This week I went to an event where they had this amazing machine that demonstrated the workings of a heat pump: taking a unit of heat from the right side and transferring it to the left side, the beers are cooled and the (vegan) sausages are warmed. I think it's brilliant and should be used to overcome any doubts or resistance to heat pumps, especially in Germany. Maybe they should be mandatory in every beer hall?
We just received our "jaarafrekening". This is the final yearly invoice sent by our energy company. They are about to pay us €252, and we will continue to pay them €5 per month next year, just like last year. i.e. overall our energy company is paying us about €200 for last year's electricity. Everything in our home is powered by electricity. No gas connection. No wood burner.
Nothing that we've done to achieve a negative energy bill was especially expensive. In particular, our installation of a air-air heat pump and a couple of extra solar panels cost far less than several of our neighbours paid for the wood burning stoves they've installed, which stink up the neighbourhood all through winter.
We also don't have to buy wood to burn.
People concerned about the cost of heating with gas buy woodburners at a higher rate than heat pumps largely because they have no idea about the relative costs. If they knew, perhaps we could have clean air.
I'll write a comprehensive blog post at the end of March about energy consumption, costs & emissions due to the heatpump vs. gas this winter. I can tell you already that we using a lot less total energy now.
To summarise: In the worst case, our CO2 emissions are reduced by 95% vs. burning gas, we have no heating bill at all any more, and our home was warmer than before.
Heating installers in the Netherlands 🇳🇱 have already installed 110,000 heat pumps this year and expect to install 170k heat pumps for the full year. Of these, 120k are expected to be installed in existing buildings - for the first time more than in new homes.
The figures were released today to accompany the inauguration of a new heat pump manufacturing plant, which will produce 50k units by the end of the year (140k in a full year).
You work in IT and want a job where you can really save tons of CO2? Vamo, a heatpump startup, is looking for people to join their IT-team to help them connect heatpumps to the cloud!
If like me you've been wondering about how a #heatpump actually does its job, this helpful explainer (with animation) is really helpful.... but in the end perhaps the best point is that, its just like a fridge, but in reverse (which really helped me see what ti was about).
If this #technology is the future then we need to have at least this level of basic understanding.
Has anyone in #Massachusetts switched their gas furnace over to electric #HeatPump? How much do your gas and electric bills change?
Can't find much information about this, at least because of the strange situation with gas being much cheaper than electricity in MA. Also, anybody have experience with the #Ecoer brand of heat pump?
An interesting example of how #unions (of allowed) can play a vital role in economic transition(s):
In #Germany IG Metal' new leader (Christianne Banner) previously arranged a deal between Continental Tyres (seeking to lay-off #workers) & a #heatpump firm that was expanding for the tyre company to pick up the re-training costs of workers who transferred to the heat pump manufacturer.
A three sided deal from which all benefitted - a great example of how to manage the #greentransition
Setting off with parcels today I stopped for a photo outside our home.
Our roof is the only one on the street on which you can still see some of the snow which fell yesterday. This is because we insulated everything in our home.
We also have the only house in the street from which the gas supply has been removed. Our heating now comes from an air-air heatpump.
Due to installing a lot of solar panels we have no energy bill.
There's no car parked on our driveway because we don't use motor vehicles, which also saves a great deal of money.
We have a low income and had to do everything on a budget. We had to save up for expensive jobs and spread everything out over years to get to the point that we're at now. But we live with a relatively small impact because of these measures. It's all described on my blog:
Over a month ago I promised a blog on my Heat Pump and Solar Panels and Battery Storage.
I've finally hit "publish" (well, actually "rsync" but whatever)
It may, or may not, answer any/all questions you have about this. If not, maybe ask me here and I'll try to reply and forget to include that in a future update.
#HeatPump question. Does anyone know how one can read the data logged by a Mitsubishi Hydrobox heat pump? I've got 125 Mb of logs divided into myriad daily folders with log files - all digital rather than text - representing 6 months of operation that I don't know how to read. is there some kind of software that will extract this stuff? Who would know? @Protons4B
"hats off to the Energy and Utilities Association (EUA), the lobby of the gas boiler industry. An impressive number of stories in the British press attacking heat pumps track back to its publicity handlers WPR, ...Rarely have I seen a PR company do such a masterful job."
Meanwhile, new technologies are improving heat pumps.
Other people are going away for the (US) holiday weekend, barbecuing, hiking, whatever. I'm hauling gravel. The garden show is a month from yesterday. The countdown is on! I'm terrible about taking "before" photos but trust me this is a big improvement. And why yes, that is an electric #heatpump on the right there in photo 1. 5 stars. Would recommend. #gardening #PNW #inmygarden
In the near future a mass of people are going to die in a city from the heat, and the headlines will say that "it wouldn't have been so bad except the power went out"
Heat is going to take down power systems. The power systems that could protect us from an event, will be harmed by the event.
618 people in Canada, in the mountains, in the forest, died of a #climate heat event, on the floors of their homes, on their beds. No flames. Just a days heat.
The power stayed on, it would have been worse