Understanding Your Heat Pump

“A number of jurisdictions…are putting in place natural gas bans to promote the use of electric heat pumps for space heating. Heat pumps are great for space heating up to a certain point. The issue - we saw with Winter Storm Elliot last year; we saw it in spades with Winter Storm Uri in Texas – is once you get to a certain point where the heat pump can no longer heat your house, it flips to a backup source of heat, which is typically electric-resistive strip heating. This is highly inefficient. Not only do you have the increased demand because it’s cold, your demand function for power goes almost vertical because of the inefficiency of that supplemental heat.” 

- Jim Robb, President and CEO, North America Reliability Corporation (NERC), at the Ohio Pennsylvania Joint Hearing on Interstate Energy and Public Utilities on February 1, 2024, discussing the major risks to (electric) grid reliability