In another ambitious move toward California’s zero-emissions goals, state air regulators voted Thursday to approve a plan that would ban the sale of commercial and residential natural-gas heaters by 2030— a decision that means an alternative heating technology powered by electricity might soon become far more widespread in the state.
The unanimous decision by the California Air Resources Board is part of a larger state plan to reduce ozone emissions from a variety of industries, including transportation and consumer products in addition to commercial and residential building.
It comes shortly after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a slate of climate bills that will require the state to become carbon-neutral by 2045 and produce 90% of its electricity from clean sources by 2035, among other goals, as the state grapples with a changing climate that is creating extreme weather and fueling the state’s increasingly destructive wildfires.
Key to the move away from natural gas, regulators say, will be heat pump technology, which is already used widely in Europe but is less common in the U.S.
Lafayette City Council Member Wei-Tai Kwok installed a heat pump system in 2019 and said the conversion process was faster than he’d expected.
Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The Chronicle 2019Heat pumps, which rely solely on electricity, work by moving heat around. While there are different kinds, including geothermal, the more common type, air-source heat pumps, use air to cool or heat your home — when it’s cold outside, heat pumps draw heat energy from the outside and move it into your home; when it’s hot, they draw hot air from inside and move the heat out.
They typically come with an outdoor unit and an indoor unit, with a refrigerant cycling through. That refrigerant, which can either absorb or release heat, is how the heat energy is transferred. Temperature is controlled with a thermostat.
According to the California Air Resources Board, residential and commercial buildings are responsible for about 5% of statewide emissions because of the use of natural gas, and 90% of all building-related natural gas demand comes from space and water heating.
Currently, only about 11% of homes in the U.S. use heat pumps, according to a study by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, Carnegie Mellon and the University of Michigan. Another study from the Natural Resources Defense Council in San Francisco found that switching from natural gas to electricity for space heating could reduce the annual emissions of a California household by 46% to 54%.
While heat pumps can now work in all kinds of climates, they are particularly well suited to mild climates like the Bay Area, where it rarely gets extremely cold, according to several studies. Heat pumps have a more difficult time pulling heat out of the air in extremely low temperatures, though experts say the technology is improving.
The technology is gaining popularity. Brian Crosson, a sales manager at Bell Bros., an HVAC and plumbing company in Sacramento and the East Bay, said that state and local incentives have been driving more people toward the systems, and demand is higher than ever.
“We have seen a huge surge in our heat pump business within this last year,” he said — including himself.
“If you would have asked me personally two or three years ago to change my gas system to electric, I would have said no way, but I just replaced my system three months ago,” he said. “I converted to a heat pump, and a big part of that was the trust in the reliability of these systems now and because of how much I was able to get rebates and incentives.”
The Inflation Reduction Act signed by President Biden this year provides rebates for heat pumps. It offers a 30% tax credit up to $2,000 to anyone who installs a heat pump, as well as rebates up to $8,000 depending on income level. California offers a $3,000 rebate for heat pump installation in single family homes through the Tech Clean California initiative, with more available depending on where you live. On top of that, local governments and utilities often offer their own incentives.
Conversion doesn’t have to always be a big project, Crosson explained. For homes that already have gas heat and air conditioning systems and want to switch, a heat pump system can typically go in the same place — “it can be a like-for-like change-out,” he said.
For Wei-Tai Kwok, a Lafayette City Council member who installed a heat pump system in 2019, the conversion process was quicker than he’d expected.
Lafayette City Council Member Wei-Tai Kwok shows the water tank that is heated with electricity at his home, where he has stopped using natural gas.
Carlos Avila Gonzalez/The Chronicle 2019His whole project, as he explained in a March presentation on heat pumps with the local government coalition Bay Area Regional Energy Network, included not only electrifying his heating and air conditioning system, but also his stove, fireplace and water heater as well. It took only 45 days, which came as a pleasant surprise, since he had thought it “was going to take forever and be really complicated.”
But there are still challenges — for one, the upfront cost can be very high. Kwok’s heat pump, for example, cost him $27,000. While Crosson said that a heat pump system itself is similar in cost to a gas-electric system if you’re installing from scratch, people may not be reluctant to switch over and pay for an expensive new system unless their gas heater is at the end of its life.
New incentives and rebates are helping to significantly reduce that upfront cost, Crosson and Kwok both noted.
Also, once it’s installed, a heat pump can be more expensive to run than a traditional system, depending on local utility rates, according to Chris Silberman, a service manager with Bell Bros. While heat pumps are more energy efficient — which means you get more heat for your dollar — the electricity itself can be more expensive than natural gas for powering a furnace, he said.
Still, an air-source heat pump can deliver up to three times more heat energy than the electrical energy it consumes, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, which means that for homes that use some electricity for heating already through electric furnaces or baseboard heaters, they can reduce power use by 50%.
Installation presents another challenge: Kwok and another Bay Area homeowner, Sarah Spengeman of San Rafael, who also serves as deputy director of communications for climate think tank Energy Innovation, each said during the forum that finding a contractor to install a heat pump was more difficult than they expected. Many didn’t have experience with the technology or thought the equipment wasn’t as good as a regular gas electric system.
A market report prepared for the California Public Utilities Commission this year found that awareness of heat pumps among new construction trade allies is growing, but still low — it said that as few as 5% of California architects are aware of heat pumps.
But Kwok and Spengeman both said the benefits of the systems outweighed all the negatives — especially because they were both looking to find a greener way to heat and cool their homes.
Kwok said that the system is quiet while keeping a steady level of heating and cooling indoors, and Spengeman noted that it works well for her family even on the hottest and coldest days.
“It feels just like central heat,” she said. “We’ve been totally comfortable over the past couple of years.”
Silberman pointed out another benefit — heat pump systems are safer than furnaces because they don’t use gas at all, which means there is no potential for gas to leak into the home.
If you’re looking to install a heat pump, Crosson and Silberman noted, it’s important to make sure you are maximizing its benefits and taking advantage of all the available rebates. The best way to do that is to get professional help, they said.
“Every home is unique and specific, so it’s best to get a reputable contractor to come out and give you an assessment,” Crosson said.
Danielle Echeverria is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: danielle.echeverria@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @DanielleEchev
