Who's Your Supplier

that is wonderful. around here, it's 24 cents for natural gas, and 29 cents for alternative.

i just can't get myself to bite at that price

 

I live in a state with deregulated utility. Thus I do have choices in electric suppliers. I recently signed up with a 100% wind power supplier offering 2 year lock in price at lower than current standard offering from the utility. I do feel better about the choice. However, I have to wonder what it really means? The electricity in grid is all mixed, you can't distinguish coal generated from wind generated. If there is no wind blowing at the wind mill site, am I really receiving 100% wind generated power all the time??? I doubt it.

 

it's not the electricity you in particular are using, it's what your payments are supporting. makes all the difference in the world.
electrons are electrons

 

I understand that. My point is, whither I pay for the 100% wind power or not, the wind mill generation has a certain capacity to produce electricity. As long as some other non-renewable sources are feeding into the grid, I will never get 100% wind power service to me. Unless, I go off grid and generate my own power from my own wind mill.

 

that's correct. in your other post, you asked what it really means, and that's what i was responding to.

you're getting no more wind power than your neighbor who isn't signed up for wind power

but you are supporting the wind power

 

Yap that's correct! Yet, as with OP, many people think signing up with a "greener" suppliers increases % of renewable energy at your wall instantly. And many of those "greener" suppliers advertises as such.

 

it's actually okay to think that. it doesn't negatively affect the environment, or the health of the alternative power supplier

 

That is only if the supplier is true to the promise and 100% of what I pay goes to the support of wind mill power production. I would not be surprised if there are suppliers who make big and bold claim to be 100% green to be environmentally friendly to gain market advantages, but in truth may not be buying 100% of electricity from renewable sources. Am I being too cynical? I just don't know.

 

i hope so

or, at least, that the regulators are doing their job

 

Are you in a situation where you can put up home solar generation? Or buy into an upcoming local community solar project?

I prefer making my own renewable energy over signing up for renewables because:

(*) I can see the renewable energy being made right here, there is no opportunity for fraudulent claims or multiple-selling of the same units;

(*) The honest existing renewable energy projects are going to sell everything anyway, regardless of whether or not I sign up, so my hopping on to their bandwagon doesn't actually advance much of anything, whereas putting up my own does do so;

(*) Making one's own energy naturally puts better focus on one's overall energy picture, often leading to greater energy efficiency improvements all around.

Towards that last point, a mixture of conservation, better appliances (heat pumps to replace electric resistance), some building envelope improvements, and a 'starter' rooftop solar system, made enough difference to make me think about pushing the house all the way to net-zero-energy. A few years later, it was a done deal, a goal accomplished: ~50% reduction in total energy use, and the solar system expanded to produce all the remaining 50%.

Merely signing up for existing renewable energy offers would not have pushed me towards as much energy improvement to the building itself. Such improvements are a necessary part of addressing this climate issue. Though this is still a valid path for people not in a similar position as me to go further.

 

If you go off-grid, then you will need excess overall capacity to be able to cover the slack periods. That excess capacity will usually be idle, wasted most of the time.

I think it is better to stay on-grid, so that you can either (1) reach net-zero with a smaller and cheaper installation, or (2) with the larger off-grid-capable capacity, put your excess production out there so that others can use in in place of non-renewables. No wasted idle capacity, at least at this time when the overall grid is far short of fully renewable.

 

Yeah, I have no plan to built PV or windmill or any other renewable energy generator for our current normal house to go off-grid. That is just not realistic without drastic changes in our lifestyle. But, if I am alone and I can do whatever I want, I wouldn't mind living in a log cabin totally off-grid, with no electricity, no plumbing, and only biomass heating and cooking.

 

That is always a good sign, at least for you. Not for your neighbors.

Tankless should not save anywhere near that much, unless your hot water usage is very far below usage assumed in the Energy Guide ratings. At those usages, tankless cannot save more the 5-8% compared to modern well-insulated electric resistance heaters.

Heat pump water heaters can save a lot, today reaching 60-70%, see my description here.

I have an older heat pump water heater, from when they could save 'only' about 50%.

My house was built in the 1980s, among the last under an expiring building code in the last local area to move forward. So it isn't all that good.

But I have since greatly improved leak infiltration, replaced leaky porch and front doors, boosted most of the floor insulation, increased the attic to R-49, and most importantly, discovered and fixed more than 100 ft^2 of uninsulated ceiling, spread out on the far fringes where the inspectors don't look. But wall insulation upgrades are too expensive, at least from my starting point.

 

^This

The biggest benefit is that your showing their is a demand for renewable electricity. This can make a big deal when utilities decide what technologies to build.

However, I prefer to look at the opposite end of the grid based on how much 1) coal or 2) fossil fuels are powering my plug.

 

35 degree rise? Your 'cold' water must be half-heated right out of the pipe, compared to ours.

Your estimate of energy for the water heat seems high, particularly when starting with 'warm' cold water. (What is your home air heat source? I had pure electric resistance before going to heat pump for the bulk of it.) Recent water heaters shouldn't be that bad, so I'd be looking for problems around it too, such as a hot water leak somewhere, and to missing or improperly installed heat traps (preventing convective heat loss loops) on the pipe connections to the tank.

Here is the list of water heaters qualified for local rebates in my Northern Climate zone. Warmer zones should get better performance (due to warmer air source), and can use additional models not qualified here:
https://neea.org/img/documents/qualified-products-list.pdf
Note that these models have Energy Factors (two different scales, depending on listing date) of 2.8 to 3.4. For comparison, tankless heaters should have an Energy Factor almost exactly 1.00, and modern electric resistance storage heaters a bit lower at 0.92-0.96. The really old tanks could have been down around 0.80, but essentially all of them should have rusted out some time ago.

Do look into track history before buying any HPWH. The market is still not fully mature, though is much better now than when I bought in. The maker of mine went belly-up over recall expenses after a design problem, followed by manufacturing problems related to the long factory shutdown during the initial recall. Thus my warranty is useless. I had to do a DIY fix when the fan motor start run capacitor failed. Fortunately it was an easy plug-in component, finding the information and a suitable part were much more time consuming. Also fortunately, this model can be configured to operate in standard electric resistance mode when the heat pump portion fails.

 

I think Rheem is on their fourth generation of heat pump water heaters, and the company isn't going anywhere any time soon. That's what I would recommend.



The default energy mix here is 28% renewable (mostly wind), but for an extra $0.01/kwh I pay for "100% wind" power. I know it all comes from the same place, but it's cheap enough and might make a slight difference. I pay around 11 or 12 cents per KWH, but that could be going up about 10% next year. It's still really cheap.

Buying carbon offsets would be another inexpensive way to offset your impact. That's also hard to intuitively see that it makes any difference, but I've done a little research and it seems to be worthwhile.