Maine Doubling Mini Split Heat Pump Rebates

[peakbagger]

For the first installed unit it goes from $500 to $1000. People getting heating assistance get $2,000.

The new governor has commited to getting 100,000 units installed. I doubt their are enough installers.

I expect when Maine has a minus 10 or below cold snap the governor will be be getting more than few phone calls from unhappy new minisplit owners

 

[begreen]

For the first installed unit it goes from $500 to $1000. People getting heating assistance get $2,000.

The new governor has commited to getting 100,000 units installed. I doubt their are enough installers.

I expect when Maine has a minus 10 or below cold snap the governor will be be getting more than few phone calls from unhappy new minisplit owners

Yes, I would expect this more from a warmer state like Maryland, WA, OR or CA. Is it just for minisplits or also for high efficiency central hvac heat pumps?

 

[peakbagger]

The theory by the state in the past was for the minisplits to be supplemental space heating for homes. There are many elderly in maine living in poorly insulated homes and many depend on fuel oil assistance programs, the state cant move them out but what they can do is encourage them is to keep the majority of the home at lower temperature with the primary heating system and then provide them a "warm room or rooms" for them to hang out during the day time heated by a minisplit.

I commented previously on a minisplit thread that I heard from a vented kerosene heater dealer that he is seeing a lot of recent demand for these units of late as people are replacing their primary heating systems with minisplits and then have to add back an alternative source of heat after living through cold spells with only minisplits.

 

[Brian26]

Everything I read and Mass has a similar program is that they are currently being installed more as supplemental heat. Your existing most likely oil furnace stays. Cheap electric resistance heaters can also be installed. Massachusetts program provides the homeowner with details such as what temperature to switch over to there alternative heat source. Though there many people heating there homes 100 percent off mini splits in some of the coldest areas of the US.

I know it gets cold in Maine but the 99 percent winter design temps look to average around 5 degrees with all counties combined. Some parts of maine do have -15 design temps. Based on historical weather data 99 percent of the year the temperature is well above that. So over a year a minisplit would run on average less than 1 percent below that. Yes the sparsely populated northern counties get some serious sustained cold but obviously you arent getting by on just mini splits.

I installed 2 12k mini splits and so far have heated me entire home all winter on them. Its pretty amazing on a cold sunny day heating my house off the sun and sending power back out to my neighbors. No fossil fuels or combustion. This is going to be the future of heating and cooling.

Maine is the most dependent heating oil state in the nation and they have a ton of renewable excess hydro electricity. They also have dirt cheap power compared to the rest of New England. Heating oil is a terrible way to heat. Think of the transportation involved in getting oil to parts of Maine. Then you have the issue of storing it in tanks in peoples home and in some cases underground tanks.

This is a good article on it.

There are 2 research papers linked in the article in VT and CO that totally dispell the myth of heating with 100 percent mini splits in cold climates. The technology is only going to get better. Based on thermodynamics formulas insane efficiencies are possible. On paper efficiencies 10 times what we have now are possible. Read up on the carnot cycle.

Maine is the most heating-oil-dependent state in the country. More than 60 percent of the state’s 550,000 households rely on heating oil as their primary energy source for heat.

But because a little more than half of the electricity generated in Maine already comes from zero-carbon hydropower and wind power — and legislation signed yesterday sets a 100 percent renewable electricity target for 2050 — a rapid shift to electric heat could deliver significant emissions reductions. It should also save households and businesses

Wide-scale adoption of heat pumps would deliver additional savings for Maine residents, according to utility Emera Maine. In testimony before a legislative committee in May, an Emera representative said that because its electric grid is operating below capacity, adding new load via heat pumps would “help reduce the per-unit cost of operating the grid.”

How much? Emera said that for every 1,000 heat pumps added in its territory, it could reduce transmission and distribution rates by $300,000 per year.

Maine Decides to Go Big on Heat Pumps

An ambitious target of 100,000 heat pumps by 2025 is part of a surge of clean energy bills passed recently by Maine lawmakers.

www.greentechmedia.com

 

[SpaceBus]

Everything I read and Mass has a similar program is that they are currently being installed more as supplemental heat. Your existing most likely oil furnace stays. Cheap electric resistance heaters can also be installed. Massachusetts program provides the homeowner with details such as what temperature to switch over to there alternative heat source. Though there many people heating there homes 100 percent off mini splits in some of the coldest areas of the US.

I know it gets cold in Maine but the 99 percent winter design temps look to average around 5 degrees with all counties combined. Some parts of maine do have -15 design temps. Based on historical weather data 99 percent of the year the temperature is well above that. So over a year a minisplit would run on average less than 1 percent below that. Yes the sparsely populated northern counties get some serious sustained cold but obviously you arent getting by on just mini splits.

I installed 2 12k mini splits and so far have heated me entire home all winter on them. Its pretty amazing on a cold sunny day heating my house off the sun and sending power back out to my neighbors. No fossil fuels or combustion. This is going to be the future of heating and cooling.

Maine is the most dependent heating oil state in the nation and they have a ton of renewable excess hydro electricity. They also have dirt cheap power compared to the rest of New England. Heating oil is a terrible way to heat. Think of the transportation involved in getting oil to parts of Maine. Then you have the issue of storing it in tanks in peoples home and in some cases underground tanks.

This is a good article on it.

There are 2 research papers linked in the article in VT and CO that totally dispell the myth of heating with 100 percent mini splits in cold climates. The technology is only going to get better. Based on thermodynamics formulas insane efficiencies are possible. On paper efficiencies 10 times what we have now are possible. Read up on the carnot cycle.

Maine is the most heating-oil-dependent state in the country. More than 60 percent of the state’s 550,000 households rely on heating oil as their primary energy source for heat.

But because a little more than half of the electricity generated in Maine already comes from zero-carbon hydropower and wind power — and legislation signed yesterday sets a 100 percent renewable electricity target for 2050 — a rapid shift to electric heat could deliver significant emissions reductions. It should also save households and businesses

Wide-scale adoption of heat pumps would deliver additional savings for Maine residents, according to utility Emera Maine. In testimony before a legislative committee in May, an Emera representative said that because its electric grid is operating below capacity, adding new load via heat pumps would “help reduce the per-unit cost of operating the grid.”

How much? Emera said that for every 1,000 heat pumps added in its territory, it could reduce transmission and distribution rates by $300,000 per year.

Maine Decides to Go Big on Heat Pumps

An ambitious target of 100,000 heat pumps by 2025 is part of a surge of clean energy bills passed recently by Maine lawmakers.

www.greentechmedia.com

We had to pass on a house due to a oil contaminated basement. The tank leaked for years without notice apparently. The realtor said the only remediation would be removing all the contaminated materials from the basement, which sounded horrible.

 

[Brian26]

We had to pass on a house due to a oil contaminated basement. The tank leaked for years without notice apparently. The realtor said the only remediation would be removing all the contaminated materials from the basement, which sounded horrible.

Outside the huge hazards of storing oil think of how far heating oil has to travel just to get to Maine. I know there is a big refinery there but crude is sent there by boat or rail, refined and then trucked to a terminal and then trucked again to your home. Its moved soo many times by fossil fueled transportation and I am sure the refining process uses fossil fuels as well. Its just a terrible way to heat with.

Think of how many old rusty heating oil tanks there are in Maine including many underground tanks. When those thinks leak into the ground, especially groundwater it can be an environmental disaster.

Another huge plus is electricity prices are very stable and are usually adjusted every 6 months by the state utility boards. An average price increase is usually not very much and it does go down as well. Take a look at natural gas and oil prices. Heating oil can jump quite high in price. It was .50 cents less a gallon here a few months.

 

[peakbagger]

Maine adds a surcharge on every gallon of heating oil sold to partially reimburse for mitgating leaking oil tanks. I dont know the details of the program but had a co-worker whose parents had about 200 gallons of oil leak under the basement floor when the copper line poured in the floor failed. The program paid to remove the floor, excavate the contaminated soil and installed a pump and treat system in the backyard. There are also programs for low income folks to upgrade their older tanks. Its still a big issue. I think since 1998 all new outdoor tanks have to be double contained and oil lines in basements need to be vinyl coated. Unfortunately there is lot of pre 1998 homes. My parents missed out on having a major oil spill in their basement by weeks, my mom noticed a dark spot underneath an indoor tank and we called the heating oil dealer. They came over and pumped it out and when they pulled it out most of the bottom was paper thin. If it had let lose I expect it would have meant the finished basement would need to be demoed.

There is no refinery in the state of Maine. I expect you are confused with the Irving Oil Refinery in Saint Johns New Brunswick? That is a long way from Maine. Hartford CT is closer to Portland Maine than Saint Johns NB. (Blame it on the typical map projections of the US which compress the Canadian Maritimes). Heating oil has been the choice to heat in Maine since coal as for many years the natural gas lines stopped in Portland and frequently the users upstream would drain the pressure down. Portland is now fed from the PNGTS gas line from Quebec but that is relatively expensive gas and with the exception of industrial users the gas system has not been substantially expanded as the economics do not work in rural areas to run gas lines through rocky ground. Realistically the logical heating source for Maine is pellets as there is a low grade wood supply available as a byproduct of forestry operations. If the wood is not turned into pellets its just sits in the woods and rots. The problem is a proper pellet system with bulk storage and delivery capability is a 15K plus investment. Thus pellet conversions dont line up with low priced homes so minisplits are the next best thing as a pretty good bang for the buck. Cord wood is nice but there is no really good ways to auto stoke boilers with cord wood.

Folks get confused with hydroelectric power generation in Maine. Yes there are several ponded hydros (many with local long term negative environmental impacts) in the state along with three large natural gas power plants and a bunch of small run of the river hydro plants. The big ponded plants are basically dispatched to supply southern New England daily demands so southern New England does not have to build powerplants in their backyard. My guess is the owners of the dams (no longer owned by the Maine utilites) have sold the renewable attributes of the power generated long ago to out of state buyers. Thus technically the ability to claim that the plants are renewable are not correct as the renewable attributes are now assigned to offset fossil emissions elsewhere. (Its not just a Maine thing VT has gotten caught claimed renewable power when the renewable attributes were already sold) Maine utilities used to own their power assets but over the years the state allowed them to sell out to out of state and eventually out of the country corporations that split the power assets from the Transmission and Distribution (T&D) assets. The power assets are now mostly owned by mutinationals. The state utilities are T&D only and owned by absentee owners who only invest what they have to into T&D leading to less than stellar service and reliability. They have on the other hand spent billions to upgrade the main transmission systems to allow them to ship the power generated in Maine out of state so the power generation owners do not have to.

There is also a legacy of the Maine power companies encouraging electric power use. Many of the programs have been less than successful over the years and many folks have long memories so encouraging electric heat albeit potentially more efficient is a hard sell. Much of the state is very conservative and green programs are regarded by many in the rural counties as government reaching into their back pockets.

The track record to date for minisplits in Maine is not perfect. The folks selling them tend to oversell their capability especially in cold conditions. I am quite familiar with winter design temps but the reality is sub zero days with high winds happen on occasion (predicted this weekend). The minisplit may not care about wind chill but the heat loss from a house goes up considerably in high winds on a cold day and its a tough problem for a generally undersized minisplit. Many folks on propane and oil dont keep a full tank if they are using the split for primary heat during warmer conditions and when a cold spell hits, they are on the bottom of the list for getting deliveries.