[stevehull]

Eco,

The heating season cost of $450 is due to a number of factors - one being our low winter kWhr rate. That said, minimizing air infiltration, extensive use of efficient lighting, high R/low E windows, use of home thermal mass "flywheel", insulation, outside deciduous tree placement all make the low total number of winter kWrs dedicated for heating.

My local coop electric utility gives a $750 rebate per ton for a GT heat pump and the state association of rural electric coops asked some of us with GT heat pumps to document our electric use so they could figure out just how good GT heat pumps are. Instead of sending in the model numbers of refrigerator, dishwasher, dryer, I did the above performance analysis.

They just didn't believe my numbers! They insisted that I must be burning wood. Sadly their engineer was not astute enough to be able to interpret the graph. So I offered to go to a meeting and them "walked" them through the graphical analysis. Once they understood, they were amazed at just how efficient these units are - and just how good they are for a utility. They are now considering offering low cost loans for GT pump installation (instead of ton rebates) as the lowering of monthly electric cost is so large that it will quickly offset purchase/installation and amortization costs.

I could burn wood as a major energy source (lots of wood here), but I choose not to. The costs of a GT heat pump are just SO low that I find it incredible that people do not use (or build their own) technology.

But there are drawbacks . . . Recall that I do use a water well and there are only so many cycles on that pump - and then you get a new one for ~$2000. So that too must be figured in somewhere . . .

My particular situation uses a lot of summer irrigation for livestock (frankly mostly cooling them off in the sprinklers vs. watering pasture), so I am typical in using a lot of water for that. By pulling BTUs out of water in the winter, and storing the "waste" water in farm ponds, I can use that water volume later on. In the summer, the heat pump also uses water in the "pump and dump" situation to also refill the ponds. A fair amount of water in those ponds sinks back into the aquifer and some is also lost to evaporation, but the majority is used or recycled into the aquifer.

Last summer, one major GT heat pump manufacturer did a "swap out your old for a new" promo. Several of the local dealers had very good working order heat pumps that were to be "disposed of". I helped them with that for some low cost housing and also allowed the local water utility plant to use them as a demo project for their offices. In both cases, the performance is so spectacular that they will use GT technology for further projects.

Contractors here are VERY conservative and many cannot comprehend how a GT heap pump can be 400-500% efficient. Air source heat pumps got a bad name some 15-20 years ago so they do what is simple - use conventional SEER 15 technology for cooling and burn natural or propane gas for heating.

One big problem I have is my basal use (daily ~ 50 kWhrs). This is more than many people on this site have for total daily use! I have multiple freezers for retail frozen beef, fans that run 24x7 in the summer (for livestock), home HVAC circulation fans that run 24x7, water pumps for livestock to drink from, barn office that must be conditioned as I keep drugs and heat/cold sensitive supplies in there, use of the heat recovery ventilator, etc., etc.

I heat water, cook and dry clothes with propane and get "free" hot water in the spring/summer/fall from the GT heat pump desuperheaters. Have thought about reinstalling my (in storage) flat plate how water collectors, but they really won't help too much considering I must run them with electricity (drain back pump system)..

Installation of 10 kW of PV panels is the answer as we have abundant sunshine many days of the year. This will reduce my total consumption by about 50-60% (from PVWatts). But gears turn slowly with NRCS and the USDA in terms of loans/grants. I do see a further reduction is cost per kW of PV power in 2014, but nowhere hear what has happened in the last years. But I must act soon . . .

GT heat pumps are not for everyone. Where there is extensive underground hard rock, lack of a suitable aquifer - they are just impractical. But the vast majority of us live in areas where GT heat pumps work with incredible and sustainable (ecologically speaking) performance.

Recall my friend in the mountains of Colorado where we kludged up the summer AC using water from an uphill cold spring, a radiator and a fan? He is now thinking of using that water for a GT heat pump. By law he cannot divert the spring water for any consumption use (does not have water use rights), but he can simply divert some of the BTUs and then return 100% of the water to the natural riparian flow.

Did not mean to go on and on . . . .



Steve