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Winter 2020 New England Banter and General Obs


CapturedNature
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3 minutes ago, mreaves said:

Lol, You’ve got a lot of work to do to become a true NNE’r. Squeaky snow is one of the small things that make it winter. 

Don't even think twice on this, Its common ground every winter, Better when its the track on my sled doing it though, But a nice reminder of what we take for granted up here.............;)

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Solar only works well if your home is oriented properly and you don't have tress obscuring the sun.  The further N you go the less efficient panels will be as well.  Wind power would make more sense in NNE.  I've looked at solar for where I live and my house is not sited properly, so efficiency would not be good.

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16 minutes ago, BrianW said:

How is that 380% efficiency measured?

Google coefficient of performance. Here is a real fuel cost comparison calculator I use. I I inputed some real New England numbers so its pretty accurate.

 

Screenshot_20191220-124926_Hancom Office Editor.jpg

Noted also in the Dec. thread:  It appears that the efficiency numbers in your earlier post weren't energy in/energy out, thus permissible under Newtonian physics.  :lol:
Rather it looks like a comparison of energy expense compared to the best of the "traditional" applications.

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47 minutes ago, tamarack said:

Noted also in the Dec. thread:  It appears that the efficiency numbers in your earlier post weren't energy in/energy out, thus permissible under Newtonian physics.  :lol:
Rather it looks like a comparison of energy expense compared to the best of the "traditional" 

 

An Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP) will typically produce around 4kW thermal energy for every 1kW of electrical energy consumed, giving an effective “efficiency” of 400%. It is thermodynamically impossible to have an efficiency of more than 100%, as this implies that more energy is being produced than is being put in.  For this reason the performance is expressed as a Coefficient of Performance (COP) rather than an efficiency. The above example would be expressed as having a COP of 4.  The reason that it appears that more energy is being produced than is consumed, is because the only “valuable” energy input is electricity used to drive the compressor and circulating pumps.  The remainder of the energy simply transferred from a heat source that would otherwise not be used (such as the ambient air, ground or a river) so is not considered as an energy input.

cop_heat_pump_operation.jpg

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1 hour ago, BrianW said:

 

An Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP) will typically produce around 4kW thermal energy for every 1kW of electrical energy consumed, giving an effective “efficiency” of 400%. It is thermodynamically impossible to have an efficiency of more than 100%, as this implies that more energy is being produced than is being put in.  For this reason the performance is expressed as a Coefficient of Performance (COP) rather than an efficiency. The above example would be expressed as having a COP of 4.  The reason that it appears that more energy is being produced than is consumed, is because the only “valuable” energy input is electricity used to drive the compressor and circulating pumps.  The remainder of the energy simply transferred from a heat source that would otherwise not be used (such as the ambient air, ground or a river) so is not considered as an energy input.

cop_heat_pump_operation.jpg

Makes good sense, thanks.

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49 minutes ago, tamarack said:

Makes good sense, thanks.

Maine is aggressively deploying heat pumps and has incentives for them. Here is an interesting article on it. Didn't realize they had soo many installed. I also attached a performance graph of how newer units can achieve some impressive cold weather performance. My unit can put out its full rated heat all the way to almost -20 before capacity drops. 

 

Maine is the most heating-oil-dependent state in the country. More than 60 percent of the state’s 550,000 households rely on heating oil as their primary energy source for heat.

But because a little more than half of the electricity generated in Maine already comes from zero-carbon hydropower and wind power — and legislation signed yesterday sets a 100 percent renewable electricity target for 2050 — a rapid shift to electric heat could deliver significant emissions reductions. It should also save households and businesses money.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.greentechmedia.com/amp/article/maine-wants-to-install-100000-heat-pumps-by-2025

Screenshot_20191220-164218_Photos.jpg

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My parents had two mini splits in their house and they worked well, but their electric bill skyrocketed. 
 

Outside of solar... I think more or less you’re just picking which energy source you want to spend your money on.

We have a 500 gallon buried propane tank that is responsible for heat only. When we bought the house last year we filled it for $1000 and to this point, have only used 10% of the tank since turning the heat on last month.

I’m not sure we’ll make it through the entire winter... but based on what I was paying for natural gas in my smaller condo... this will be cheaper and more efficient, at least personally.

Propane also burn pretty clean compared to oil, etc.

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9 minutes ago, TauntonBlizzard2013 said:

My parents had two mini splits in their house and they worked well, but their electric bill skyrocketed. 
 

Outside of solar... I think more or less you’re just picking which energy source you want to spend your money on.

We have a 500 gallon buried propane tank that is responsible for heat only. When we bought the house last year we filled it for $1000 and to this point, have only used 10% of the tank since turning the heat on last month.

I’m not sure we’ll make it through the entire winter... but based on what I was paying for natural gas in my smaller condo... this will be cheaper and more efficient, at least personally.

Propane also burn pretty clean compared to oil, etc.

Keep in mind your new house is likely far more energy efficient then your previous condo.

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1 hour ago, TauntonBlizzard2013 said:

My parents had two mini splits in their house and they worked well, but their electric bill skyrocketed. 
 

Outside of solar... I think more or less you’re just picking which energy source you want to spend your money on.

We have a 500 gallon buried propane tank that is responsible for heat only. When we bought the house last year we filled it for $1000 and to this point, have only used 10% of the tank since turning the heat on last month.

I’m not sure we’ll make it through the entire winter... but based on what I was paying for natural gas in my smaller condo... this will be cheaper and more efficient, at least personally.

Propane also burn pretty clean compared to oil, etc.

How old is the house? Sounds like you have a well insulated newer house to have that fuel consumption. My sister is building a brand new house in Boston. The house is crazy insulated and airtight. The heating and cooling loss numbers were insane.  Its going to cost practically nothing to heat and cool when I looked over the plans. 

Might have been much older mini splits. The stuff coming out in the last year or two are probably twice as efficient. The technology is rapidly advancing and getting more efficientl. I ran some numbers for Taunton MA. It looks like you have municipal power and pay significantly less than the rest of MA so your savings are pretty massive. 

At Taunton MA electric rates of .14 a kwh and the mass.gov posted average propane price of 2.92, here is what a million btus of heat would cost you.

Heat pump- $9.33

Propane- $35.52

For others in MA here are the state wide average prices taken from the mass.gov website for comparision.

Heat pump at .22kwh. $14.67

Heating oil $27.45

Propane- $35.52

Natural gas- $26.83

Natural gas is not cheap as cheap as it once was in New England and prices have doubled since the beginning of the year.  There is not enough pipeline supply and a huge demand from gas power plants that prices have been high.

 

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