In this series of articles, members of the Peterborough Renewable Energy Planning (PREP) Team have described some aspects of the plan as it is under development. Previous columns covered electricity and transportation; this one is about heating and cooling buildings. According to the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, transportation is the state’s biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions by a wide margin, but residential and commercial heating is the second-biggest, so it’s well worth tackling.
The overall strategy for getting to 100% renewable energy use is to generate electricity from renewable resources and then convert transportation, heating, cooling and other fossil-fuel uses to rely on electricity. While I’ve described the strategy as if electricity comes first and others follow, in fact, all of those transformations will be occurring simultaneously as individuals, businesses and governments make decisions about how to operate more cleanly and greenly. Electric heating and cooling installed now will turn green as the electricity supply moves increasingly to renewable energy sources.
Based on town data, we estimate that about 90% of residential and commercial properties in Peterborough rely on fossil fuels (oil or propane) as their primary source of heat. Estimates of the lifespan of a well-maintained oil or gas boiler or furnace range from 15 to 30 years. That means that nearly every property owner in town will be faced with the need to replace a boiler or furnace in the 28 years between now and 2050, the date by which the town has committed to achieve 100% reliance on renewable energy. When that time comes (which might be any day now for those of us with older boilers or furnaces), we hope you will seriously consider alternatives to fossil fuels.
While there are other forms of electric heating, the heat pump is currently the most-efficient technology for heating with electricity and the one most likely to offer a straightforward transition from an existing fossil fuel furnace or boiler. As its name suggests, a heat pump is designed to transfer heat from one location to another. Most of us already have at least one heat pump in our homes, although we usually refer to it as a refrigerator. Even though the inside of a running refrigerator or freezer is cold, its heat pump can remove heat from it and transfer it outside the appliance.
Likewise, there is heat to be found in the outside air or the ground on even the coldest winter days. A heat pump can extract that heat and move it inside to warm your home or other building. The big bonus that comes with installing a heat pump is that on warm summer days, it can reverse direction and cool your building by transferring the heat inside to the outdoors.
Because heat pumps do not create heat, as fossil fuels do when they are burned, but simply move heat from one place to another, they are very energy-efficient. A heat pump might consume only 1 kilowatt-hour of electrical energy to transfer the thermal equivalent of 3 kilowatt-hours of energy for heating your building.
Despite such efficiency, there is room for improvement. The US Department of Energy (DoE) issued a Cold Climate Heat Pump Challenge last year which has spurred nine manufacturers to find ways to boost heat pump performance in regions like New Hampshire. Just last week, the DoE publicized a technological breakthrough that makes heat pumps more effective at outdoor temperatures below zero degrees Fahrenheit. Utilities, including Eversource, are partnering with the DoE to offer incentives for adoption of these next-generation heat pumps when they go on the market over the next couple of years.
The time to start thinking about the successor to your current home or commercial heating system is now, especially if that system is not aging gracefully. Once the initial Peterborough renewable energy plan is completed, we’ll begin to build a website and take other steps to assist residents and businesses with their energy decisions and the associated costs. But you don’t need to wait for us. Check with NHSaves at nhsaves.com to see about an energy audit for your home or business. If you have a small business, take a look at bit.ly/smallbusinessenergywebinar to see how other small businesses in New Hampshire reduced their operating costs and created a more comfortable working environment with help from a variety of local organizations. And visit our website at prepnh.org to offer your suggestions and feedback as the planning process continues in Peterborough.
Finally, if you have some financial expertise and would like to join the PREP Team, we are seeking volunteers who can help us find the best ways to finance projects in town that result in energy conservation, increased renewable energy generation and conversions from fossil-fuel use to renewable energy. If you are familiar with green finance, grant writing, renewable energy incentives and related areas of finance, please contact us at info@prepnh.org. We would really appreciate your help so that everyone in town can make the move to renewable energy.
PREP Talk is a series of articles written by members of the Peterborough Renewable Energy Planning (PREP) Team who have been tasked by town mandate to deliver a plan by the end of the year for the town to transition to 100% renewable electricity by 2030 and to 100% transportation and heating by 2050. In these articles the team will share the results of their research, analysis, and eventually recommendations for the plan. Bob Haring-Smith is PREP co-coordinator.