Future of energy prices

Hudsonvalleycarpenter

Greetings All,

First post here.  Glad to have found this resource. 

I'm in the planning stages for a new , super-insulated duplex to be built in rural (no natural gas) Upstate New York, 2012.  

I'd like to know what you think the future will bring in energy prices.  Will electric heat ever be competitive?  The same for DHW. 

What's my best investment for heat and DHW.

With Respect, Peter

bob eck

Energy prices

Built the most energy efficient house you can afford. I would look into geothermal heating and cooling system. look for a HVAC contractor in your area that has installed many systems and ask for references of jobs that they did in the past 5-10 years and contact those home owners and see if they liked the geothermal heating ans cooling systems that was installed in their homes. ask what their energy costs are and if the system is holding up. If you are going to install geothermal and the heating contractor uses a well driller ask the HVAC contractor and the well driller to look into using REHAU geothermal systems using their PEXa piping system where there are no fused fittings down the well and if the wells are close enough to the home the pipe can be run right into the house without and fittings underground. In my area the pipe is run into a manifold just like the ones used for radiant heating. When running the pipe back into this manifold you can balance each loop to get the best heat transfer from each loop. Rehau runs two loops in each well so there is 25% - 30% more heat transfer than using one loop per well with regular HDPE geothermal pipe. Do your home work and your heating and cooling cost can be reasonable now and in the future.

NRT_Rob

historically

all fossil fuels grow at about 5% annually. Electricity is about 2% annually.



Right now electricity is only about 10% more than propane here in maine.



Superinsulated it's doubtful that geo would ever make sense.... way too much up front investment for a smaller heat load... generally geo only makes sense if the load is very high or if you are good friends with a well driller. If heat pumps are desired, depends on floorplan, but minisplits might make sense, or if you're doing hydronic heating we use the Altherma and it works very well.



Depends on whether you're doing heat only or heat/cool and what your final loads really are.

NRT_Rob

also

do you guys have time of use metering? that can make electric a real winner right now with a tank of water.

Mark Eatherton

Go Passive House...

From what I understand, the "additional" upfront cost of doing this type of construction only adds around 15 to20% to the base costs of the shell, but it reduces the energy load (regardless of the source) by a whopping 90 percent. Not good news for us heating dudes, but GREAT news if you are the one paying the bills.



Here is a link to the Passive House US's web site.



http://www.passivehouse.us/passiveHouse/PassiveHouseInfo.html



I've seen the actual heat loss calculations on one being built here in Colorado, and you could heat it with 4 bodies, literally, at design conditions. In this particular house, the only heat source was a decorative gas log fire place, ducted throughout the house, and connected to a conventional room thermostat. THey use the water heater to temper the incoming air on the HRV, and it doesn't really require much energy.



ME

Hudsonvalleycarpenter

Thanks Bob

Greetings Bob,

Thanks for all the useful advice. 

With Respect, Peter

Hudsonvalleycarpenter

Thanks Rob

Greetings Rob,

Thanks for the well reasoned advice.  My working equation is: The more I spend on insulation, the less I need to spend on my heating system.  Those numbers seem to equate nicely.

 I'm considering an off peak electric heating system. www.steffes.com .  I'd like to hear comments on that method and those products, from anyone and everyone.

With Respect, Peter

Hudsonvalleycarpenter

Thanks Mark

Greetings Mark,

Thanks for the link.  I've tried passive solar on a small scale.  It didn't work well here in the Mid-Hudson area of New York State.  The winter weather pattern here is: two days of obscured sky for one day of clear sky.  

I'll check into that web site, to see what new materials are being used to get those kind of numbers.  I'm particularly interested to learn about heat loss through those large areas of glass. 

With Respect, Peter

Devan

Passive House

Actually there is NY's very first certified passive house in Hudson Valley , built recently.

I've done work for this Architect in the past, not on this project though.



My opinions about the Passive design is that 6 homes with an added 2 inches of insulation is better for the environment, than one house with 12 inches of added insulation.



http://hudsonpassiveproject.com/

Mark Eatherton

More than just expansive glass...

It has more to do with eliminating the normal conductive bridge associated with conventional stick framing, and making the building tighter than a ducks butt, then adding controlled air changes.



As it pertains to glass, I have a radiant window product that I am helping to develop that can virtually eliminate the cold surfaces associated with a conventional window. Go to http://energizedglass.com/ for more information.



I have 12 of these windows in my mountain home, and can control and monitor them remotely via the internet. I can tell you for a fact that the comfort conditions are incomparable when comparing an energized window to a conventional no energized window. Nothing like sitting next to a window with it below zero outside, and a raging snow storm going on, and not being able to even feel the cold from the window...



I know what your next question is going to be, so I will try and answer it before you ask it :-)



Yes, there is some extra back loss from an energized window, but it is not as bad as you might think it is, and when coupled to an alternative energy source, like solar PV, or wind or hydro, the energy being induced into the glass is virtually free and carbon neutral, so the standby losses are negligible at that point. We had KSU test the glass in their labs, and they determined it to be roughly 15% of the energy being consumed. There were some inherent conversion efficiencies with the power source used during that test that were not taken into consideration. Personally, I don't think it will be much more than the unheated window would have "lost" in the first place, but it takes time, money, instrumentation and exposure to figure that part of the equation out. We are working on it. If you control the windows heat loss thru induced energy, in some cases (using alternative energy) you can actually "bank" energy by raising the MRT on the North side of the building using the windows. Kinda like pumping sunshine into places it would not normally (North facing windows) flow to.



ME

Ex Maine Doug

ME, do you need another test building?

I have several window candidates.....

NRT_Rob

ETS is nice

but pricey.



could do it with a tank of water and an electric boiler (upgradeable to heat pump later, if you wanted) for much less.



utility programs may change that.

Hudsonvalleycarpenter

Thermal Bridge

I'm addressing the thermal bridge problem with double 2X4 exterior walls, totaling 8.5 inches.  That will allow R-values of 30+.  The attic space will be 20" deep at the eaves, making R-70 possible.  The floor will be R-30+.

Do you know of any ETS systems available in the USA, other than www.steffes.com?

My window budget is limited so I'll have to stick with old tech stuff....unless someone can come up with something better at reasonable prices.

With Respect, Peter

Hudsonvalleycarpenter

Yea, ETS ain't cheap.

I'm just finding out that those ceramic bricks are worth their weight in platinum.  Got a quote for ~$1K=1KW, installed.

Would you care to expound on the "homemade" ETS idea you proposed, electic boiler and a storage tank? 

With Respect, Peter

NRT_Rob

it's possible

to do thermal storage with water and electric boiler for significantly less than an ETS. you might not get ALL of your BTUs to off peak, but you can get a lot of them.

Hudsonvalleycarpenter

I certainly like the idea...

of using water to store off-peak energy/BTUs.  As I'm a novice at heating solutions I'd appreciate a little more information.  Like, how much water would you heat off-peak and how would you store it efficiently? 

With Respect, Peter

NRT_Rob

lots

and in a well insulated tank. the real answers lay in the specifics of what you need for a water temp (what kind of heat emitter you're using) and what your peak heat load is.

Gordy

Aerogel

http://thermablok.com/



Don't know the cost but looks like an interesting use of the high r value of aerogel to overcome thermal bridging.



Gordy