Home Builder Developer - Interior Renovation and Design

The most recognizable advantage to upgrading to a smart thermostat is the opportunity to save money every month when the time comes to pay the electric bill. According to smart thermostat manufacturer Nest, now owned by Google, homeowners are projected to save an average of 10-12% on their energy costs monthly by investing in the upgrade, which can add up to $131-145 in savings each year. Smart thermostats save energy by automatically shutting off a home's HVAC system when residents aren't using it, then turning it on again at the homeowner's immediate demand or following a schedule programmed into the thermostat.

In other words, these thermostats help eliminate the struggle of accidentally running an HVAC system all day by forgetting to turn it off before leaving for work or going to bed. Homeowners can program a smart thermostat to follow a specific schedule, but unlike cheaper, programmable thermostats also available on the market, smart thermostats take energy-saving efforts one step further by automatically picking up on residents' temperature-adjusting habits, not needing a preprogrammed schedule to know when to raise or lower the temperature or power down entirely. Smart thermostats are also equipped to sense whether the room it's installed inside is empty, automatically turning off if the device assumes no one is home. Smart thermostats also make it easier to control your home's temperature while awayby connecting to your home's Wi-Fi and your preferred mobile device through a downloadable application.

Excerpt from:
How Much Does It Cost To Install A Smart Thermostat? - House Digest

UK: Heat pumps using R290 (propane) are to be installed at all new UK Aldi supermarkets in a new deal with Vaillant.

Vaillant UK, the UK arm of the German manufacturer, has been working with Aldi since 2016, when its AroTherm heat pump was installed at Aldis headquarters in Warwickshire. The retailer has installed the air-source heat pumps at seven of its regional distribution centres in total.

Following the success of these units, the AroTherm Plus heat pumps will now be installed at all new Aldi stores across the UK, as part of an exclusive five-year contract.

Depending on the size of the site, each store will see between two to five 12kW units installed, along with, Vaillants SensoComgort controls. The units will be commissioned and serviced by Vaillant under the contracts 10-year service agreement.

As part of the contract, Vaillants AroTherm Plus heat pump has also been installed at Aldis new eco-concept store in Leamington Spa, where the unit provides both heating and cooling. The store, which opened in September 2022, was designed to significantly reduce carbon consumption, with sustainable building materials and design changes which are estimated to reduce life-cycle emissions by up to two thirds.

Aldi UK has been carbon neutral since 2019, which has seen us transition to natural refrigerants, said Aldi UK national property director George Brown. for Aldi UK, said. Recently, we invested in adding chiller doors to our new and refurbished stores, which will reduce each stores energy consumption by approximately 20%. However, this meant we needed a sustainable heat source in our new sites to replace the existing heat-generating fridge packs.

Aldi UK commits to fridge doors 4 January 2023UK: Aldi has become the latest UK supermarket to announce that it will be installing fridge doors as standard in its new and newly refurbished stores. Read more

Aldi to convert all UK stores to CO2 15 August 2017UK:Aldi is to convert all its UK stores to use CO2 refrigeration, theGerman discount supermarket chain has announced. Read more

Aldi and Viessmann in natural energy project 7 March 2017GERMANY: Discount retailer Aldi Nord and refrigeration company Viessmann are rolling out a new cooling and heating system employing propane heat pumps, ice storage and photovoltaics. Read more

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Aldi to install propane heat pumps in new stores - Cooling Post

As homeowners, we are always looking for ways to increase the energy efficiency of our homes, not only to save money but also to minimize our environmental impact.

However, increasing energy efficiency doesnt always mean installing pricey solar panels or buying high-end appliances. Sometimes, simple hacks can significantly boost your homes energy efficiency.

With the continuous advancements in technology and the increasing awareness of our ecological footprint, energy efficiency has become more accessible than ever.

This article will explore a host of innovative hacks to to make your home more energy-efficient, from smart home technology to old-fashioned common sense.

Energy efficiency is not just about reducing energy consumption and saving on utility bills. It also has numerous environmental and societal benefits, such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions, decreasing reliance on fossil fuels, creating green jobs, and improving indoor air quality. Now, lets dive into some practical ways to make your home more energy-efficient.

Innovations in technology and a bit of creative thinking can go a long way in making your home more energy-efficient. Whether youre a homeowner looking to cut down on utility costs or someone passionate about reducing your environmental footprint, these hacks offer practical and effective ways to save energy.

Implementing even a few of these tips can make a significant difference in your energy consumption and contribute to a more sustainable future.

Continue reading here:
Innovative Hacks to Boost Your Home's Energy Efficiency - Mirage News

by Karl Driessen

Some people may have heard about harnessing the heat stored in the earths crust, in places like California, Nevada, or Iceland. Such geothermal fields are often located around places with volcanic activity. When you see hot springs or geysers, there is definitely something geothermal going on. And this can be tapped for clean energy: the Geysers, located north of San Francisco, has a capacity to generate 900 megawatts of power without fossil fuels, using the steam coming out of the ground.

But geothermal heat in Forest Hills? Really? It turns out that there are some neighbors that are using the heat stored in their backyards to heat and cool their homes. In fact, I am one of those, as some people in the neighborhood found out when they noticed a big drill rig in our backyard, wondering if perhaps we were hoping to strike oil.

With gas furnaces being phased out in new construction in some jurisdictions, our construction plans prompted the question of whether we could cut the gas pipe and decarbonize our heating and cooling. Was it even possible to do this in DC? How long would it take? How much would it cost? A whole bunch of unknowns when we started.

No volcanoes here. Residential geothermal doesnt require the boiling temperatures used by geothermal power plants. Instead, it leverages the near-constant temperature of the ground underneath us (around 50 degrees Fahrenheit). A device called a heat pump extracts heat from the ground in winter and uses it to warm the house. Conversely, in summer the heat pump removes heat from the house and buries it in the ground.

How does that work? In a nutshell, a heat pump is like a refrigerator. Most of us will have noticed that the back of a refrigerator can get quite warm, while inside, milk and vegetables are kept cold. The neat trick of a heat pump used for heating and cooling is that this process can be reversed by flipping the so-called reversing valve. If it is hot inside, dump the heat outside; if it is cold, dump the heat inside.

A popular and economical type of heat pump exchanges the heat with the surrounding air. This looks very similar to a standard air conditioning compressor, with the added functionality of generating heat in winter.

Geothermal systems instead use water-source heat pumps, exchanging heat through a closed loop with coolant buried deep into the ground. For more details, check out the Rocky Mountain Institute explainer on geothermal heat pumps.

Why in the world would anyone go to such depths (literally!) to install a geothermal system? There are a few important advantages. It is environmentally friendly, as it does not produce greenhouse gases. It is very efficient in heating and cooling, using up to 50 percent less energy. This is because it moves heat, it doesnt burn fuel to generate heat. While it is relatively costly to install, in the long run it is cost effective because of its low energy use and the expected lifetime of the infrastructure (50 to 100 years or more) and equipment. It is also less noisy than outdoor compressors.

By the way, the Inflation Reduction Act has made geothermal installations eligible for a 30 percent tax credit, helping offset the high initial costs.

Our geothermal journey has not been short. We had received a couple of quotes before Covid-19 struck. When we picked up the thread in 2022, one geothermal contractor had stopped doing business in DC, and the other a local HVAC contractor saw the driller it worked with retire. It took some time to find a drilling company most regional companies choose not to operate in the District because the typical urban lot size is too small. Obtaining the soil boring permit took a few months; perhaps a bit longer than usual because the application was pending right at the time that the DC Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA) was being split up into the Department of Building (DOB) and the Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection (DLCP).

Drill, baby, drill for environmental sustainability! The permit kicked off a noisy multi-day drilling spree (thank you again neighbors for your forbearance!) to prepare for the installation of the geo loops. Given the size of the drill rig think fire engine access to the property from the alley was not easy, but the truck just managed to squeeze in. An enormous frack tank was placed in the backyard to collect any groundwater that might erupt during the drilling. (Thankfully, that did not happen! Other neighbors apparently werent so lucky and hit a spring that is now used to water their garden.)

The crew proceeded to drill wells between 240 and 320 feet deep, and inserted pipes through which the coolant will circulate. This video shows the drill grinding away, with a crewmember shoveling away the rock dust that comes up.

Next up is the fusing of the loops into one long circuit, and then bringing those coolant-filled lines into the house to connect to the heat pump.

Urban residential geothermal is a reality, and the District could include it as part of its Climate Ready DC plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Our lot was barely suitable for geothermal, but it is possible to scale up geothermal heat pumps to heat and cool entire neighborhoods, as is done for example in a 400-home development in Texas.

In Washington DC, much of this would involve retrofitting existing housing when natural gas distribution is terminated. I can imagine Washington Gas being re-baptized Washington Gas & Geo, with geo wells drilled 20 feet apart in every alley and street.

Related

Original post:
No geysers? No problem. Geothermal energy is heating and cooling ... - Forest Hills Connection

Jennifer Soukhome| Holland Board of Public Works

HOLLAND Did you know summer air conditioning is one of the largest energy demands in your home? But there are a few things you can do to reduce cooling costs, saving energy and money this summer.

According to the Department of Energy, about 76 percent of the sunlight that falls on a standard double pane window enters to become heat. To prevent unwanted heat, keep your blinds or curtains closed, so direct sunlight cant come in. If you have horizontal blinds, turn the vanes upwards. This will deflect the heat toward the ceiling, keeping the space below cooler.

The DoE further states: You can save as much as 10 percent a year on heating and cooling by simply turning your thermostat back 7 to 10 degrees for eight hours a day from its normal setting.

So, use your programmable thermostat when you're away from home or asleep for more than eight hours. Keep in mind, the greater the temperature difference between the inside of your house and the outdoors, the more it will cost to run the cooling system.

If you dont have air conditioning or want to reduce your energy bills, there are alternate cooling methods.

On cool nights, you can utilize the stack effect if your house has multiple floors by opening windows on both floors. Warm, less-dense air will rise and leave through the open windows on the upper floor, creating a drop in air pressure that will pull in cooler air through the windows on the lower level.

If the stack effect doesnt work for your house, try cross-ventilation. Install a box fan in a window on one side of the house to blow cool air inside and another in a window on the opposite side to blow warm air outside.

Whole-house fans combine these two energy-saving approaches: vertically expelling warm air and pulling in cool air with a (big) fan.

Also remember, air conditioners require regular maintenance to function efficiently. Neglecting maintenance can result in performance decline and increased energy use, costing you money. An air conditioner tune-up by a professional keeps your system in top shape. During May and June, Holland BPW customers can receive a rebate of $50 double the usual $25 rebate on an AC tune-up.

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If it's time to replace your AC, consider purchasing a heat pump. Not only will a heat pump cool your house more efficiently, but it'll also provide heating. Holland BPW has $500 and $1,000 per-ton rebates for heat pumps.

For more information on rebates available through Holland BPW, visit hollandbpw.com/rebates or call 616-355-1534.

Jennifer Soukhome is the community energy services specialist at Holland Board of Public Works.

About This Series:MiSustainable Holland is a collection of community voices sharing updates about local sustainability initiatives.This Weeks Sustainability Framework Theme: Smart Energy: We need to use both conservation and efficiency measures to manage our resources to provide access to reliable and cost-effective energy.

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MiSustainable Holland: Hot tips to help cut summer cooling costs - HollandSentinel.com

By Dan Rafter, CTW Features

Be ready for any weather this summer by properly insulating the home, doors and windows.

Ed Mulderrig has seen more than his share of poorly insulated homes. The problem areas are usually around doors or windows, especially in older homes.

That can result in a huge loss of hot and cool air, said Mulderrig, owner of Mulderigg Builders in South Hampton, N.Y.

Youd be surprised at how much air can slip past poorly insulated windows or doors.

Mulderrig is far from alone. Contractors across the country can swap horror stories of homeowners whose heating and cooling bills soar because their homes arent properly insulated.

The problem is this: insulating a home isnt as simple as it seems. Homeowners have to decide which type of insulation to use, and whether to install insulation on their own or with the help of a professional contractor.

Proper insulation, though, is the key to an energy-efficient home. said Mark Ziegert Sr., brand and marketing communications manager for insulations systems with Johns Manville.

Ziegert that homeowners can reduce their heating and cooling costs by as much as 20% with a properly sealed and insulated home.

Ziegert also cited a study by the Appraisal Institute, and said for every dollar homeowners save in annual utility costs, they add $20 to their homes market value.

What follows is a quick look at the types of insulation available to homeowners.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, blanket insulation is the most common and widely available type of insulation.

Blanket insulation is available at home improvement stores in large rolls. This type of insulation is installed between a homes studs, joists and beams. Homeowners can install it themselves, as long as its placed in obstruction-free areas.

Homeowners can spray, inject or pour liquid foam insulation into the smallest of spaces.

Because of this option sprayed foam usually provides a tighter seal for a home than does traditional blanket insulation. It is also more expensive.

Homeowners will often rely on insulation companies or other contractors to install sprayed foam.

The Department of Energy said that homeowners can use foam insulation boards which are rigid panels to insulate any part of the home, from the roof all the way to the foundation.

In addition to preventing hot and cold air from escaping, foam boards can add structural strength to a home. They are an ideal choice for the DIYer.

The Department of Energy said insulated concrete blocks can provide extra insulation to walls throughout a home. The cores of these blocks are filled with insulation. The downside? Installing concrete block insulation requires masonry skills that most homeowners lack.

Homeowners should remember to insulate their whole homes.

Robert Brockman, marketing manager for CertainTeed Insulation, said homeowners tend to forget certain key areas of their residences.

Under stairwells, around plumbing fixtures and along cathedral ceilings are some of the most difficult areas of a home to properly insulate, Brockman said.

Cracks and openings near windows and doors are also notorious for making home heating and cooling systems work harder to regulate indoor temperatures, he noted.

Read the original:
My walls are sealed - The Bucks County Herald

UK: TheBuilding Engineering Services Association(BESA) is offering 400 free places in its latest phase of heat pump installation training courses.

The new course blends practical training and online learning and is the next phase of a programme that BESA runs in partnership with MCS and heating equipment manufacturerWorcester Bosch.

The first phase of online training was completed by 1,000 installers. Now a further 400 places are being offered free of charge.

BESA was one of the organisations to benefit from the 9.2m of funding provided bythe Department for Energy Security and Net Zero following its recent Home Decarbonisation Skills Training competitionto support heat pump and energy efficiency training across England.

The Associations share will allow it to deliver free training for qualified plumbing, heating, refrigeration, and air conditioning engineers looking to upskill, and provide the technical competence for businesses to be guided through the MCS-accreditation process.

This new hybrid course is being delivered through the Associationsonline training Academyand will run until the end of July. It includes a two-day practical element as well as five hours of online theorywhich can be completed in bite size chunks at the convenience of the student.

The two days practicaland final assessment will take place at oneof BESAs approved local colleges or training centres. On completing the training, students will be able to correctly specify and install low temperature heating systems, accurately size components, commission, and handover systems properly, as well as carrying out lifecycle maintenance.

To register your interest in the trainingclick here.

More:
BESA offers free places on heat pump course - Cooling Post

Thomas Breen photos

Not energy efficient enough for Texas? ACs piled high inside the newly built, opened, and HVAC-giant-leased Building A at 50 Ives Pl.

Truck driver Dennis Brown pulls up for a Monday morning drop-off.

Texas-built air conditioners are stacked high inside of anew 42,000 square-foot warehouse off of East Streetthanks to an international HVAC giants lease of anewly built emblem of New Havens deliveryeconomy.

Those boxes and many more shelves and stacks of contractor-ready home heating and cooling equipment are now in place in Building Aat anew two-warehouse development at 50 Ives Pl.

That nearly 4.4acre propertywhich was once home to the H.B. Ives manufacturing plantis bounded by East Street, Chapel Street, South Wallace Street, and IvesPlace.

50 Ives Pl. on Monday morning.

Its owned by Richard Cuomo of the North Haven-based Elm City Industrial Properties. His company bought the then-long-vacant industrial land for $750,000in May 2020 and subsequently built two new high-bay storage warehouses and an asphalt expanse for trucks coming off the nearby I91 highway and looking to load up on consumer goods in need oftransit.

As of April 1, the 42,000 square-foot Building Aat 50 Ives Pl. has its first tenant: Daikin Comfort Technologies, an affiliate of the Japanese multinational conglomerate that is the worlds largest maker of air conditioners and that has amassive manufacturing plant and stateside hub in Waller,Texas.

Warehouse developer Richard Cuomo with architect Jim Reilly on Friday.

These are the most modern warehouse buildings in New Haven County, Cuomo said with pride on Friday afternoon while standing in the truck lot outside of Building Aalongside the developments architect, JimReilly.

He and Reilly described the pre-cast warehouses 30-foot-plus ceilings, multiple loading docks, early suppression and fast response fire protection systems, high pile storage capacities, large areas for trucks and easy access to the I91 highway, and soon-to-come solar panels for the buildings roofs as all making these two warehouse buildingsunique.

While supply-chain-delayed switch gears prevented the buildings from taking in tenants as soon as construction was finished in January, Cuomo said, theres alot of demand for warehouses like theseas evidenced by the multi-year lease he recently inked with the Daikin affiliate. (Building Bdoes not yet have atenant signedup.)

Cuomo and Reilly with city arts director Adriane Jefferson, development deputy Steve Fontana, and Site Projects' Laura Clarke and Jolyne Brown.

Also gathered in the early afternoon sunshine were city Deputy Economic Development Administrator Steve Fontana, city Director of Arts, Culture and Tourism Adriane Jefferson, and Laura Clarke and Jolyne Brown of the local public art nonprofit SiteProjects.

Fontana, Jefferson, Clarke, and Brown were on scene primarily to talk with Cuomo and Reilly about anew mural Site Projects has planned for the Chapel Street side and, potentially, the East Street side of Building As large street-facing concrete walls-turned-canvasses.

Air conditioners aplenty inside Building A.

Goodman territory sales manager Tim Winosky, with a Daikin made gas furnace and energy-efficient heat pump.

While the group gathered indoors in Building As conference room to hash through the artist and design details, this reporter meandered through the cavernous warehouse space with the HVAC-equipment-deciphering help of Tim Winosky, aterritory sales manager based out of the East Hartford offices of Goodman Manufacturing, another affiliate ofDaikin.

Winosky explained that Daikin and its affiliates manufacture awide range of heating and cooling equipment, including gas furnaces and energy-efficient heat pumps and outdoor air conditioning units and air handlers, at its plant in Texas.

The company then sends 53-foot trucks to trek up to supply houses like its newly leased New Haven warehouse on Ives Place, where licensed contractors can then come to buy and pick up such equipment, which is then delivered and installed directly in customers homes. Homeowners get a turnkey job from their hired licensed contractors with this equipment, he said, while were just thedistributors.

But before the contractors pick the goods up and bring it to their customers, those HVAC supplies sit in place on the shelves, and on the floors, of the 50 Ives Pl.warehouse.

Winosky pointed out that hundreds of boxes of outdoor air conditioning units currently piled high in the newly leased New Haven warehouse have been brought up from Texas to New England en masse thanks in large part to achange in federal energy efficiency regulations that recently went intoeffect.

As of Jan. 1, the federal Department of Energy has put in place new rules governing the allowable seasonal energy efficiency ratio, or SEER, of residential and commercial air conditioning and heat pumpproducts.

While air conditioners manufactured at alower SEER level can still be installed in the North region, where Connecticut is, such products that do not now meet the higher SEER2 energy efficiency level can no longer be installed in the South and Southwest regions, where Texasis.

The upshot: Lots and lots of air conditioners that were not built to the new higher energy efficiency standard now required for products installed in the South and Southwest have made their way North to places like Connecticut where the feds still allow them to be sold andused.

Looking east from the warehouse property towards East St. and English Station.

Thus the boxes upon boxes of older SEER-level Texas-built air conditioners that have been trucked to New Haven and are currently sitting in the 50 Ives Pl.warehouse.

Winosky pointed out that these are fully legal to install in Connecticut, still. And he thinks there will be plenty of customers for them because of their lower price point. Well be able to sell them, hepredicted.

Cuomo told the Independent he thinks the new Daikin lease should result in five to ten jobs created at Ives Place Building Awarehouse building. He said that the tenant is using the property not just for the storage and distribution of HVAC products, but also for on-site training of licensed contractors on how to use thesematerials.

While there werent any trucks parked in one of 50 Ivess bays on Friday, truck driver Dennis Brown was in the lot with his vehicle backed up to Building Aon Mondaymorning.

Brown, who lives in South Carolina, said he had driven this haul of Daikin-made products up from Orlando, Florida, starting on Friday. He said he had plenty of time to make the trip by Mondaymorning.

He didnt know what products exactly were in the back of the truck he drove from south to north. What he did know: that hed be heading on the road soon after drop off Monday morning, likely heading back to Florida, or SouthCarolina.

Brown said hes been atruck driver for 38years. How does he like it? It used to be fun, he said with atired smile. Now its just ajob.

Read the original here:
New Warehouse Fills Up With Texas ACs - New Haven Independent

Venus Nappi strolled through a community center in South Portland in early April, chatting with vendors at Maine's annual Green Home + Energy Show about electric heat pumps, solar power, and the discounts that aim to make these and other technologies affordable. A worker in an oversized plush heat pump costume waved a gloved hand nearby.

Nappi heats her Gorham home with oil, as do 60% of Mainers more than any other state, as The Maine Monitor reported in the first part of this series. She finds oil to be dirty, inconvenient and expensive. Her oil costs this winter, she said, were "crazy, absolutely right up through the roof."

This story was originally published byThe Maine Monitor, a nonprofit civic news organization.To get regular coverage from the Monitor, sign up for a free Monitor newsletterhere.

Nappi joined a record-breaking crowd at this expo because she's ready to switch to heat pumps, which can provide heating or cooling at two or three times the efficiency of electric baseboards and with 60% lower carbon emissions than oil, according to Efficiency Maine.

"It's good to have incentive to try to go somewhere else rather than just the oil," Nappi said. "Even gas, propane, is actually a little expensive right now, too. The heat pumps are kind of in the middle."

Government rebates of up to $2,400, with new tax breaks coming soon, help with up-front heat pump installation costs that can range above $10,000. These incentives have helped put Maine more than 80% of the way to its 2019 goal now a centerpiece of the state climate plan of installing 100,000 new heat pumps in homes by 2025, and many more in the years after that.

"This is a real highlight of our climate action," said state Climate Council chair Hannah Pingree. The state aims to have 130,000 homes using one or two heat pumps by 2030 and 115,000 more using "whole-home" heat pump systems, meaning the devices are their primary heating source.

But Maine lags much further behind on a related goal of getting 15,000 heat pumps into low-income homes by 2025, using rebates from MaineHousing. At the end of last year, it had provided just over 5,000 heat pumps to the lowest-income homes.

These homes face particular barriers to maximizing the benefits from this switch from poor weatherization, to navigating a daunting web of incentives, to fine-tuning a blend of heat sources that can withstand power outages and actually save money instead of driving up bills.

As fossil fuel costs remain high, the pressure is on for advocates and service providers to expand access to heat pumps and other strategies for reducing oil use, especially for people most often left out of the push for climate solutions.

In Maine and beyond, it's clear that heat pumps are having a major moment heralded in national headlines as a crucial climate solution that successfully weathered a historic cold snap.

But the technology is not new. It's long been used in refrigerators and air conditioners.

"The problem was, when you design a heat pump to primarily provide cooling it is not optimized for making heat," said Efficiency Maine executive director Michael Stoddard. "So everyone concluded these things are no good in the winter. And then around (the) 2010, '11, '12 timeframe, the manufacturers started introducing a new generation of heat pumps that were specially designed to perform in cold climates. It was like a switch had been flipped."

Maine has offered rebates for heat pumps ever since this cold climate technology emerged. Even former Gov. Paul LePage, a Republican who frequently opposed renewable energy and questioned climate science, installed them in the governor's mansion and told The Portland Press Herald in 2014 that they'd been "phenomenal" at replacing oil during a cold snap.

Heat pumps provide warmth in cold weather the same way they keep warmth out of a fridge by using electricity and refrigerants to capture, condense and pump that heat from somewhere cold to somewhere warmer. Simply put, they squeeze the heat out of the cold air, then distribute it into the home.

The current generation of heat pumps will keep warming your home even if it's around negative 13 degrees out.

Heat pumps are less efficient in these colder temperatures, requiring more electricity to make the same heat. With outdoor temperatures in the 40s and 50s, today's typical cold-climate heat pumps can be roughly 300 or 400% efficient tripling or quadrupling your energy input.

As temperatures drop into the teens, heat pumps are often about 200% efficient. And in the single digits or low negatives, heat pumps can be closer to the 100% efficiency of an electric baseboard heater. Costs at this level are closer to that of oil heat, which usually has about an 87% efficiency rating.

This means heat pumps often generate the most savings and are most efficient when temperatures are above freezing, or when used to provide air conditioning in the summer something Mainers will want increasingly as climate change creates new extreme heat risks.

"During the shoulder seasons, you can definitely use a heat pump. When it's wicked cold out, then you'd probably turn on your backup fuel. That's not the official line of Efficiency Maine Trust, but a physical and engineering reality," said energy attorney Dave Littell, a former top Maine environment and utilities regulator whose clients now include Versant Power which, along with Central Maine Power, now offers seasonal discounts for heat pump users.

This is a relatively common approach among installers, such as ReVision Energy, a New England solar company that also sells heat pumps. They don't recommend heat pumps as the only heating source for most customers, especially those who live farther north, unless the home can have multiple units, excellent insulation, and potentially a generator or battery in case of a power outage a costly package overall.

"(Heat pumps) do still put out heat (in sub-zero weather), but less, obviously, and they have a lot more cold to combat in those conditions," said Dan Weeks, ReVision's vice president for business development. "Generally we do recommend having a backup heating source."

These blends of heating sources are nothing new in Maine many families combine, say, a wood stove with secondary heat sources that rely on propane, oil or electricity. Experts say heat pumps are a powerful addition in many cases, adding flexibility and convenience.

Heat pumps will add to your electric bills but also reduce another expense thats eating up a lot of household budgets heating oil. Instead of spending hundreds to fill your tank just as winter starts to wane (a full 275-gallon tank would run more than $1,000 right now), you might be able to switch entirely to your heat pump in early spring. Vendors say a heat pump will be much more cost-effective than fossil fuels for the vast majority of Maine's heating season.

One study from Minnesota which has lower electric rates and more access to gas, but has made a similar push for heat pumps found the greatest savings from using a heat pump for 87% of the heating season, switching to a propane furnace only below 15 degrees.

Electricity costs also change less frequently than fossil fuel prices. And the advent of large-scale renewable energy projects, like offshore wind, aims to help smooth over rate hikes that are now driven by the regional electric grid's dependence on natural gas, said Littell of Versant Power. (While Maine has little gas distribution for home heat, New England power plants use a lot of it to make the electricity that's primarily imported to Maine on transmission lines.)

This will also mean the electricity that fuels your heat pump will be even lower-emissions than it is now. The emissions comparison between heat pumps and oil is based on the current New England electric grid's carbon footprint, which is set to continue shrinking.

Paige Atkinson, an Island Institute Fellow working on energy resilience in Eastport, pitches heat pumps as a good addition to a home fuel mix. But she said all these cost comparisons can cause anxiety for people unsure about switching. Oil costs, though rising and prone to fluctuations, can be a "devil you know" versus heat pumps, she said.

"Transitioning to an entirely new source of heat creates a lot of 'what-ifs,' " she said. "There's a lot of uncertainty about how to best use that system will it meet my needs?"

The best way to guarantee savings from a heat pump is likely to work closely with your contractor about where to install it, and when and how to run each part of your home's fuel mix.

"Our job is to educate (customers) on proper design, proper sizing, best practices for installation," said Royal River Heat Pumps owner Scott Libby at the South Portland expo. "I always tell people to use the heat pump as much as possible. If you are starting to get chilly, that might just be for a couple hours in the morning when the temperature outside is coldest, so maybe use your fossil fuels just to give the system a boost in the morning, for even an hour."

The condition of your house is another big factor in the heat pump's performance.

"Weatherization is a great tool. It is not necessary to make a heat pump work but the heat pump will work better if the house is well weatherized," said Stoddard with Efficiency Maine. "When you have those super, super cold days, it won't have to work as much."

The need, ideally, for updated insulation and air sealing as prerequisites for heat pumps may help explain the slower progress on getting them into low-income homes. (We'll address heat pumps as a potential benefit for renters later in this series.)

"I think a lot of the homes especially that (qualify for rebates from) MaineHousing require a lot of upgrades, just sort of basic home improvements, to get to the next step," said Hannah Pingree of the state Climate Council.

Bob Moody lives in the kind of house Pingree is talking about in Castle Hill, a tiny town just outside Presque Isle. The ramshackle clapboard split-level totals four stories, set into a wooded hillside. Moody grew up down the road, and his family built this place in the 1980s using much older scrap materials from the former Loring Air Force Base in Caribou.

On a snowy day in March, Moody was visited by a small team from Aroostook County Action Program, or ACAP. It included his next-door neighbor, ACAP energy and housing program manager Melissa Runshe. She and her colleagues were there for an energy audit, a precursor to weatherization projects all paid with public funds through MaineHousing.

"Weatherization is at the very top. If your heat isn't flying out of your house, it's going to save you money," Runshe said. "We have a lot more winter here (in Aroostook County) than in the rest of Maine, so it's really important to make sure that the houses are energy-efficient so that they're not burning as much oil, so that they're not spending as much money on oil."

ACAP officials said they don't push any technology over another when meeting new clients, but instead describe the options and benefits savings, comfort, a smaller carbon footprint. This all typically happens after someone has called for heating aid or an emergency fuel delivery or, in Moody's case, an emergency fix for their heating equipment.

Moody's health forced him to retire early, and he now lives alone on a low fixed income. He's gotten energy assistance and upgrades from other state and county programs before, but first called ACAP late last year when his main heat source, a kerosene furnace, suddenly died. ACAP got him a new, more efficient oil furnace, then signed him up for a weatherization audit.

"If it hadn't been for assistance, I would have been really in trouble," Moody said as he filled out paperwork at his kitchen table. A sticker on the wall proclaimed Murphy's Law anything that can go wrong, will. "Murphy has been settling in very heavily on me," he laughed.

Moody's ACAP audit included a blower door test, which depressurizes the house to expose air leaks. They showed up on a thermal imager as cold seeping in through window seams, power outlets, hairline cracks in the walls, and most of all, an uninsulated exterior-facing wooden door that was down the hall from Moody's new furnace, sucking heat from the rest of the house.

"He has, roughly, a (total of a) one-by-two-foot-square hole that's wide open in the house," said energy auditor BJ Estey. "It's basically like the equivalent of having a window open year-round."

The inspection showed weatherization could save Moody $1,230 a year on oil. New windows and doors would help even more but the weatherization program doesn't offer those, and there's a 900-person waiting list for ACAP's program that does. Instead, the staff told Moody to try a federal option for home repair grants and loans, and promised to help him with the forms.

For people who dont receive MaineHousing-funded upgrades, Efficiency Maineoffershealthy rebatesfor air sealing and insulationperformed by contractors. Last winter italsoadded a small new rebate for do-it-yourself home weatherization, such as plastic wrap for windows, pipe wraps and caulk,which has sinceexpired.

Groups like ACAP also offer free heat pumps for low-income residents using MaineHousing funds. The rebates feed the state's goal, where progress has been slow.

Moody has one kind of heat pump in his home but it's not the type that provides hot air it's a heat pump-based hot water heater, which he got for free through a rebate from Efficiency Maine. He loves the savings and convenience it's provided.

But he doesn't think an air-source heat pump the kind that can replace an oil furnace will work for his home, which has many small rooms split up across levels. (Installers often recommend at least one heat pump per floor.) He's also worried about how a heat pump would affect his electric bills. He knows he couldn't afford electric baseboard heat, so he's concerned about the very cold conditions where a heat pump's efficiency drops down to around that level.

"Sometimes in the middle of the winter, you get so cold that you just might as well have an electric (baseboard) heater," he said. "And there ain't no way that I can afford an electric heater not even one month."

Down the road in Castle Hill, Melissa Runshe's newer-construction house came with three heat pumps, a boiler that can use wood pellets or oil, and a propane fireplace. "I think (heat pumps) are wonderful," for heating when temperatures are above about 20 and for summer cooling, she said. "They definitely offset the cost of my oil."

While not every house is heat pump-ready, it may be even more important to get folks like Moody connected with this energy safety net in the first place. This will continue to decrease his oil dependence, offering escalating upgrades as his home changes and funding sources shift.

"In the social services world, there's this idea of 'no wrong doors,' and we need to adopt that for home energy as well," said Maine Conservation Voters policy director Kathleen Meil, the co-chair of state Climate Council's buildings group. "There's no distilling and simplifying how people live in their homes. You experience your house and your home's heating situation not as a data point, but as your daily life."

For people like Meil, there are multiple goals working in tandem help Mainers reduce their reliance on planet-warming fuels like heating oil, while helping them lower household energy costs, and live with more comfort and convenience. This is what climate advocates mean when they say the crisis is "intersectional" it's interwoven with health, race, poverty and more.

Juggling these issues can mean making more incremental progress toward emissions goals but that's far better than nothing in scientific terms, said Ivan Fernandez, a professor in the University of Maine's Climate Change Institute.

"Everything we do, every increment we do, counts," Fernandez said. "I think we need to do this transition in a relatively quick way, recognizing that it will be imperfect, and spending a good part of our focus on realistic, data-driven, science-driven tracking of where we are at, so we're not telling ourselves fables that aren't substantiated by the science."

Officials say Maine used this kind of science in building detailed goals for things like heat pump adoption, adding them up toward a path to the two biggest targets that are inked in state statute reducing emissions 45% over 1990 levels by 2030 and 80% by 2050.

"Ultimately the atmosphere will determine how successful we are. It's already telling us that we have not been very successful in many ways," said Fernandez. "But I think we're embracing the reality of that a lot better."

Setting these goals carefully and pushing hard to meet them does not guarantee equity and there are still holes in the state's approach, according to people working on spreading the benefits of the energy transition to those who might not be able to access it without help.

The Community Resilience Partnership, or CRP, is the state's signature grant program for town-level climate action. Each project starts with a local survey to determine residents' priorities out of a 72-item list that includes everything from flood protection to energy efficiency.

State officials say the CRP was designed primarily to build up towns' capacity to respond to climate change. But advocates say they've had to work around a crucial gap in the program: It won't buy equipment directly for individuals, which is often what people say they want the most.

"There are communities who really do have the need to fund heat pumps beyond what Efficiency Maine is providing," said Sharon Klein, an energy consultant and University of Maine professor who works with Maine tribes on their CRP projects. "Because there's still that last piece of it where money still needs to be put up, and some people don't have that money."

For people whose income is not quite low enough to qualify for a totally free heat pump through MaineHousing, Efficiency Maine's rebates will cover $2,000 for a first unit and $400 for a second. People at any income level can get $400 to $1,200 for one or two units. This might cover some or all of the cost of a typical single heat pump but total installation costs can range from around $4,000 to above $10,000, depending on the complexity of the system.

Starting this tax year, theInflation Reduction Actwill offer new tax credits of 30% for heat pumps,up to $2,000 per year. The IRA will also provide additional rebates to cover heat pumps and other home electrification projects, but the details of those rebates are still being finalized. The IRA allows states to, in theory, offer as much as 100% of project costs up to $8,000 for low-income families, or 50% of costs for moderate-income families -- but state officials are still deciding how exactly this limited pot of money will be used and who will be eligible. The rebates will not be universal or unlimited, said Stoddard with Efficiency Maine, but should benefit several thousand homes.

Dan Weeks of ReVision Energy said increasing availability of low- or no-interest loans is another priority for those who want to see more people switch from oil to efficient electric heat. The IRA will help Maine expand its Green Bank in the next year or so to "start offering financing to particularly low-income folks and folks with poor credit," Weeks said.

But tax credits and cheap loans are still deferred ways of helping people lower their oil costs and cover those remaining heat pump costs. Downeast CRP coordinator Tanya Rucosky, who works on community resilience for Washington County's Sunrise County Economic Council, said many families simply can't afford to make the switch.

"Folks need just a little bit of seed money," she said. Without more support, "it locks out the people that potentially need it the most."

Atkinson, the Island Institute Fellow, said Eastport found a creative way to offer direct funding within the constraints of its CRP grant. People who participate in the city's peer-to-peer energy coaching program, Weatherize Eastport, can get another $2,000 toward heat pump installation.

"They're agreeing to become almost ambassadors for this program. One of the steps to do that is to volunteer some time," Atkinson said. "The city is compensating these residents for their time involved in this partnership, rather than saying, we will just give you funds for X, Y and Z."

Solutions like this are key to ensuring these tools for moving off oil can grow equitably, said Rucosky helping more people to join the transition and spread the gospel of its benefits.

"Especially for Mainers they're so salty and smart. They're like, 'What's the catch?' So I don't think there's any getting around the labor of it," Rucosky said. "The more people have successful experiences doing this, the more I don't have to be the one saying it and it can be like, Bob down the road. And so it builds but it takes a long time to build that, where everybody knows this is how you get this done. That's going to be years in the making."

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Hooked on heating oil: Pushing for heat pumps and weatherization - PenBayPilot.com

Policy makers can create regulatory environments that help maximise data use,allowing power systems to reap fuller benefits.

First, regulations should ensure that consumer have easy access to their data and can share it with third parties. Setting general principles is not enough. A recent study mapping access to smart meter data in Europe shows that while European regulations give consumers the right to access and share their data, administrative and technical barriers often limit consistent access: poorly defined and documented procedures, lack of a legally responsible party to create a unified access point, insufficient APIs (application programming interfaces) for automatically connecting to datasets, and inadequate standards for interoperability. Removing these barriers is crucial for ensuring seamless sharing between various stakeholders, for instance, a grid operator who collects smart meter data, and a supplier that will use it to provide tailored advice its consumers. Policymakers wanting to reap the benefits of digitalisation should adopt regulations that effectively ensure data availability. A focus on implementation will be crucial to unleash the power of data for power systems.

Second, there is a need to ensure demand-response readiness, i.e., appliances that can send, receive, and share data on standardised protocols that all relevant objects can understand, regardless of their maker. Companies might naturally prefer to use proprietary interfaces, though this risks making connections to other systems, or from new external stakeholders, more complex or costly.

Many countries are already starting to implement such policies. The United Kingdom is considering mandating that larger domestic-scale appliances, including private Electric Vehicle charging points, batteries, heat pumps, storage heaters and heat batteries, are interoperable with flexibility service providers.The European Union's planned Smart Readiness Indicator is intended to quantify the energy flexibility capability of buildings, and represent it in a meaningful way for stakeholders.More policies regulating demand-response readiness, informing consumers and incentivising demand-ready appliance could help bring these new sources of flexibility to power systems.

The IEA will continue to work with countries around the world to help identify the best policy tools to improve data environment for power systems

From 6-8 June the 8th Annual Global Conference on Energy Efficiency will be held in Paris, hosted by French Minister of Energy Transition, Agns Pannier-Runacher and IEA Executive Director, Dr Fatih Birol, in partnership with Schneider Electric.

During a special event on 6 June Powering the Future: Leveraging digitalisation for whole system efficiency the IEA will launch the Digital Demand-Driven Electricity Networks (3DEN) Initiative's first flagship report on Unlocking smart grid opportunities in Emerging Markets and Developing Economies.

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Unleashing the benefits of data for energy systems Analysis - IEA