Heat pumps: New rebates help more Southern Californians make the switch

Want a home that’s consistently cozy each winter and cool each summer?

Want to dry your clothes without needing a vent system, which is a leading cause of house fires?

Want piping hot water without paying a gas bill — or burning planet-warming, air-polluting fossil fuels?

The humble heat pump could be the answer.

If you have a refrigerator or air conditioner, then you already have a version of a heat pump in your home. But with climate change concerns growing, and thousands of dollars in financial incentives now on the table, more Southern Californians are swapping out gas-powered furnaces, dryers and hot water heaters for their electric heat pump counterparts.

“It’s great because there’s no trade off,” said Steven Allison, an Irvine resident who electrified his home in stages over the past five years.

Unlike some less convenient green moves, such as ditching plastic straws, or changes that have been politicized, such as eliminating gas stoves, the UC Irvine ecology professor tells his neighbors that switching to heat pumps has simply made life “more comfortable and cost effective.”

“I’m an environmental advocate,” he said. “But I don’t think people should have to suffer and sacrifice.”

Heat pump technology has been used for more than a century. The systems work by moving warm air around. When you want to cool your home, heat pumps operate like traditional air conditioners, which use liquid refrigerant to absorb warmth from the indoor air and then release it outside. But they can also work in reverse. So when you want to heat your home or water or clothes, the pumps absorb heat from the outdoor air (even when it’s cold) and release that warmed air into your home, water heater or dryer.

There are climate and health perks to switching to heat pump appliances, which is why California set a goal to have 6 million heat pumps installed by 2030 — a jump from the more than 1.5 million installed in 6% of homes today.

Traditional furnaces, water heaters and dryers burn natural gas, which is mostly methane. Methane doesn’t stick around in the atmosphere as long as carbon dioxide, but it’s 25 times more potent.

Buildings generate nearly 30% of greenhouse gas emissions nationwide, contributing more to smog in places like Los Angeles than cars do, noted Friday Apaliski, communications director for the nonprofit Building Decarbonization Coalition. If all buildings were electrified, and as our electricity increasingly comes from renewable energy, Apaliski said emissions would be reduced.

Using natural gas in homes also poses health risks. As methane combusts and steadily leaks out, it releases levels of pollutants that can contribute to the development of asthma and cancer plus aggravate other respiratory conditions.

Allison didn’t actually learn about the health risks of using gas in the home until after he’d switched to heat pumps. But now he said he can’t help but wonder whether his daughter’s childhood breathing issues were linked to those appliances.

Heat pump water heaters and dryers do cost significantly more, up-front, than their gas-fired counterparts. That’s where expanded rebates and tax credits come into play.

A heat pump water heater might cost twice as much as a traditional water heater, for example, running $1,800 to $3,000 instead of $700 to $1,500. But federal tax credits combined with a new batch of $80 million in funding available through the state’s TECH Clean California program and other rebates, which often can be stacked on top of each other, can end up making heat pump appliances cost less than their gas counterparts.

“We’ve never had this much money to bring about changes in energy efficiency as long as I’ve been in the business,” said Nick Brown, a Long Beach resident who’s worked as an energy consultant for a dozen years.

With incentives available for water heaters, in particular, Apaliski said now is the time to replace aging systems before they fail or incentive funding runs out.

Switch is On, a pro-heat pump public information campaign run by the Building Decarbonization Coalition, has an online tool that lets Californians enter their ZIP code and sort by types of appliances to compare rebates and tax credits available in their area. TECH Clean California incentives for heat pump water heaters also are available for commercial properties, while rebates for multi-family properties will be available starting Tuesday, Dec. 12.

So far, interest has been solid, according to Evan Kamei with Energy Solutions, which administers the TECH Clean California program. Since launching the heat pump incentives two years ago, and using a combination of cap-and-trade funds from the gas industry and state budget funds, Kamei said the program has doled out more than $53 million to help install 3,200 heat pump water heaters and more than 17,000 for climate conditioning.

Some incentives are income dependent or come with other qualifications. The TECH Clean California rebates of up to $5,300 for new heat pump water heaters, for example, require customers to work with a prequalified contractor and that they enroll in a demand response program and a time-of-use electricity rate, which limits use during times of peak energy demand. But heat pump water heaters can heat water during off-peak hours and store it for use whenever it’s needed, so it won’t limit when you can take a shower or wash warm loads of laundry.

The price tag of the appliance isn’t the only thing to consider, though.

Some homes will need upgrades to their electrical systems and panels to handle larger heat pump water heaters, which typically run on 220 volts. Such work can cost thousands of dollars, which is why TECH Clean California also is offering $4,000 rebates for electrical panel upgrades. Some 8% of homes were estimated to need such upgrades, per Kamei.

Industry innovations are helping, Apaliski said. Two of the major water heater companies just started to offer models that work for most average households and are powered by regular 120-volt plugs.

That’s what Brown installed in his own home three months ago, and he said they have yet to run out of hot water.

Heat pump water heaters also are larger than traditional water heaters. If your gas version is now crammed into a closet or other tight space, it might need to be relocated, which can mean running new pipes and power lines.

To address that barrier, Apaliski said companies are starting to offer systems where the heat pump and tank can be separated. That way you can keep your tank where it’s at but put the pump in, say, an attic where it can take advantage of that space’s warmer air.

Not all plumbers and installers know about these options, Brown noted. He’s heard of contractors discouraging homeowners from getting heat pumps, telling them it won’t work for their families.

That’s why TECH Clean California is using some of its funding to educate contractors. More than 1,000 contractors have gone through that program so far, Kamei said.

Switch is On also has a Find a Contractor tool on their website that lets homeowners find installers ready to work with heat pumps.

“So if you have a conversation and it feels like there’s a block, try again,” Apaliski said. “What I really want people to understand is that there is a solution for you.”

Homeowners who’ve switched to heat pump water heaters said they really didn’t notice a difference — which is a good thing. That means they’re getting the same convenient hot water as they always did, but without burning fossil fuels or paying a gas bill.

(Allison did note one small perk. Since his heat pump water heater is in his garage, he said it runs very efficiently in summer months and actually cools the garage down since it’s sucking out the heat.)

As for switching to heat pump home heating and cooling systems, homeowners said the price is pretty comparable to a traditional system. It cost Allison’s family roughly $10,000 to replace their entire aging HVAC system, for example, with a $1,500 rebate available at that time from the local air quality management district. And Allison said the switch from a system built with their house in the 1980s to the heat pump system is “night and day.”

Heat pump appliances operate more efficiently than gas appliances, since they don’t need to generate heat. They just need to move it, which requires less energy.

On hot days, before the system was installed, Allison said, the air conditioner would crank on and run for a few hours, only cooling the house a couple degrees while spiking their electric bill. His heat pump system provides a more consistently cool temperature.

It’s the same for heating, Apaliski said. With gas furnaces, she said, “You’re constantly dumping too-hot air into a too-cold room and trying to make it be the right temperature… You don’t have that with a heat pump. You just set the temperature and it puts the correct degree air out into your house all the time, so you don’t have these big swings.”

Not feeling the blasts of warm or cool air actually took some getting used to, said Genaro Bugarin, who electrified his Whittier home last year and works with a nonprofit that’s helping low-income families make the transition. But once his family realized the home was staying at a more consistently pleasant temperature, without having to constantly adjust things, he said they became fans.

In a survey of people who used incentives to get heat pumps installed, Kamei said 95% said they were satisfied or very satisfied with the switch.

When it comes to how these changes might affect your utility bills, Apaliski said that’s harder to predict.

On the one hand, you’re no longer paying for gas, while heat pump appliances are three or four times more efficient. On the other hand, electricity generally costs more than gas. So while he’s still running the numbers on this first year of being fully electric, Bugarin said he thinks his utility bills will end up being a bit higher.

Solar panels can help tip the scales. For Allison’s family, they’re saving an average of $75 a month since ditching their gas appliances. And since they have solar panels, they didn’t see any corresponding increase in their electric bill.

TECH Clean California is tracking such data now, Kamei said, and hopes to have information to share soon.

From Allison’s perspective, he said, “It’s the best investment I’ve made in a long time.”

Source: Orange County Register