years ahead of schedule, with another 175,000 by 2027.
- In 2022 56% of Maine households burned oil for heat, highest percentage in the nation.
Efficiency Maine reported some people had been using a hybrid approach, using heat pumps in tandem with oil or propane which reduces their benefits. Going forward they’re shifting the state rebate program to households that go fully with heat pumps — although they can keep existing systems as a back up. By reports, the latest heat pump systems can handle really cold weather, but increasingly that’s becoming less of a concern thanks to a warming planet. Up in the Adirondacks for example, they’re noticing the effects.
It looks like heat pumps are taking off — and since they can also work to cool, they may become even more useful as summers get hotter.
UPDATE: h/t to Elmor for pointing to Rewiring America and info on Inflation Reduction Act electrification incentives. The state you live in may have incentive programs as well, like Maine does — look for those too.