Heating And Cooling

HEATING AND COOLING

CURRENT NEWS

The easy way to save up to 20 percent on your heating bill this winter

By Allyson Chiu 11/24/23
With temperatures dipping in many parts of the country, people are probably bracing for their utility bills to climb as they crank up the heat in their homes.
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Heat Pump Installations Slow, Impeding Biden’s Climate Goals

By Santul Nerkar and Madeleine Ngo 11/09/23
More Americans are buying heat pumps, an environmentally friendly alternative to furnaces and air-conditioners that can significantly lower monthly energy bills. But the pace of installations has slowed in the past year, posing an obstacle…
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An Innovative Financing Model Is Ensuring Everyone Can Afford a Heat Pump

By Yessenia Funes 11/08/23
The world just suffered through the hottest October on record amid a year of unprecedented heat. That includes searing temperatures in the Pacific Northwest this past summer. While not as extreme as 2021, when a…
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Amid winter freezes, this state has found a new, budget-friendly way to heat its homes: ‘It sure is a whole lot cheaper’

By Laurelle Stelle 11/01/23
In Maine, an association of dirty energy-based heating companies is campaigning against electric heat pumps — but residents are making the switch anyway, according to the Washington Post.
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Smith College, MA embarks on $220-million geothermal project

By Carlo Cariaga 11/01/23
The Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts has started work on a geothermal system to make their heating and cooling carbon-neutral by 2030.
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How Maine Became the Heat Pump Capital of the US

By Todd Woody 10/06/23
Best known for its scenic lighthouses and fresh lobster, Maine can now make another claim to fame: It’s installing energy-efficient electric heat pumps and heat pump water heaters at a pace unmatched by any other…
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Heat Pumps & Other Electrification Cause Plummeting Energy Needs

By Michael Barnard 08/29/23
This year I had one of those embarrassing aha moments, one where something is so obvious that it not occurring to me much sooner made me cringe. Still, better late than never. And what was…
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In Frigid Maine So Many Heat Pumps Were Sold the State Passed its Clean-Energy Target Two Years Early

By Andy Corbley 07/31/23
Governor Janet Mills announced that Maine has, two years ahead of time, surpassed its goal of installing 100,000 new heat pumps by 2025, a milestone that represents significant progress in reducing Maine’s reliance on heating…
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Supercharge your Heat Pump Savings

By Matt Traverso 07/26/23
Everyone understands that lowering the indoor temperature should save on heating bills, but did you know that the potential savings may be more than five times higher with a heat pump than with traditional equipment…
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Here’s how geothermal energy heats and cools a home

By Isabella O' Malley 07/13/23
Some homeowners looking to switch out their heating and cooling systems are turning to home geothermal — also known as ground source — heat pumps. It’s a technology that relies on a simple physical fact:…
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Oregon plans to install 500,000 new heat pumps by 2030. Who’s going to do the work?

By Kavya Balaraman 07/13/23
Lawmakers in Oregon late last month passed legislation that adopts a goal for the state to have at least 500,000 new heat pumps in its residential and commercial buildings by 2030.
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Illinois to sue EPA over standards for residential wood-burning stoves

By Associated Press 07/03/23
Attorneys general from 10 states plan to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, saying its failure to review and ensure emissions standards for residential wood-burning stoves has allowed the continued sale of appliances that could…
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KEY RESOURCES

Heat Pump Systems

02/21/23
Heat pumps offer an energy-efficient alternative to furnaces and air conditioners for all climates. Like your refrigerator, heat pumps use electricity to transfer heat from a cool space to a warm space, making the cool…

Clean Energy 101: Heat Pumps

07/12/22
Summer in the northern hemisphere is just a few weeks old, but temperature records have already toppled as heat waves baked regions from Scandinavia to Japan to the United States. The heat came early in…

Introductory Information on Residential Heat Pumps

10/13/21
Clean Energy Lives Here, a campaign of the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) is a great place to start, with lots of consumer-friendly information

MORE NEWS

The Race to Tesla-ify Heat Pumps

By Emily Pontecorvo   06/28/23  
Gleaming solar panels, soaring wind turbines, sleek electric cars. These are the Avengers of the climate technoverse, the most widely recognized symbols of the fight to kick fossil fuels and halt global warming. But the…
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How air conditioners will have to change in the future

By Shannon Osaka   06/09/23  
“It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.” That’s what people say in the summer, when stepping outside feels like being enveloped in a thick, puréed soup. When sweat — the body’s natural cooling mechanism —…
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Ithaca bets on heat pumps in mobile homes

By Siri Chilukuri   05/26/23  
Technically, Holly Hutchinson lives in Ithaca, New York, a university town in the Fingers Lakes region in the north-central part of the state. But she also lives at an important intersection between two national crises:…
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Vermont is moving from fuel oil to clean heat

By Maria Gallucci   05/16/23  
The state legislature in Vermont overruled the governor’s veto to pass a law that will curb greenhouse gas emissions from heating homes and other buildings.
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Insight Weekly: Utilities face headwinds; S&P 500 dividend hikes likely; dollar poised for rally

By Sarah Cottle   05/02/23  
In this edition of Insight Weekly, we take a close look at the earnings forecasts for global utilities in the first quarter of 2023. Analysts expect few US multi-utilities to report year-over-year earnings growth as…
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Heat pumps are having a breakthrough. They have one issue: The wrong name.

By Shannon Osaka   04/28/23  
The newly popular technology faces an issue: No one understands its name....
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Heat Pumps Need Better Branding

By Olivia Rudgard   04/14/23  
In December a survey in the UK asked 2,500 homeowners whether they would consider getting a heat pump at home in the future. Only 2% said they had one, and 18% said they’d likely make…
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The Massive ‘Batteries’ Hidden Beneath Your Feet

By Matt Simon   04/12/23  
WHEN RAINWATER FALLS, it soaks down into an aquifer, a layer of porous rock or loose materials like sand or gravel. For thousands of years, humans have been digging into these bands of liquid to…
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A renter’s guide to the Inflation Reduction Act

By Rebecca Leber   04/07/23  
In theory, the Inflation Reduction Act could do a lot for renters. People who rent their homes often deal with older buildings, leaky piping, and poor ventilation. The IRA’s attempt to get fossil fuels out…
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‘Heat-pump coaches’ help neighbors ditch fossil heat in Massachusetts

By Alison F. Takemura   03/29/23  
Since 2020, at least 14 heat-pump coaching programs have sprung up in the state, all with the aim of making it easier to adopt the increasingly popular appliance.
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Meet the Geothermal Champions

By Hiroko Tabuchi   03/28/23  
There’s a lot to like about geothermal energy. It’s clean, it’s renewable and it generates electricity 24/7. It taps heat from Earth’s interior that, in theory, will last billions of years.
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What’s the total cost to swap out gas heat for electric? One Bay Area homeowner says almost $20,000

By Claire Hao   03/20/23  
Bay Area regulators voted last week to phase out gas furnaces and water heaters over the coming years, despite strong concerns about adding financial burdens to residents in a region already saddled with extremely high…
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Heat pumps work in NY. Don’t believe misinformation — climate change is real

By Richard Schrader   03/17/23  
The propane industry in New York — distributors of the colorless, liquefied petroleum gas used for home heating and firing up barbecue grills — is on war footing. Last year, the industry spent almost $1…
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The Bay Area is going electric for furnaces and water heaters

By Maxine Joselow and Vanessa Montalbano   03/16/23  
Bay Area officials voted to adopt landmark rules phasing out gas appliances. Yesterday, officials in the San Francisco Bay Area approved the nation’s first rules phasing out new natural-gas-powered water heaters and furnaces.
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Bay Area will end sales of gas furnaces and water heaters. Here’s what it means for you

By Claire Hao   03/15/23  
If you live in the Bay Area and your natural gas-powered water heater stops working after 2027, you will be required to install an electric model instead.
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Heat pumps, superbugs, and sneaker recycling

03/11/23  
Last year, heat pumps flew off the shelves around the world, and their popularity is expected to continue to climb. In 2022, more Americans bought heat pumps than traditional furnaces, NBC News reported. In Poland,…
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Gas stoves pose health risks. Are gas furnaces and other appliances safe to use?

By Sarah Wesseler   03/09/23  
Poor air quality is a long-standing problem in Los Angeles, where the first major outbreak of smog during World War II was so intense that some residents thought the city had been attacked by chemical…
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Do heat pumps work in cold places? Here’s what you need to know.

By Samantha Harrington   03/01/23  
Heat pump technology has come a long way, fast. Newer pumps are even delivering warm air to homes north of the Arctic Circle. The post Do heat pumps work in cold places? Here’s what you…
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As heat pumps go mainstream, a big question: can they handle real cold?

By Elena Shao   02/22/23  
Over the past decade, heat pumps have been steadily making their way into more American homes. There was a major milestone last year when they surpassed gas furnaces in annual sales by a wide margin.
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How heat pumps of the 1800s are becoming the technology of the future

By Chris Baraniuk   02/15/23  
It was an engineering problem that had bugged Zhibin Yu for years — but now he had the perfect chance to fix it. Stuck at home during the first UK lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic,…
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Heat Pumps are Winning

02/14/23  
This is a big deal, folks. It shows that an electrical appliance is WINNING the race against a fossil-fuel based counterpart. Every time a household chooses to electrify another aspect of their life, Saul Griffith…
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Heat pumps are defying Maine’s winters and oil industry pushback

By Anna Phillips   02/07/23  
The video starts with a Maine radio show host dressed in a bright red jumpsuit walking through the snow to a stranger’s door and delighting her with an offer of free heating oil. “My name’s…
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Heat Pumps are Winning!

02/06/23  
This is a big deal, folks. It shows that an electrical appliance is WINNING the race against a fossil-fuel based counterpart. Every time a household chooses to electrify another aspect of their life, Saul Griffith…
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Cold Climate Heat Pumps Warm Homes on the Coldest Days

By Catherine Poslusny   01/02/23  
In the US, about 13% of total CO2 emissions come from heating residential and commercial buildings. Because so many buildings rely on natural gas and heating oil, significant opportunity for reducing heating emissions lies with…
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EPA proposes rule to cut HFC use, speed transition to efficient heating and cooling technologies

By Robert Walton   12/14/22  
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will propose a new rule to limit hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, in some products including refrigeration, air conditioning, and heat pump equipment, the agency announced Friday. The proposed rule will be…
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Germans Have Seen the Future, and It’s a Heat Pump

By Melissa Eddy and Others   12/02/22  
After decades of heating their homes with relatively cheap Russian natural gas, Germans are facing exorbitant prices for energy. The search is on for an alternative source of warmth that is climate-friendly and free from…
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A Heat Pump Might Be Right for Your Home. Here’s Everything to Know.

By Thom Dunn   12/02/22  
They’re the cheapest and most efficient way to handle both heating and cooling for your home, no matter where you live. They’re also better for the environment. In fact, most experts agree they’re one of…
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BRIEFING NOTE: Why getting off methane gas is right for communities

10/24/22  
The growing SAFE Cities movement of local governments working to stop the expansion of all types of fossil fuel infrastructure. This includes building electrification, especially in new buildings, in the US and Canada.
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California moves to ban natural gas furnaces, heaters by 2030

By Joerg Sarbach   09/23/22  
California is moving to become the first U.S. state to phase out gas-fueled furnaces and water heaters in homes. Los Angeles and several other California cities have passed bans on a wider range of natural…
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Finally, a heat-pump water heater that plugs into a standard outlet

By Jeff St. John   08/29/22  
Last month’s launch of Rheem’s ProTerra 120-volt heat pump water heater might not seem like a big step forward in the fight against climate change. In terms of home electrification accessories, it’s not as sexy…
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Heat pumps: what they do and why they’re hot now

By Justine Calma   08/11/22  
The humble heat pump has finally found its moment in the spotlight. The appliance can potentially save you money on your energy bills, fight climate change, and reduce Europe’s dependency on Russian gas, proponents say.…
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How Local Governments and Communities Are Taking Action to Get Fossil Fuels out of Buildings

By Leah Louis-Prescott, Rachel Golden   08/09/22  
Across the United States, more than 125 cities and counties have adopted policies that require or encourage the move off fossil fuels to all-electric homes and buildings. As of March 2023, more than 36 million…
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The U.S. Is Addicted To Gas Heating. A New Bill May Make Going Electric The Easy Choice.

By Alexander C. Kaufman   05/25/22  
When it’s cold outside, most American homes burn gas or fuel for warmth ― a big part of why buildings are the country’s fourth-largest source of climate-changing emissions. When it’s hot, an even bigger percentage…
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