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Heat pumps twice as efficient as fossil fuel systems in cold weather, study finds
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2023
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Makes sense. Heat pumps are one of the few heating systems that can achieve greater than 100% efficiency. (energy in vs total heat output)
As long as you can keep the evaporator above the evaporation temperature of your compressed refrigerant, you're golden. Burried lines are excellent for that in colder climates, but the space for it isn't always easy to find.
I mean, in the colder climates that have natural gas piped to homes anyway.
Why not use a pilot light worth of gas to keep the evap side a tad bit warmer on the days that it drops real cold.
Sure, your still using some gas, but you'll be extreme sipping at it.
I haven't seen this argument listed yet, but my reason for wanting to go off natural gas is how much we lose in transmission. I don't feel like finding sources right at this moment but most estimates I've seen are ~2%, and methane is a pretty potent greenhouse gas.
That's a fair argument. Even if every used a tiny bit, there would still be a lot of loss to the atmosphere through leaks/etc of the distribution system.
So yes 100% elimination would be ideal.
But this could be a viable middle step between 100% gas heating -> Supplemental/Heat Pump -> 100% Heat Pump