Cheap and efficient heating and cooling

User: ladladd@gmail.com

Vendor: Drive Green - Green Energy Consumers Alliance

Action: 3512 - Install Heat Pumps

I installed a geothermal heating and cooling system through Dandelion Energy and its absolutely fantasitic! I previously had an oil furnace and an old air conditioner and was able to replace both with a geothermal heat pump. Geothermal heat pumps are vastly more efficient than nearly any other heating and cooling option, and because they use the temperature gradient of the soil (usually in the 50 degree range) their efficiency doesn't decline during intense cold snaps like air source heat pumps do. Thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, you will qualify for a 30% tax rebate off the cost of your geothermal install, and Hudson Light and Power has increased their Geothermal rebates to $1,750. Additionally with the relatively low electricity rates we get from Hudson Light and power, the savings for switching to a heat pump (both geothermal and air source) are great!
Just to walk through the math briefly:

1 gallon of heating oil contains 138,500 btus
1 kilowatt hour (kwh) of electricity produces 3,412 btus
A geothermal heat pump has a coeffcient of performance of ~3-5 (air source heat pumps vary between 2-4) which means that for every 1 kwh of electricity, a heat pump will produce 4-5 times the equilivent heat (or cooling) as heat pumps move heat instead of creating it (just like how your fridge/freezer moves heat from inside the fridge to the outside back of the fridge).
As such, a heat pump will require ~10 kwh to produce the same heat as a gallon of heating oil (138,500/(3,412*4)=10.14)
Given that Hudson Light and Power's $/kwh is around $.12-.13 this means that using a heat pump to heat your home will be cheaper than oil as long as the price of heating oil is less than $1.27. The last time heating oil was that cheap was in 2002! Plus electricity prices are much less volatile than heating oil costs (remember winter 2022?) so you can budget much easier for how much heating is.  And on top of all the heating cost savings, geothermal heat pumps are more than twice as efficient (and twice as cheap to run) as a regular air conditioner!

All together, there's almost no reason anyone in Stow should stay on oil heat.  Switch to a geothermal (or airsource) heat pump and start the savings! Plus there's no worry about checking to make sure you have enough oil for a cold snap, paying large lumpy bills in the winter, or worrying about any potential oil leaks.  Plus its better for your local environment (not great breathing in any oil fumes/smoke) and the overall environment (hudson light electricity is mostly nuclear).  Its a win-win-win!

Sources:
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/units-and-calculators/british-thermal-units.php
https://geocomfort.com/residential-products/item/navigator-yt (geothermal heat pump installed by Dandelion)
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=W_EPD2F_PRS_NUS_DPG&f=W

FYI for Stow, geothermal heat pumps might make more sense than airsource heat pumps for the sole reason that you don't qualify for MassSave rebates in Stow, but you do qualify for the federal geothermal 30% rebate. A lot of air source heat pump installers aren't aware that Stow doesn't qualify for MassSave, so they will sometimes count the $10,000 rebate. In Stow we get the $1,250 rebate from HDLP. For people who live in a MassSave town, an airsource heat pump might be better (but you'll pay eversource/national grid much higher electricity costs).