How fast must gas prices rise against electricity before a heat pump ties a gas furnace on 30-year cost?
research/house-escalate
How fast must gas prices rise against electricity before a heat pump ties a gas furnace on 30-year cost? At equal installed cost the heat pump already wins in Miami, Houston and Atlanta unless gas gets cheaper; in Chicago, Minneapolis and Duluth gas must rise 4.6%, 3.7% and 3.7% a year in real terms for 30 years. Stylised.
What it found
Separates each house package’s yearly bill into gas and electricity and lets each grow at its own real rate, then reruns the break-even premium of house-hvacnpc, which held prices flat. With electricity flat, a heat pump of equal installed cost already ties in Miami, Houston and Atlanta unless gas gets cheaper (−2.9%, −0.3%, −1.1% a year), while in Chicago, Minneapolis and Duluth gas must rise 4.6%, 3.7% and 3.7% a year in real terms for 30 years; a $4,000 premium raises that to 5.2–6.3%. Constant 2.5 COP, constant growth rates, no forecast. Stylised.
A figure from its own output
Paper, code and results
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Produced with AI assistance (Claude). Results are from the code in this repository and are simulated or stylised unless the abstract says otherwise; nothing here implies affiliation with or endorsement by any lab, researcher or company cited. MIT licensed.