Americans want heat pumps – but high electricity prices may get in the way

Well for heat pump hot water heaters you are going to get them in 2029, like it or not...

https://www.hotwater.com/info-center/doe-regulations/doe-res...

I've been using two heat pumps near Austin, Texas since 2011, rated at a total of 84,000 BTU/hr (4 ton + 3 ton capacity) (25KW of heat) on a total of 5KW electrical input (COP ~= 5.0).

They are standard outdoor air heat exchangers so below about 35F efficiency drops significantly. That's pretty rare around here so it is almost always enough - we can still gain about 45F vs the outdoor temperature even below 20F.

We don't have natural gas available where I live, only propane. When I purchased the heat pumps, propane was $5/gallon for 91,500 BTU. That translates to about $4.60/hr to run 84,000 BTU/hr of furnace. With electric energy (cheap in Texas!) at about $0.11/KWh, the equivalent costs of my heat pumps was and remains close to about $0.55/hr to run.

In the summer, they cool with equal capacity and similar power consumption for a 15 SEER rating (waste heat from the system components works against cooling in the summer!)

Factor in your acquisition costs (mine, just after the housing bust and with a little legwork, were about 20% of retail at the time, so a no-brainer) and you can get a lot more objective idea what you're really accomplishing.

Do we though? I've had both and I much prefer natural gas.

It’s the install cost that’s in the way, not the electricity cost. A heat pump and a solar array would be great, I’d love to stick that on my house, if I wasn’t buried in debt.

Electricity prices have gone up due to datacenters as well as neglected grid infrastructure needing investment. Natural gas prices are going up because of LNG export infrastructure causing US consumers to compete against global LNG consumers for fuel to heat, as well as domestic electrical generation demand. Pick your poison.

Electricity prices might come down over time (renewables push down generation costs), natural gas prices won’t due to global demand for it.

We don’t want them, they are being forced on us by banning natural gas furnaces and efficient refrigerants.