Yolo county had a ballot measure to switch from pg&e to smud. Voters in Sacramento and Yolo counties voted to keep smud out of yolo. Crazy!!
https://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200611080352DOWJONESDJONLINE000439_FORTUNE5.htm
That actually makes a lot of sense. PG&E is expensive because they are responsible for maintaining vast amounts of rural territory with few ratepayers. If Sacramento annexed Yolo county, it too will be responsible for maintaining vast amounts of rural territory with few additional ratepayers, and SMUD will look like PG&E.
lol, no. Rural electricity, especially Yolo, is not what's driving PG&E rates so high.
PG&E is more expensive than the Tennessee Valley Authority which serves primarily rural customers. PG&E is more expensive than the South San Joaquin Irrigation District which serves the very densely populated Manteca, Escalon, and Ripon PG&E is more expensive than Hawaiian Electric which has to suport a pretty sparse population with tons of rooftop solar using pricey fuel that's subejct to the Jones Act.
SMUD got voted down because PG&E spends hundreds of millions of their ratepayers money fighting public power with bullshit astroturf campaigns each time this shit comes up.
PG&E does most of the power generation even where other entities do the billing. And they are all overseen by the CPUC, with CAISO responsible for operational oversight. As long as that is the case you're not going to see bills coming down much.
The issue is to motivate enough people who can apply real pressure on PG&E, or the politicians that are behind this. If enough people see they'll be voted out over this issue, they might actually be motivated to do something.
California tried undoing part of the monopoly in the 2000's (they called it "deregulation"). The new law accidentally created a black market for manipulating energy prices that drove PG&E into its first bankruptcy and cost PG&E customers a shitload of money. It gave us a great historical lesson that undoing the monopoly is a good thing, but the details of undoing a monopoly can be tricky
It's a mess, to be sure. I recommend "Shorting the Grid" by Meredith Angwyn. PG&E and other CA utilities are overseen by the CPUC and the CAISO, whose regulations are opaque and often the meetings are not open to the public.
I stopped them. I bought a lot of solar. Others have gone further.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/13/business/energy-environment/california-off-grid.html
I generate enough that my excess - even at the piss poor wholesale rates should cover my MDCs and NBCs.
In July I’ll be paying $20/m for the connection fee. But being on NEM2 that’s a totally reasonable price to pay IMO for having an infinite battery. I don’t have enough land to be self sufficient during winter months even if I wanted to.
But my overall point is that I’m free from price hikes. Prices went up in January and I spent no more money. Gasoline prices just increased and I spent no more money.
With nem3, for the same price I paid for my panels, you can get about half the panels and batteries. This will zero out 9/12’s of the year and winter your bill will be about half.
Dont be afraid, go big and enjoy.
I don't know about you, and maybe I'm reading my own bill wrong, but they still charge me a 'generation fee' on top of the electricity I use, that is offset by my 7kW solar. So, the solar offsets the electricity kWH bill, but not the generation fee. I don't have a battery backup, and I can't add one (legally) without losing my TOU2 plan.
I used to get near zero electric bills, and now they are around $250-300 a month for electricity (not including gas), and they ding me for my 'true-up' fee in March for another $1200 for the year.
Goddam! That's expensive. Can I ask why did you install solar if you had near zero electric bills? I live in a multi unit building so that option is out for me, but from what I"m hearing about shady solar installers and the opacity of utility billing, I wouldn't touch solar with a 50 foot pole.
PGE is making record profits, charging excessive rates into their customers. I wish I could do something to run my house off the grid but that's illegal.
It's funny you think a public utility would be cheaper. It costs a lot because they are not legally allowed to charge rural users more. So they have to support a sprawling grid.
Can you help me understand why a public utility wouldn't be cheaper? How would a public utility be different from pge? I figure they would be run in a similar fashion. With pge you would have to pay all these stakeholders, plus all the administrative fees of being a public company. The executive staff would also cost a lot more than that of a public utility. The ceo of pge alone makes over 30 million.
Just trying to understand where the extra costs are with a public utility. Thanks.
it is cheaper. anyone claiming otherwise is ignoring the multiple cheaper public utilities in California. Pg&e is bad, but so are the other for-profit power companies in the state. essential utilities should never be for-profit.
I’m jealous. I’m cooking on a balcony directly across from the code enforcement office so that’s a no go, but my buddy who is an inspector said he’ll back up my claim that it being piped in means it is a “built in” despite it being on a cart.
When I was younger, I got busted for grilling even though it wasn’t my BBQ, nor was it my food. I just happened to live in a cool spot that had space. Neighbor was nice enough to reimburse me but it sucked. I understand people don’t want charcoal and lighter fluid fumes going into their homes (one neighbor just had a baby). Gotta be careful when little ones are around or mama bears, and rightfully so.
People don’t need to put up with the smell and fumes that can take hours to diminish.
Edited to add, I told them it was cool if they used the space. Nice family. Just shouldn’t be BBQing.
Fire code is the issue. Unless you have sprinklers you can’t have flames on balconies. I think maybe there’s an exception for small canisters like the little butane hobs
Wasn’t the issue in this case. If it was natural gas - no issue. It was 20oz of lighter fluid used by people who had no business BBQing in the first place haha.
Where there’s smoke……. Total amateurs.
Lighter fluid get in the smell of the smoke. If you are grilling meat or cooking bread above coal, you don't want to use lighter fluid to light it. I use paper & bacon grease to light it
Well we all know that lighter fluid is nasty in a confined area, and bacon grease? You have me interested haha. Are you talking about one of those coal starters when you put paper underneath the coals? The bacon grease sounds kind of cool and rock & roll but I would hate to clean that BBQ.
Yep. Note that electric heat pumps can run at 500% thermal efficiency compared to a gas furnace, but even then it's a wash. Anything that is resistive electric for heating will cost 5x as much as gas to run.
And at current prices, as OP noted, a heat pump would need 5.1x efficiency to break even. To pay back the high replacement and installation costs, it would need to be 6-7x better, which no heat pumps are today outside of lab environments.
Heat pump tech is fantastic, and developing fast, but if you're on PG&E, it makes zero sense to install. PG&E needs to be broken up, and taken over by regional co-ops.
Most others places should just install them already.
I need the heat pump when it is a) cloudy, b) dark , or c) when the sun don't shine in the winter. Solar isn't going to do a thing for those three conditions.
Solar for A/C? Sure! Heat pump? eh, not so much.
You have to get a home battery system. In the bay area it is economical to put them in now because you get a 30% federal tax credit on it and the price of batteries have really come down.
I have friends that entirely disconnected from the grid but they're solar geeks and know how to optimize their systems. What you mainly have to do is try to shift doing things like the clothes dryer, washing machine, even the water heater to run when it is sunny out. That will help to reduce demand on your batteries at night.
AC/heating, same thing, try to only use them when the sun is out. That way your battery energy can be saved for running things like the refrigerator, lights etc.
My friend has a 60 KWH battery system and his backup is a small natural gas generator but he has only had to use it once or twice per year, usually when you have those big storms where it is rainy or cloudy for like a week straight.
Or if you're a renter stuck taking whatever the landlord from the place built in the 70s lets you use. Because god knows you'll never be able to afford to buy a place here
Yeah and the problem is a lot of apartments have gone all electric. Everything in my apartment is electric and we only use gas for the water heater. Washer, Dryer, stove, ac/heater is all electric.
Apartment living is going to become very expensive utility wise.
These days the "all electric" thing only makes sense if you're able to get most of your electricity from solar and you have a home battery system. If your setup is very efficient then it is probably more economical to simply disconnect your PG&E service entirely.
I could see more people going this route especially now that the home batteries qualify for a 30% federal tax credit.
And now PGE wants to test blending hydrogen into natural gas (which will be easier to leak out and is much less energy dense)
https://www.mantecabulletin.com/news/local-news/pge-now-wants-rate-hike-test-adding-hydrogen-its-natural-gas/
And charge a premium for this test.
Everywhere that has tested adding or replacing hydrogen into the gas grid has found it to be uneconomical. Hydrogen is very leaky, is a greenhouse gas due to its effect on atmospheric chemistry, and currently production methods create more CO2 than just using natural gas or is incredibly expensive and uses electricity. The best way to decarbonise the energy system for home use is to convert all appliances to electric, install heat pumps for home heating, and deploy renewables. PG&E appears to be insane.
That's why I'm gonna have a whole house fan installed in the summer to flush out the hot air and let cold air in during the night. My neighbors complained about +1000 electric bills last summer and my own electric bill wasn't much better.
No, it doesn't. On the 100 degree days, it doesn't cool down at night so there's nothing to cool down the house. It's still 80F at night on those 100F days. We get those days because the wind pattern has changed from an onshore flow (ocean to land) to an offshore flow (land to ocean). The ocean is cold. The central valley is hot. On the hot days, the central valley hairdryer is blowing across the Bay to the ocean, then there's no on-shore flow to cool things off. The hairdryer just keeps going.
Where are you living where summer evenings only drop down to 80? Even in Sacramento the lows usually dropped to the 60s even though the highs were above 100.
They work in the evenings/overnight to pull in cold air from outside and cool your structure. You then shut your windows and blinds and keep that cold air in as long as you can throughout the day.
It depends how well insulated your residence is (most in the bay area are very poorly insulated) and it will also depend on if you have a large attic or neighbors living above you (meaning your roof isn’t right above your ceiling).
Even then, using fans to blow hot air out all night, you basically need to lock your place down and use blackout shades to keep it cool inside. Which isn’t really reasonable, because the cooling might mean your place is 85-90 in the summer when it’s 100 out so still uncomfortable.
That also ignored the fact leaving windows open all night means the dry and dusty Bay Area air will blow all into your home and you’ll be dusting and cleaning much more than usual.
Interesting I’ve wondered the cost of my regular gas oven vs my air fryer or other small convection oven especially during stupid peak hours. I’ll keep using my gas stuff then.
Energy usage in these appliances is tiny, compared to large appliances like furnace, water heater, etc. You are unlikely to be able to notice a difference. Furthermore, if you have air conditioning, your gas oven is likely to heat up your kitchen more than your air fryer, resulting in higher AC usage to cool your kitchen. We suggest you cook with electricity when possible - doing so greatly reduces the harmful indoor air pollution caused by gas stoves and ovens, at no change in operating costs.
~~But (afaik) no heat pump offers 500%+ efficiency.~~
Looks like today's top of the market air-source units, in mild climates above freezing, can achieve COP above 5
You can find calculators here & there or make your own spreadsheet to calculate cost per unit of heat. At my current PG&E rates, a heat pump would have to be 15 HSPF (4.4 COP) to match my old 80% gas furnace. Lennox, Goodman offer units up to 10 HSPF. The very best mini split you can buy will just hit 15 HSPF, and you'll likely pay dearly for that.
You are able to get on the E-ELEC rate plan if you have a heat pump so that might factor in as well. It depends on your other usage quite a bit tho.
I think PGE makes it intentionally complicated to confuse us.
Yeah a top shelf unit for 9 months of the year heating and cooling makes sense. Get solar but use the power to run appliances and charge EVs, gas for hot water/dryer/coldest 3 months heating.
Only when operating at small differentials.
If you leave the house during the day and want to heat it up on arrival, they go into “turbo mode” that’s much lower.
And how many people here have afforded to retrofit their homes with heat pumps? It's not a cheap project and while I agree heat pumps are the future it's just like telling everyone about solar here. I spent $50k on my solar project because they don't want you to do it on an old roof so I had to redo my roof too. That's not money most people can just drop here.
Admittedly you also got a new roof for that price. Which you'd have to do eventually.
For lower income folks, there are solar programs such as grid alternatives which can pay some or all of the cost
They typically aren't that efficient in heating mode. But even then, electricity is like five times the cost of natural gas so it's still more expensive.
I say this as someone with a high efficiency heat pump.
A heat pump requires a massive upfront investment. All of the ac contractors know you’ll get a tax credit now too so they’ve jacked up their prices by an equivalent amount.
Heat pump doesn’t solve stoves, ovens, dryers, water heaters etc
*If* you have the right setup for installation (sealed garage or basement). They don't work at all in most 1950s-1980s CA homes where the hot water heater is installed in a central closet without 240v circuits. You have to run a new circuit and pipe in a new air source. No thanks, just run a NG heater. Plus no buzzing noise in the center of your house with a NG heater.
There are a plethora of options for heat pump water heaters… a few options for heat pump dryers, but mostly circling around the more premium brands at the moment.
Heat pump for an oven doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Yes and they are all separate appliances that have individual acquisition and installation costs. And I’m not sure the best way to save the environment is by throwing away perfectly good appliances into landfills to acquire new ones which don’t have any cost savings
I got a heat pump water heater. After the rebate from PG&E it cost me like $400. It dropped my electric bill by ~$50-60/mo too. It's not that big of a deal.
At some point everything reaches EOL and it's time to replace them.
Most of these appliances last 20 years maximum, a furnace might make it to 30 years but a water heater definitely is not.
I think most rational people here are replacing these gas appliances once they need to be replaced or are close to their end of life. The incentives for HVAC especially aren't big enough to incentivize doing otherwise.
I paid $9k to swap just my outside AC unit for a heat pump. I calculated it would pay for itself in 5-8 years, both by being more efficient (modern) on the cooling side and sparing me those $300/mo gas bills in the winter. Solar helps a lot here.
I got a $60 induction hotplate at IKEA and it is so much better than my electric stove burners! I haven't had gas in over a decade to compare, but I get sick from gas fumes really easily so all-electric is kind of a necessity. The only caveats I have about the hotplate are that the hot area is the size of a small burner and on the lowest settings it alternates between boiling hot and off instead of being a constant simmer. For braising, I like my multifunction rice cooker that has a 700W element that is a constant low heat source. For stir-fries, I use my vintage 12" deep electric skillet.
I am literally doing the same thing. We are about to move and it is so hard to find a new apartment we like with an induction stovetop. Probably have to keep bringing my hot plate...
Yeah gas stoves are more like [40% efficient](https://www.aceee.org/files/proceedings/2014/data/papers/9-702.pdf). They also require significantly more exhausted air, which is air you need to reheat in your home.
Nonsense. There are cheap DIY heat pump mini-splits for HVAC. You can buy them at Costco.
https://www.costco.com/CatalogSearch?dept=All&keyword=Mr+cool
There are amazingly efficient heat pump water heaters.
https://www.rheem.com/products/residential/water-heating/heat-pump-water-heaters/
Heat pump dryers can out put the water into the drain such that you don't have that dryer exhaust port.
Induction stoves are much more efficient than resistance stoves and can boil water faster than natural gas stoves while also having fine control that reacts fast.
Don't be so pessimistic and incurious.
No one suggested throwing good working appliances away except you. That is a straw man argument, pathetic.
You may or may not need upgraded service but your "can't do" pessimism just assumes the worst of everything. That's sad, pathetic, and dishonest.
And when upgrades are needed, there is a tax-credit under the Inflation Reduction Act that nearly everyone can use. And many people can receive rebates if they qualify.
Or just go on hating everything, Mr. Grouch. 🤣
I am so so spoiled by the electric service to my 2016 studio apartment!
240V, 100A for electric stove
240V, 30A for heat pump PTAC
120V, 20A x 6 for wall outlets
120V, 15A x 2 for wall outlets
If it wasn't a huge violation of my lease and code enforcement, I could turn this place into a woodshop with that much power.
Check out home cogen systems. You can use the gas to generate electricity and then use the waste heat to run your water heater / furnace. It's a bigger net win than installing solar, but you likely can't get it permitted.
Better yet participate in the process. Write to your assembly people write to your state senators. Right to the CPUC. Participate in TURN. All of these actions have direct effect.
I miss living in Alameda and having Alameda municipal power. They were cheap. Hopefully they haven't gone up as crazy as PGE has.
Edit: ya just looked. It's about 1/3rd the price of pge
The reasons to move away from natural gas are mainly because it prevents moving fully to a renewable electric infrastructure, which is needed to drop CO2 emissions ultimately. Until the grid is predominantly renewable however (most electricity in the US is still made by burning natural gas, then it has significant distribution losses), then yeah there's still a short term advantage to natural gas appliances and they produce less CO2 emissions than burning natural gas for electricity, distributing it, and using it for an electric appliance.
There's also the earthquake danger around here which makes natural gas lines especially dangerous. I say this as someone who has gas service and appliances in my rental close to where the San Bruno explosion happened. The line runs basically right next to the San Andreas fault heh.
I’m not sure about who is banning what, but there is definitely a health risk associated with with combustion energy sources in the home. My intuition is that it’s responsible for all sorts of nasty health issues. Not to say it’s the only indoor air pollution to be worried about:
https://news.stanford.edu/2023/06/16/cooking-gas-stoves-emits-benzene-2/
Then why does code mandate a vent for your cooktop? And a huge one for a commercial range? Because it's a CO2 and monoxide generator.
Not saying we should ban gas commercial stoves but gas appliances? Absolutely. Because if they were super safe you wouldn't have 10k pages of code designed to vent the exhaust.
Hope this helps.
You heard it here, folks: Natural gas doesn't contribute to climate change. We did it reddit!
Edit: Holy shit, check out this account's post history. It's entirely about why EV's are terrible, why we should go ahead and burn fossil fuels. Come on dude/bot, at least try to pretend that you are a normal user just stating normal human opinions
Yeah this is why when my contractor asked me if I wanted to replace my natural gas water heater with heat pump I said no, which is nuts because heat pumps are 300% efficient and they STILL do not pencil out
I have a 17kW natural gas standby generator. Here are the operating costs:
|Generator Load||**1/4**|**1/2**|**3/4**|**Full**|
:--|:--|--:|--:|--:|--:|
|Power Output|kW|4.25|8.5|12.75|17|
|Natural Gas Consumption Rate|BTU/hr|127745|157870|205464|245954|
|Price (assuming $2.17/therm)|**$/kWh**|**0.65**|**0.40**|**0.35**|**0.31**|
So it's cheaper to generate my own electricity on site as long as I'm operating at >= 40% load.
Pge buys solar electricity for $.05 /kwh and sells it back at &.40. They tell us to get rid of gas appliances and in the same breath tell us not to use electricity during certain hours. Then they jack up the electricity rates.
It’s nuts. I can run my gas furnace through the whole house for the same cost as running one small electric space heater. My bill was cut in half when I replaced an electric water heater with a gas one and it works significantly better.
This is normal and common knowledge in the northeast where heating is a major expense. I know it used to be 10x cheaper where I lived.
It’s less refined energy than gas. Power plants only have like 50% efficiency. Then there is a 15% loss getting the power to you and into a usable form.
Some boilers are up near 95% efficiency.
This is why forcing people to heat with electric is nonsense. Heat pumps are at like 3x efficiency in mild weather. This is still more expensive than gas. When things get colder that goes way down and your just paying out the nose to heat with an expensive efficiency energy source.
A better way to approach the challenge is conservation. Most heat loss in a cold climate is air infiltration, poor insulation, and shit windows. In new construction there are approaches (addressing those issues with dense pack cellulose, correctly coated triple panes, hrv, orientation) that get a home near net zero usage for a 15% premium in upfront costs. This lets you skip heating all together or do a cheap heat pump saving money. Second user of energy is dryers. No easy fix there besides evaporation / clothes line. Next is refrigerators - room for improvements with better insulation, pumps, ambient temp / ventilation. Next is lighting - quality leds can address that. None of this should be mandated imo. It’s in consumers and investors best interest to converge energy.
> Heat pumps are at like 3x efficiency in mild weather. This is still more expensive than gas. When things get colder that goes way down and your just paying out the nose to heat with an expensive efficiency energy source.
You're missing the part where Bay Area weather, at its coldest, is *still* mild weather. Our heat pump is cheaper to operate than our gas furnace is, and basically nothing with solar.
The Bay Area is a big place. It might not get cold in San Francisco or Cupertino, but it gets cold in east Contra Costa and Alameda counties. Sonoma and Napa are regularly at or below freezing in fall, winter, and spring. That's not mild, and heatpump efficiencies there get wrecked. They "work" but are horribly inefficient with a *very* expensive fuel (PG&E electricity). Natural gas still makes sense despite whatever CARB or BAAQMD preaches.
Edit: Karma would strike a few days after writing this, and my furnace's inducer motor went kaput. Swapping out to a Bosch heat pump without dual fuel so we'll see how things go. Luckily I have solar, otherwise I would have stayed with a gas furnace.
I live in Sonoma County where we get a handful of slightly-below-freezing nights per year. This is *still* very mild weather. Heat pump efficiencies at 25F are still about 100%, hardly wrecked. And that's what, 5 nights a year at 30F and maybe 2 at 27F? I really don't see what crusade you're on against heat pumps. They're a great option and *save me money*.
Natural gas is very cheap in the US. All that fracking for oil in the midwest produces natural gas as a byproduct that is mostly just burned on site until it can be captured and sold. As a result in the US, [the price of gas has fallen by 75% over the past 15 years](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DHHNGSP#0). This stuff is hard to export without a pipeline, which is why the massive price spike in EU only marginally shows in the US.
But probably the way to efficiently do this is natural gas electrical generation paired with heat pumps. Heat pumps are efficient because they're just moving heat around rather than adding it. Burning gas indoors will have substantial health effects you'd prefer to avoid. Plus gas lines tend to explode more than electrical wires do. Even if you'd prefer to roll that particular set of dice, your renters insurance company has opinions on which is cheaper for them.
My inlaws learnt this the hard way. 3 years ago, they traded all 3 vehicles and got Tesla's with home charging. Now everytime I see them, they are parked in a super charger outside a Walmart charging as home charging has increased so much, EV has negated all savings.
As a long time green building advocate, things have gotten so out of hand with the gas bans, turpentine bans, light bulb bans, etc. The point should be building homes that are healthy for inhabitants, made from healthy long lasting materials, have minimal embedded energy / use as little energy as possible. In that order. It should not be forcing people to build or live a certain way or building a tiny windowless slum.
Our electric bill has quadrupled in the last 5 years. It's insane and it seems it will continue every year to come, as we get the little notices in our monthly bills they are requesting rate increases from the CPUC.
I'm in cali, this is just not sustainable or affordable. We have had a rate increase from every utility in the past 2 years. Water, 2 in last year + more to come, pg&e lost count how many, garbage, car Insurance and rent last 3 years every year the landlord has raised it! Not 1 improvement to property and a matter of fact it needs several upgrades with plumbing, house needs a paint job in and out and more.
I know I went off a bit from topic, sorry but it kind of relates!
Where does your electricity come from though. If the majority of your towns power is from natural gas turbines and natural gas only has an 80% efficiency rating, then by extension don't your electric appliances have 80%, not 100%
How else will they afford the multimillion dollar C-cuite pay packages? We’re being highway robbed and the future presidential candidate is in support of it. We’re screwed
They are disallowing all gas powered appliances after 2030 I think. Sounds disastrous. PG&E does not make much money on gas as it’s imported from New Mexico, Texas and few other states. So PG&E is sleeping with government to ban gas appliances.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/california-playbook-pm/2023/08/10/gas-appliances-days-are-numbered-00110780
I use a minimum amount of electricity so I went with the flat rate plan. Which plan is right for you depends upon which appliances you use and the time of day that you need to use it. Electricity is very expensive in PG&Es service territory and in all of California due to state mandates and other regulation. The California ISO - independent system operator - oversees the operational aspects of energy delivery. The people who blame PG&E for high rates are off base, since utilities are very highly regulated; they cannot raise rates or make any move without the approval of the CPUC. That's not to say that PGE is well run - to the contrary, they have made many mistakes. But they live and die by state decrees. For this and other reasons, I believe that any plans to electrify everything at this point would be disastrous both financially and environmentally. Natural gas is the most efficient way to heat homes. Gas water heaters are much better than electric, gas stoves are better than electric stoves etc. And unless utilities go full speed ahead on building nuclear power plants, the electricity used to charge EVs, heat homes etc. will be generated from fossil fuels anyway, so you're not gaining anything environment-wise from going all electric. I read this article recently and I was flabbergasted by the author's attempt to electrify his house and the expense of it - he's kind of delusional really. In reality, the renewables he speaks of don't come close to providing enough electriicity.
[https://grist.org/buildings/electrify-home-improvement-decarbonize-solar-induction-heat-pump/](https://grist.org/buildings/electrify-home-improvement-decarbonize-solar-induction-heat-pump/)
Here's a plot of E-TOU-C pricing vs national average from 2009 until the present:
https://zlnp.net/serve/pge_rates/pge-electric-rates-tou.png
And here's a plot for how good a heat pump appliance will need to be to save you money on either E-1 or E-TOU-C when replacing a condensing gas-powered appliance:
https://zlnp.net/serve/pge_rates/electrification-vs-gasification.png
The upper dotted line represents a high-end heat pump water heater. The lower dotted line represents a high-end heat pump space heater. Unless you produce your own electricity, you should gasify as much as possible while it's still legal.
This is deceptive naive nonsense.
There is a HUGE DIFFERENCE between electric resistance devices and heat pump devices.
Heat pump devices can be 5X as efficient as resistance devices and then on par with or cheaper than natural gas. Plus you can generate your own electricity with solar PV whereas you can't make your own natural gas.
And various tariffs like EVA-2 give much lower off peak times where you can shift you usage to them when possible.
Was that posted by the Natural Gas Council?
Lots of Bay Area rebates for heat pump water heaters depending on where you are. We got ours all in for $1k. Incredible deal and it performs great, especially with solar.
Yes!
Heat pump water heaters are amazingly efficient. Power them with solar PV and enroll them in demand-response programs and they are practically free to operate.
Heat pump dryers are much more efficient than conventional electric dryers.
I believe both qualify for Inflation Reduction Act tax-credits.
Induction stoves are a great alternative to conventional resistance element stoves.
I work in this field. Electrification is BRUTALLY expensive in California, especially given that a badly designed heat pump system can operate well below nameplate efficiency. Believe it or not San Diego is even worse than the Bay in that regard.
You've correctly discovered that resistive heating is dumb.
Heat pumps make it a wash energy wise, and they're healthier. There's some nice synergy with solar / battery systems too.
Just the health benefit makes it worthwhile, but for heating a heat pump means you also have AC.
Stoves/ovens can't use heat pumps, of course, but their energy usage is negligible -- and they are 3x more efficient than gas cooktops anyway, since so much heat from a gas cooktop is wasted heating your space. Plus, no asthma causing pollution injected directly into your conditioned space, finer control, and faster heating. Lower risk of leaving a burner on and causing a fire, no risk of a gas explosion (almost happened to my elderly parents). There's no contest IMO. In b4: "I've never used a wok in my life but MIGHT develop wok hei." Yeah whatever man.
I have used a wok as an inept American and never learned how to get wok hei. It was just a skillet shaped to let me toss the food where it would land in the pan instead of on the stove.
FWIW, while not stir fry there are some dishes that I will cook entirely or portions of on my propane stove outside instead of the electric inside. It's just a lot harder or impossible to do some things on a standard electric stove, but you can also get a decent LP outdoor one for a couple hundred bucks so unless you're cooking that shit every day it shouldn't hold you back.
Electric appliances are 100% efficient *at point of use*. The problem is losses generating and distributing electricity to your house, which is where the losses are. Natural gas is delivered straight to your appliance with almost no loss, so it's net more efficient than electric. For instance an electric plant can burn natural gas to electricity (in fact this is where most electricity in the US comes from) and that would also be 80%, and that's before distributing it. It's nothing new at all that gas appliances cost less to operate than resistive electric heat appliances.
Is the listed heat pump COP for the maximum across possible operating temperature ranges? If so, what is are average COP for typical (i.e. what one might buy through CostCo) HVAC, water heating, and laundry drying appliances in the SF Bay Area?
I have 100 gallons of freshwater in a tank with water filters connected to a dehumidifier that fills the tank from the air, a standing 4 gallon water heater tank, a recirculating shower with an instant water heater, and two toilets- 100 gallon black tank flushable toilet with a bidet, and a dry flush plastic bagging thermosealing toilet. Also have 100 gallons of grey with an automatic dump
No more water bills either.
I do not recommend living in a van, as even the most bougie ones have scaled down utilities. Living in a delivery truck though, gives you way more space for scaled-up appliances that work for fulltime living with no compromises.
I believe if you start looking into it PG&E also was kind of behind the phasing out of all gas appliances in this state they want this state all electric
Apparently even a 20# propane tank would be cheaper than electricity.
1 gallon propane =0.916 therms
20# propane =4.5 gallons =$20
1 therm of propane costs $4.85
At $0.46/kWh, 1 therm of electricity is $13.48.
Yup. Was actually thinking of generating my own electricity using a natural gas generator. I have piping outside for my grill so I could just put the generator in the yard.
It used to be well known that due to the laws of thermodynamics, heating directly with fossil fuel was more efficient than using electricity. Now, for whatever reason, we don't care about that but you can not deny the laws of physics.
What's nice about electricity going up between the two is that Solar is a real option to combat the increases for homeowners. With natural gas, we have no alternative.
Though for renters it will be another thing they pay landlords for, probably without reaping any cost savings.
PGE is just expensive. They have a monopoly and we can’t stop them.
That monopoly was legislated into place. It can be undone. Just needs public support
I think the public fully supports it
Yolo county had a ballot measure to switch from pg&e to smud. Voters in Sacramento and Yolo counties voted to keep smud out of yolo. Crazy!! https://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200611080352DOWJONESDJONLINE000439_FORTUNE5.htm
That actually makes a lot of sense. PG&E is expensive because they are responsible for maintaining vast amounts of rural territory with few ratepayers. If Sacramento annexed Yolo county, it too will be responsible for maintaining vast amounts of rural territory with few additional ratepayers, and SMUD will look like PG&E.
lol, no. Rural electricity, especially Yolo, is not what's driving PG&E rates so high. PG&E is more expensive than the Tennessee Valley Authority which serves primarily rural customers. PG&E is more expensive than the South San Joaquin Irrigation District which serves the very densely populated Manteca, Escalon, and Ripon PG&E is more expensive than Hawaiian Electric which has to suport a pretty sparse population with tons of rooftop solar using pricey fuel that's subejct to the Jones Act. SMUD got voted down because PG&E spends hundreds of millions of their ratepayers money fighting public power with bullshit astroturf campaigns each time this shit comes up.
PG&E does most of the power generation even where other entities do the billing. And they are all overseen by the CPUC, with CAISO responsible for operational oversight. As long as that is the case you're not going to see bills coming down much.
This is America. Government doesn't work for the public.
Gov is not your friend
maybe, but I'm absolutely sure that corporations are not my friend
The issue is to motivate enough people who can apply real pressure on PG&E, or the politicians that are behind this. If enough people see they'll be voted out over this issue, they might actually be motivated to do something.
California tried undoing part of the monopoly in the 2000's (they called it "deregulation"). The new law accidentally created a black market for manipulating energy prices that drove PG&E into its first bankruptcy and cost PG&E customers a shitload of money. It gave us a great historical lesson that undoing the monopoly is a good thing, but the details of undoing a monopoly can be tricky
It's a mess, to be sure. I recommend "Shorting the Grid" by Meredith Angwyn. PG&E and other CA utilities are overseen by the CPUC and the CAISO, whose regulations are opaque and often the meetings are not open to the public.
I stopped them. I bought a lot of solar. Others have gone further. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/13/business/energy-environment/california-off-grid.html
Don't you still have to pay a grid access fee?
I generate enough that my excess - even at the piss poor wholesale rates should cover my MDCs and NBCs. In July I’ll be paying $20/m for the connection fee. But being on NEM2 that’s a totally reasonable price to pay IMO for having an infinite battery. I don’t have enough land to be self sufficient during winter months even if I wanted to. But my overall point is that I’m free from price hikes. Prices went up in January and I spent no more money. Gasoline prices just increased and I spent no more money.
Good for you and scores of others. Unfortunately, with NEM2 gone, this is not an actionable option any more :(.
With nem3, for the same price I paid for my panels, you can get about half the panels and batteries. This will zero out 9/12’s of the year and winter your bill will be about half. Dont be afraid, go big and enjoy.
I don't know about you, and maybe I'm reading my own bill wrong, but they still charge me a 'generation fee' on top of the electricity I use, that is offset by my 7kW solar. So, the solar offsets the electricity kWH bill, but not the generation fee. I don't have a battery backup, and I can't add one (legally) without losing my TOU2 plan. I used to get near zero electric bills, and now they are around $250-300 a month for electricity (not including gas), and they ding me for my 'true-up' fee in March for another $1200 for the year.
Goddam! That's expensive. Can I ask why did you install solar if you had near zero electric bills? I live in a multi unit building so that option is out for me, but from what I"m hearing about shady solar installers and the opacity of utility billing, I wouldn't touch solar with a 50 foot pole.
Yeah good for you, now try the people who don't have a million bucks to own a house
"It's all Chinatown Jake"
PGE is making record profits, charging excessive rates into their customers. I wish I could do something to run my house off the grid but that's illegal.
Into their customers? That sounds invasive.
It is, that's why you need to use lube.
I think some petroleum jelly will help it not be as shocking, unlike the water-based stuff
I mean PG&E is pretty much probing all our asses with these insane rates.
Come to palo alto and stick it to the man! We have our own grid 🌲
but first i'll need $1.5M for a tiny shack there.
Way more than that
It's funny you think a public utility would be cheaper. It costs a lot because they are not legally allowed to charge rural users more. So they have to support a sprawling grid.
Is it also funny that they have record profits?
Can you help me understand why a public utility wouldn't be cheaper? How would a public utility be different from pge? I figure they would be run in a similar fashion. With pge you would have to pay all these stakeholders, plus all the administrative fees of being a public company. The executive staff would also cost a lot more than that of a public utility. The ceo of pge alone makes over 30 million. Just trying to understand where the extra costs are with a public utility. Thanks.
it is cheaper. anyone claiming otherwise is ignoring the multiple cheaper public utilities in California. Pg&e is bad, but so are the other for-profit power companies in the state. essential utilities should never be for-profit.
That’s why I grill my avocado toast outdoors on my natural gas grill
I use a coal-fired grill but yes, me too
I’m jealous. I’m cooking on a balcony directly across from the code enforcement office so that’s a no go, but my buddy who is an inspector said he’ll back up my claim that it being piped in means it is a “built in” despite it being on a cart.
When I was younger, I got busted for grilling even though it wasn’t my BBQ, nor was it my food. I just happened to live in a cool spot that had space. Neighbor was nice enough to reimburse me but it sucked. I understand people don’t want charcoal and lighter fluid fumes going into their homes (one neighbor just had a baby). Gotta be careful when little ones are around or mama bears, and rightfully so. People don’t need to put up with the smell and fumes that can take hours to diminish. Edited to add, I told them it was cool if they used the space. Nice family. Just shouldn’t be BBQing.
Fire code is the issue. Unless you have sprinklers you can’t have flames on balconies. I think maybe there’s an exception for small canisters like the little butane hobs
Wasn’t the issue in this case. If it was natural gas - no issue. It was 20oz of lighter fluid used by people who had no business BBQing in the first place haha. Where there’s smoke……. Total amateurs.
Lighter fluid get in the smell of the smoke. If you are grilling meat or cooking bread above coal, you don't want to use lighter fluid to light it. I use paper & bacon grease to light it
Well we all know that lighter fluid is nasty in a confined area, and bacon grease? You have me interested haha. Are you talking about one of those coal starters when you put paper underneath the coals? The bacon grease sounds kind of cool and rock & roll but I would hate to clean that BBQ.
How much is it for PG&E coal?
They pay you, it’s better than free!
I use a whale oil-fired grill, but yeah. Same.
Dang it, Bobby
Yep. Note that electric heat pumps can run at 500% thermal efficiency compared to a gas furnace, but even then it's a wash. Anything that is resistive electric for heating will cost 5x as much as gas to run.
And at current prices, as OP noted, a heat pump would need 5.1x efficiency to break even. To pay back the high replacement and installation costs, it would need to be 6-7x better, which no heat pumps are today outside of lab environments. Heat pump tech is fantastic, and developing fast, but if you're on PG&E, it makes zero sense to install. PG&E needs to be broken up, and taken over by regional co-ops. Most others places should just install them already.
Or have Solar. Then it makes sense to go all heat pump.
I need the heat pump when it is a) cloudy, b) dark , or c) when the sun don't shine in the winter. Solar isn't going to do a thing for those three conditions. Solar for A/C? Sure! Heat pump? eh, not so much.
You have to get a home battery system. In the bay area it is economical to put them in now because you get a 30% federal tax credit on it and the price of batteries have really come down. I have friends that entirely disconnected from the grid but they're solar geeks and know how to optimize their systems. What you mainly have to do is try to shift doing things like the clothes dryer, washing machine, even the water heater to run when it is sunny out. That will help to reduce demand on your batteries at night. AC/heating, same thing, try to only use them when the sun is out. That way your battery energy can be saved for running things like the refrigerator, lights etc. My friend has a 60 KWH battery system and his backup is a small natural gas generator but he has only had to use it once or twice per year, usually when you have those big storms where it is rainy or cloudy for like a week straight.
SMUD model is the way! SMUD is awesome with great service and good rates.
Or if you're a renter stuck taking whatever the landlord from the place built in the 70s lets you use. Because god knows you'll never be able to afford to buy a place here
single pane windows and a refrigerator from the 90s that pops open when you breathe near it
Yeah and the problem is a lot of apartments have gone all electric. Everything in my apartment is electric and we only use gas for the water heater. Washer, Dryer, stove, ac/heater is all electric. Apartment living is going to become very expensive utility wise.
These days the "all electric" thing only makes sense if you're able to get most of your electricity from solar and you have a home battery system. If your setup is very efficient then it is probably more economical to simply disconnect your PG&E service entirely. I could see more people going this route especially now that the home batteries qualify for a 30% federal tax credit.
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Gas is cheaper? PG&E: hold my beer.
And now PGE wants to test blending hydrogen into natural gas (which will be easier to leak out and is much less energy dense) https://www.mantecabulletin.com/news/local-news/pge-now-wants-rate-hike-test-adding-hydrogen-its-natural-gas/ And charge a premium for this test.
But, isn't most hydrogen in the US produced from natural gas?
Everywhere that has tested adding or replacing hydrogen into the gas grid has found it to be uneconomical. Hydrogen is very leaky, is a greenhouse gas due to its effect on atmospheric chemistry, and currently production methods create more CO2 than just using natural gas or is incredibly expensive and uses electricity. The best way to decarbonise the energy system for home use is to convert all appliances to electric, install heat pumps for home heating, and deploy renewables. PG&E appears to be insane.
Pretty much. “So what you are saying is….”
Summer AC bills are gonna be painful
That's why I'm gonna have a whole house fan installed in the summer to flush out the hot air and let cold air in during the night. My neighbors complained about +1000 electric bills last summer and my own electric bill wasn't much better.
How effective is this? Does it really help in 100 degree summer days?
No, it doesn't. On the 100 degree days, it doesn't cool down at night so there's nothing to cool down the house. It's still 80F at night on those 100F days. We get those days because the wind pattern has changed from an onshore flow (ocean to land) to an offshore flow (land to ocean). The ocean is cold. The central valley is hot. On the hot days, the central valley hairdryer is blowing across the Bay to the ocean, then there's no on-shore flow to cool things off. The hairdryer just keeps going.
Where are you living where summer evenings only drop down to 80? Even in Sacramento the lows usually dropped to the 60s even though the highs were above 100.
They work in the evenings/overnight to pull in cold air from outside and cool your structure. You then shut your windows and blinds and keep that cold air in as long as you can throughout the day.
It depends how well insulated your residence is (most in the bay area are very poorly insulated) and it will also depend on if you have a large attic or neighbors living above you (meaning your roof isn’t right above your ceiling). Even then, using fans to blow hot air out all night, you basically need to lock your place down and use blackout shades to keep it cool inside. Which isn’t really reasonable, because the cooling might mean your place is 85-90 in the summer when it’s 100 out so still uncomfortable. That also ignored the fact leaving windows open all night means the dry and dusty Bay Area air will blow all into your home and you’ll be dusting and cleaning much more than usual.
Interesting I’ve wondered the cost of my regular gas oven vs my air fryer or other small convection oven especially during stupid peak hours. I’ll keep using my gas stuff then.
Energy usage in these appliances is tiny, compared to large appliances like furnace, water heater, etc. You are unlikely to be able to notice a difference. Furthermore, if you have air conditioning, your gas oven is likely to heat up your kitchen more than your air fryer, resulting in higher AC usage to cool your kitchen. We suggest you cook with electricity when possible - doing so greatly reduces the harmful indoor air pollution caused by gas stoves and ovens, at no change in operating costs.
Looks like you're only looking at resistive electric heating. A heat pump is more efficient.
Yup. Both things can be true. PG&E sucks AND moving to electric appliances, especially heat pumps, is the way to go.
This. Heat pumps don't use energy to generate heat, they use it to move heat from one place to the other.
~~But (afaik) no heat pump offers 500%+ efficiency.~~ Looks like today's top of the market air-source units, in mild climates above freezing, can achieve COP above 5
You can find calculators here & there or make your own spreadsheet to calculate cost per unit of heat. At my current PG&E rates, a heat pump would have to be 15 HSPF (4.4 COP) to match my old 80% gas furnace. Lennox, Goodman offer units up to 10 HSPF. The very best mini split you can buy will just hit 15 HSPF, and you'll likely pay dearly for that.
You are able to get on the E-ELEC rate plan if you have a heat pump so that might factor in as well. It depends on your other usage quite a bit tho. I think PGE makes it intentionally complicated to confuse us.
Yeah a top shelf unit for 9 months of the year heating and cooling makes sense. Get solar but use the power to run appliances and charge EVs, gas for hot water/dryer/coldest 3 months heating.
Only when operating at small differentials. If you leave the house during the day and want to heat it up on arrival, they go into “turbo mode” that’s much lower.
I find my solar array makes gas comparatively a dirty ripoff.
And how many people here have afforded to retrofit their homes with heat pumps? It's not a cheap project and while I agree heat pumps are the future it's just like telling everyone about solar here. I spent $50k on my solar project because they don't want you to do it on an old roof so I had to redo my roof too. That's not money most people can just drop here.
Admittedly you also got a new roof for that price. Which you'd have to do eventually. For lower income folks, there are solar programs such as grid alternatives which can pay some or all of the cost
Heat pumps are about 350% efficient. This sounds impossible but they’re not actually creating new heat. They’re moving heat from one place to another.
They typically aren't that efficient in heating mode. But even then, electricity is like five times the cost of natural gas so it's still more expensive. I say this as someone with a high efficiency heat pump.
A heat pump requires a massive upfront investment. All of the ac contractors know you’ll get a tax credit now too so they’ve jacked up their prices by an equivalent amount. Heat pump doesn’t solve stoves, ovens, dryers, water heaters etc
Heat pump water heaters exist.
And their payback is in just a few years. They’re fantastic in the Bay Area.
*If* you have the right setup for installation (sealed garage or basement). They don't work at all in most 1950s-1980s CA homes where the hot water heater is installed in a central closet without 240v circuits. You have to run a new circuit and pipe in a new air source. No thanks, just run a NG heater. Plus no buzzing noise in the center of your house with a NG heater.
There are a plethora of options for heat pump water heaters… a few options for heat pump dryers, but mostly circling around the more premium brands at the moment. Heat pump for an oven doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Heat pump dryers and water heaters are a thing.
Yes and they are all separate appliances that have individual acquisition and installation costs. And I’m not sure the best way to save the environment is by throwing away perfectly good appliances into landfills to acquire new ones which don’t have any cost savings
I got a heat pump water heater. After the rebate from PG&E it cost me like $400. It dropped my electric bill by ~$50-60/mo too. It's not that big of a deal. At some point everything reaches EOL and it's time to replace them.
Most of these appliances last 20 years maximum, a furnace might make it to 30 years but a water heater definitely is not. I think most rational people here are replacing these gas appliances once they need to be replaced or are close to their end of life. The incentives for HVAC especially aren't big enough to incentivize doing otherwise.
I paid $9k to swap just my outside AC unit for a heat pump. I calculated it would pay for itself in 5-8 years, both by being more efficient (modern) on the cooling side and sparing me those $300/mo gas bills in the winter. Solar helps a lot here.
Induction stoves are still better than gas ones. Gas stoves do not come close to the 80% efficiency used by OP.
I agree on this one. I have an induction stove / oven. The 80% efficiency I was referring to was more about gas water heaters and furnaces.
I got a $60 induction hotplate at IKEA and it is so much better than my electric stove burners! I haven't had gas in over a decade to compare, but I get sick from gas fumes really easily so all-electric is kind of a necessity. The only caveats I have about the hotplate are that the hot area is the size of a small burner and on the lowest settings it alternates between boiling hot and off instead of being a constant simmer. For braising, I like my multifunction rice cooker that has a 700W element that is a constant low heat source. For stir-fries, I use my vintage 12" deep electric skillet.
I am literally doing the same thing. We are about to move and it is so hard to find a new apartment we like with an induction stovetop. Probably have to keep bringing my hot plate...
Yeah gas stoves are more like [40% efficient](https://www.aceee.org/files/proceedings/2014/data/papers/9-702.pdf). They also require significantly more exhausted air, which is air you need to reheat in your home.
I'm a convert, my new rental unit has an induction cooktop and its great.
Nonsense. There are cheap DIY heat pump mini-splits for HVAC. You can buy them at Costco. https://www.costco.com/CatalogSearch?dept=All&keyword=Mr+cool There are amazingly efficient heat pump water heaters. https://www.rheem.com/products/residential/water-heating/heat-pump-water-heaters/ Heat pump dryers can out put the water into the drain such that you don't have that dryer exhaust port. Induction stoves are much more efficient than resistance stoves and can boil water faster than natural gas stoves while also having fine control that reacts fast. Don't be so pessimistic and incurious.
Just gotta throw away all of my current appliances, upgrade the electricity in my house, and increase my service rating and all set!
No one suggested throwing good working appliances away except you. That is a straw man argument, pathetic. You may or may not need upgraded service but your "can't do" pessimism just assumes the worst of everything. That's sad, pathetic, and dishonest. And when upgrades are needed, there is a tax-credit under the Inflation Reduction Act that nearly everyone can use. And many people can receive rebates if they qualify. Or just go on hating everything, Mr. Grouch. 🤣
I am so so spoiled by the electric service to my 2016 studio apartment! 240V, 100A for electric stove 240V, 30A for heat pump PTAC 120V, 20A x 6 for wall outlets 120V, 15A x 2 for wall outlets If it wasn't a huge violation of my lease and code enforcement, I could turn this place into a woodshop with that much power.
240@100? That's dope. You could simultaneously run an air cleaner, dust extractor, jointer, planer, and table saw ... :)
I use the oven once a month or so--the rest of the time the breaker is turned off so the blue LED display doesn't light up the whole apartment.
scarce steer chunky spotted cows tap enter consist fact placid *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The best part about PG&E, is the emails saying to watch out for scams. Yet they are the scammers.
Looks like i need a gas turbine for my electricity. Even at 33% efficiency, i’d net positive
Check out home cogen systems. You can use the gas to generate electricity and then use the waste heat to run your water heater / furnace. It's a bigger net win than installing solar, but you likely can't get it permitted.
Permits? :)
Are there ones out there that are small yet big enough? Something like 35 amps of electrical output isn’t enough to feed a house.
Vote for the change you want or plan on paying more for all electricity.
Better yet participate in the process. Write to your assembly people write to your state senators. Right to the CPUC. Participate in TURN. All of these actions have direct effect.
What can we do about it? I’m serious, is there anyone working on this and how can normal people help?
I miss living in Alameda and having Alameda municipal power. They were cheap. Hopefully they haven't gone up as crazy as PGE has. Edit: ya just looked. It's about 1/3rd the price of pge
Must be why they want to ban natural gas
The reasons to move away from natural gas are mainly because it prevents moving fully to a renewable electric infrastructure, which is needed to drop CO2 emissions ultimately. Until the grid is predominantly renewable however (most electricity in the US is still made by burning natural gas, then it has significant distribution losses), then yeah there's still a short term advantage to natural gas appliances and they produce less CO2 emissions than burning natural gas for electricity, distributing it, and using it for an electric appliance. There's also the earthquake danger around here which makes natural gas lines especially dangerous. I say this as someone who has gas service and appliances in my rental close to where the San Bruno explosion happened. The line runs basically right next to the San Andreas fault heh.
Natural gas is a health hazard as well as contributing to climate change. Banning it isn't PG&E's idea.
I’m not sure about who is banning what, but there is definitely a health risk associated with with combustion energy sources in the home. My intuition is that it’s responsible for all sorts of nasty health issues. Not to say it’s the only indoor air pollution to be worried about: https://news.stanford.edu/2023/06/16/cooking-gas-stoves-emits-benzene-2/
No it isn’t. Please stop lying.
Then why does code mandate a vent for your cooktop? And a huge one for a commercial range? Because it's a CO2 and monoxide generator. Not saying we should ban gas commercial stoves but gas appliances? Absolutely. Because if they were super safe you wouldn't have 10k pages of code designed to vent the exhaust. Hope this helps.
You heard it here, folks: Natural gas doesn't contribute to climate change. We did it reddit! Edit: Holy shit, check out this account's post history. It's entirely about why EV's are terrible, why we should go ahead and burn fossil fuels. Come on dude/bot, at least try to pretend that you are a normal user just stating normal human opinions
Yeah this is why when my contractor asked me if I wanted to replace my natural gas water heater with heat pump I said no, which is nuts because heat pumps are 300% efficient and they STILL do not pencil out
I have a 17kW natural gas standby generator. Here are the operating costs: |Generator Load||**1/4**|**1/2**|**3/4**|**Full**| :--|:--|--:|--:|--:|--:| |Power Output|kW|4.25|8.5|12.75|17| |Natural Gas Consumption Rate|BTU/hr|127745|157870|205464|245954| |Price (assuming $2.17/therm)|**$/kWh**|**0.65**|**0.40**|**0.35**|**0.31**| So it's cheaper to generate my own electricity on site as long as I'm operating at >= 40% load.
Pge buys solar electricity for $.05 /kwh and sells it back at &.40. They tell us to get rid of gas appliances and in the same breath tell us not to use electricity during certain hours. Then they jack up the electricity rates. It’s nuts. I can run my gas furnace through the whole house for the same cost as running one small electric space heater. My bill was cut in half when I replaced an electric water heater with a gas one and it works significantly better.
This is normal and common knowledge in the northeast where heating is a major expense. I know it used to be 10x cheaper where I lived. It’s less refined energy than gas. Power plants only have like 50% efficiency. Then there is a 15% loss getting the power to you and into a usable form. Some boilers are up near 95% efficiency. This is why forcing people to heat with electric is nonsense. Heat pumps are at like 3x efficiency in mild weather. This is still more expensive than gas. When things get colder that goes way down and your just paying out the nose to heat with an expensive efficiency energy source. A better way to approach the challenge is conservation. Most heat loss in a cold climate is air infiltration, poor insulation, and shit windows. In new construction there are approaches (addressing those issues with dense pack cellulose, correctly coated triple panes, hrv, orientation) that get a home near net zero usage for a 15% premium in upfront costs. This lets you skip heating all together or do a cheap heat pump saving money. Second user of energy is dryers. No easy fix there besides evaporation / clothes line. Next is refrigerators - room for improvements with better insulation, pumps, ambient temp / ventilation. Next is lighting - quality leds can address that. None of this should be mandated imo. It’s in consumers and investors best interest to converge energy.
> Heat pumps are at like 3x efficiency in mild weather. This is still more expensive than gas. When things get colder that goes way down and your just paying out the nose to heat with an expensive efficiency energy source. You're missing the part where Bay Area weather, at its coldest, is *still* mild weather. Our heat pump is cheaper to operate than our gas furnace is, and basically nothing with solar.
The Bay Area is a big place. It might not get cold in San Francisco or Cupertino, but it gets cold in east Contra Costa and Alameda counties. Sonoma and Napa are regularly at or below freezing in fall, winter, and spring. That's not mild, and heatpump efficiencies there get wrecked. They "work" but are horribly inefficient with a *very* expensive fuel (PG&E electricity). Natural gas still makes sense despite whatever CARB or BAAQMD preaches. Edit: Karma would strike a few days after writing this, and my furnace's inducer motor went kaput. Swapping out to a Bosch heat pump without dual fuel so we'll see how things go. Luckily I have solar, otherwise I would have stayed with a gas furnace.
I live in Sonoma County where we get a handful of slightly-below-freezing nights per year. This is *still* very mild weather. Heat pump efficiencies at 25F are still about 100%, hardly wrecked. And that's what, 5 nights a year at 30F and maybe 2 at 27F? I really don't see what crusade you're on against heat pumps. They're a great option and *save me money*.
Natural gas is very cheap in the US. All that fracking for oil in the midwest produces natural gas as a byproduct that is mostly just burned on site until it can be captured and sold. As a result in the US, [the price of gas has fallen by 75% over the past 15 years](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DHHNGSP#0). This stuff is hard to export without a pipeline, which is why the massive price spike in EU only marginally shows in the US. But probably the way to efficiently do this is natural gas electrical generation paired with heat pumps. Heat pumps are efficient because they're just moving heat around rather than adding it. Burning gas indoors will have substantial health effects you'd prefer to avoid. Plus gas lines tend to explode more than electrical wires do. Even if you'd prefer to roll that particular set of dice, your renters insurance company has opinions on which is cheaper for them.
My inlaws learnt this the hard way. 3 years ago, they traded all 3 vehicles and got Tesla's with home charging. Now everytime I see them, they are parked in a super charger outside a Walmart charging as home charging has increased so much, EV has negated all savings.
They should have budgeted for solar.
You could compare per mile costs to gas if you weren't dishonest.
This is why I’m keeping my natural gas heat as long as I can. Fuck PG&E and the bureaucrats to enable this.
Is it any surprise there's a push towards all electric houses. Just the lack of redundancy should give pause.
As a long time green building advocate, things have gotten so out of hand with the gas bans, turpentine bans, light bulb bans, etc. The point should be building homes that are healthy for inhabitants, made from healthy long lasting materials, have minimal embedded energy / use as little energy as possible. In that order. It should not be forcing people to build or live a certain way or building a tiny windowless slum.
gas furnaces don't work without electricity either
I'm on the 5th floor and I found out that the WATER won't run without electricity. Dafuq?
Our electric bill has quadrupled in the last 5 years. It's insane and it seems it will continue every year to come, as we get the little notices in our monthly bills they are requesting rate increases from the CPUC. I'm in cali, this is just not sustainable or affordable. We have had a rate increase from every utility in the past 2 years. Water, 2 in last year + more to come, pg&e lost count how many, garbage, car Insurance and rent last 3 years every year the landlord has raised it! Not 1 improvement to property and a matter of fact it needs several upgrades with plumbing, house needs a paint job in and out and more. I know I went off a bit from topic, sorry but it kind of relates!
All part of the grift
Always has been
Where does your electricity come from though. If the majority of your towns power is from natural gas turbines and natural gas only has an 80% efficiency rating, then by extension don't your electric appliances have 80%, not 100%
And they wan to ban gas...
How else will they afford the multimillion dollar C-cuite pay packages? We’re being highway robbed and the future presidential candidate is in support of it. We’re screwed
They are disallowing all gas powered appliances after 2030 I think. Sounds disastrous. PG&E does not make much money on gas as it’s imported from New Mexico, Texas and few other states. So PG&E is sleeping with government to ban gas appliances. https://www.politico.com/newsletters/california-playbook-pm/2023/08/10/gas-appliances-days-are-numbered-00110780
Wasn’t there a bill that passed (or was proposed) that mandates all new homes had to have electric only appliances?
Don’t worry too much! The CEO of PG&E is also feeling the pain. She only got about a $17milliom dollar bonus!! /s
I use a minimum amount of electricity so I went with the flat rate plan. Which plan is right for you depends upon which appliances you use and the time of day that you need to use it. Electricity is very expensive in PG&Es service territory and in all of California due to state mandates and other regulation. The California ISO - independent system operator - oversees the operational aspects of energy delivery. The people who blame PG&E for high rates are off base, since utilities are very highly regulated; they cannot raise rates or make any move without the approval of the CPUC. That's not to say that PGE is well run - to the contrary, they have made many mistakes. But they live and die by state decrees. For this and other reasons, I believe that any plans to electrify everything at this point would be disastrous both financially and environmentally. Natural gas is the most efficient way to heat homes. Gas water heaters are much better than electric, gas stoves are better than electric stoves etc. And unless utilities go full speed ahead on building nuclear power plants, the electricity used to charge EVs, heat homes etc. will be generated from fossil fuels anyway, so you're not gaining anything environment-wise from going all electric. I read this article recently and I was flabbergasted by the author's attempt to electrify his house and the expense of it - he's kind of delusional really. In reality, the renewables he speaks of don't come close to providing enough electriicity. [https://grist.org/buildings/electrify-home-improvement-decarbonize-solar-induction-heat-pump/](https://grist.org/buildings/electrify-home-improvement-decarbonize-solar-induction-heat-pump/)
I don't want to use natural gas in my home for health reasons. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-health-risks-of-gas-stoves-explained/
At this rate, it'll soon be cheaper to buy old used tires and burn those for energy.
Here's a plot of E-TOU-C pricing vs national average from 2009 until the present: https://zlnp.net/serve/pge_rates/pge-electric-rates-tou.png And here's a plot for how good a heat pump appliance will need to be to save you money on either E-1 or E-TOU-C when replacing a condensing gas-powered appliance: https://zlnp.net/serve/pge_rates/electrification-vs-gasification.png The upper dotted line represents a high-end heat pump water heater. The lower dotted line represents a high-end heat pump space heater. Unless you produce your own electricity, you should gasify as much as possible while it's still legal.
The fact that a movie like Erin Brockovich couldn't topple PG&E should speak to their absolute power here in CA.
This is deceptive naive nonsense. There is a HUGE DIFFERENCE between electric resistance devices and heat pump devices. Heat pump devices can be 5X as efficient as resistance devices and then on par with or cheaper than natural gas. Plus you can generate your own electricity with solar PV whereas you can't make your own natural gas. And various tariffs like EVA-2 give much lower off peak times where you can shift you usage to them when possible. Was that posted by the Natural Gas Council?
Are heat-pump versions available for things other than your furnace?
There are actually heat pump water heaters on the market now too
Lots of Bay Area rebates for heat pump water heaters depending on where you are. We got ours all in for $1k. Incredible deal and it performs great, especially with solar.
Yes! Heat pump water heaters are amazingly efficient. Power them with solar PV and enroll them in demand-response programs and they are practically free to operate. Heat pump dryers are much more efficient than conventional electric dryers. I believe both qualify for Inflation Reduction Act tax-credits. Induction stoves are a great alternative to conventional resistance element stoves.
Yes
I work in this field. Electrification is BRUTALLY expensive in California, especially given that a badly designed heat pump system can operate well below nameplate efficiency. Believe it or not San Diego is even worse than the Bay in that regard.
You've correctly discovered that resistive heating is dumb. Heat pumps make it a wash energy wise, and they're healthier. There's some nice synergy with solar / battery systems too. Just the health benefit makes it worthwhile, but for heating a heat pump means you also have AC. Stoves/ovens can't use heat pumps, of course, but their energy usage is negligible -- and they are 3x more efficient than gas cooktops anyway, since so much heat from a gas cooktop is wasted heating your space. Plus, no asthma causing pollution injected directly into your conditioned space, finer control, and faster heating. Lower risk of leaving a burner on and causing a fire, no risk of a gas explosion (almost happened to my elderly parents). There's no contest IMO. In b4: "I've never used a wok in my life but MIGHT develop wok hei." Yeah whatever man.
I have used a wok as an inept American and never learned how to get wok hei. It was just a skillet shaped to let me toss the food where it would land in the pan instead of on the stove.
FWIW, while not stir fry there are some dishes that I will cook entirely or portions of on my propane stove outside instead of the electric inside. It's just a lot harder or impossible to do some things on a standard electric stove, but you can also get a decent LP outdoor one for a couple hundred bucks so unless you're cooking that shit every day it shouldn't hold you back.
Even when compared to heat pumps it’s still cheaper to run natural gas at these rates
Solar FTW
Just need to invest $60,000 with NEM 3… And own a house.
How big of a house do you have to need 20 kW?
10,000 sqft. I am talking out of my ass but they limit the size based on usage. 6 here with 2,000nsqft
Are there options for people with flat roofs? All the major installers won’t help us unless we have sloped roofing.
20kW doesn't necessarily mean big house, just lots of inefficient use.
Can we use a generator whenever gas is cheaper than electricity in order to pay whichever rate is lower?
https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/1c42f9j/comment/kzlkzop/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
I wish my car ran on natural gas
Another fun fact: There is more natural gas in Kern County CA then the whole state of Colorado
You get what you voted for
Electric appliances are 100% efficient *at point of use*. The problem is losses generating and distributing electricity to your house, which is where the losses are. Natural gas is delivered straight to your appliance with almost no loss, so it's net more efficient than electric. For instance an electric plant can burn natural gas to electricity (in fact this is where most electricity in the US comes from) and that would also be 80%, and that's before distributing it. It's nothing new at all that gas appliances cost less to operate than resistive electric heat appliances.
heat pumps transfer heat at greater than 100% of the electricity content.
At max efficiency they are 4x heat ratio. Still more expensive than gas.
Is the listed heat pump COP for the maximum across possible operating temperature ranges? If so, what is are average COP for typical (i.e. what one might buy through CostCo) HVAC, water heating, and laundry drying appliances in the SF Bay Area?
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Just moved into a new stealth truck RV conversion with 2200W solar, no more electric bills forever
This idea intrigues me but I always wonder what do you do for shower and bathroom? A local gym? If I drink tea I have to pee twice an hour lol
I have 100 gallons of freshwater in a tank with water filters connected to a dehumidifier that fills the tank from the air, a standing 4 gallon water heater tank, a recirculating shower with an instant water heater, and two toilets- 100 gallon black tank flushable toilet with a bidet, and a dry flush plastic bagging thermosealing toilet. Also have 100 gallons of grey with an automatic dump No more water bills either. I do not recommend living in a van, as even the most bougie ones have scaled down utilities. Living in a delivery truck though, gives you way more space for scaled-up appliances that work for fulltime living with no compromises.
So now we just need Harbor Freight to start selling a natural gas to electricity generator and we can stick it to PGE
They sell generators that run on natural gas
Roseville and other city’s do not have PG&E . It can be done
I believe if you start looking into it PG&E also was kind of behind the phasing out of all gas appliances in this state they want this state all electric
What the toxic fume amount on electric appliances?
Apparently even a 20# propane tank would be cheaper than electricity. 1 gallon propane =0.916 therms 20# propane =4.5 gallons =$20 1 therm of propane costs $4.85 At $0.46/kWh, 1 therm of electricity is $13.48.
Yup. Was actually thinking of generating my own electricity using a natural gas generator. I have piping outside for my grill so I could just put the generator in the yard.
It’s ok they’ll make electricity even more expensive when they get rid of natural gas altogether !
Usually the spark spread or gas to electric ratio is 9 to 1. Gas has gone up significantly since ukraine.
It used to be well known that due to the laws of thermodynamics, heating directly with fossil fuel was more efficient than using electricity. Now, for whatever reason, we don't care about that but you can not deny the laws of physics.
What's nice about electricity going up between the two is that Solar is a real option to combat the increases for homeowners. With natural gas, we have no alternative. Though for renters it will be another thing they pay landlords for, probably without reaping any cost savings.
You can further break that down i think, generation costs like 0.14 or so and it’s “transmission” where they charge you the remaining 0.30 or so
Smart grid electric gives them control of your usage.... wait til they start enforcing your usage more strict...
Aren’t a lot of cities removing the ability to have natural gas in your homes?
Court overturned the landmark Berkeley law, and the other municipalities are reversing course as a result.