Written on: September 20, 2021
Have you heard about New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act? This legislation outlines a strategy to reach an 85% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
While we support this ultimate goal, the current plan as we see it has some problems that will take us down the wrong path and have a negative impact on most families, including our valued customers.
In a nutshell, New York State has embarked on an all-out effort to electrify everything, including the way we heat our homes. Legislators mistakenly believe that converting away from all fossil fuels and installing electric heat pumps is the answer.
At Hometowne Energy, we believe we need to take aggressive steps to address climate change—and we’ve already gotten started. That’s why we deliver ultra-low-sulfur heating oil and energy-efficient, clean-burning propane. Both our heating oil and propane produce far fewer emissions than electricity currently does.
The idea of cutting back on carbon emissions through electrification does not take the big picture into account. It is our goal to encourage state and federal agencies to engage with the heating oil and propane industries. We want to show them how we are already helping to achieve everyone’s carbon-emissions-reduction goals right now—including ours!
We can’t rely on breakthroughs that have not yet taken place—on an already unreliable electric grid. If we do, we’ll see more overload. The electric grid is simply not ready for countless people switching over to electric heat pumps.
To warm your home, a heat pump needs to extract heat from the air outside and transfer inside. Yes, even cold air has heat energy in it!
But when it’s really cold, there isn’t generally enough heat energy outside for your heat pump to keep you comfortable. The house just never seems to warm up.
To stay warm, people have found that they need to rely on a backup energy source. A recent study conducted in Massachusetts showed that 9 out of 10 people who have converted to a heat pump keep their existing heating system (heating oil, natural gas, etc.) as a backup. And for good reason—83% said they were unhappy with their heat pump’s performance in very cold weather.*
Plus, according to the same study, the cost alone to convert from another heating source to an electric heat pump can top $21,000. That’s guaranteed to make you shiver even more.
Contact the Hometowne Energy office today! We’d love to speak with you about why heating your home with clean-burning fuels like propane and ultra-low sulfur heating oil—whether it’s a furnace or a boiler– is a better choice for warming your home than converting to an electric heat pump.