One Small Step for Renewable Energy

I’ve been wanting to personally do something to address climate change.  Judy and I have relatively new vehicles (including a 2014 hybrid Prius station wagon) so getting all-electrics doesn’t make much financial sense at present. 

A few years ago we signed up for our utility’s “Windsource” program which means, in theory, that all our home electricity is generated by wind turbines out in the eastern plains of Colorado.  In actuality, I realize that not every electron that powers our home comes from wind generation but by joining this program, Xcel Energy knows that we (and hopefully thousands of other customers) want our electricity sources from renewables.  Sure, we could have put solar panels on our roof instead but there are complications with that route including a big capital outlay or a long-term contract with a solar company that a future buyer of our home might not want to be stuck with.

So, renewable energy has been powering everything in our home except our gas water heater and furnace.  A few months ago, we had our furnace serviced.  It is old but the technician felt we could get a few more years out of it.  He was less optimistic about our 23-year-old hot water heater.  When I asked him about converting to a new electric hot water heater, he looked at me like I was nuts.  Why would I want to convert to electric when I had a gas line right to our present water heater?  In the late 1990s, our electricity came mostly from coal-fired generation so cleaner natural gas made sense environmentally.  The technician couldn’t understand why would I needlessly spend extra money to make this conversion?  The climate crisis didn’t seem to fit into his equation. 

I called a couple of larger HVAC companies for estimates on a new electric hot water heater.  The estimates were relatively high, and it was apparent that they had little experience making this sort of conversion.  Then I called Coyote HVAC, a small and relatively new company, which had been recommended by a friend.  Their estimator did not find my request weird and knew exactly how to do the installation which needed to include a new 220 volt line from the breaker box in the garage to the heater in the basement.  He said the new 220 line would add about $500 to the cost.  The gas line to the heater and the exhaust duct would have to be capped (the exhaust was for gas fumes – obviously not necessary with an electric unit).   

Two HVAC guys and two electricians arrived in the early morning about a week later and were finished with the job in less than three hours.  Our new Rheem 50-gallon electric hot water heater works great.  Yes, we paid more than if we had simply replaced our old unit with another natural gas one.  But at least we have the satisfaction of knowing that we made a small commitment to renewable energy.  In a few years, we’ll have to make the decision as to whether to replace our gas furnace with an electric heat pump unit.  It will be much more involved than the water heater conversion and won’t be cheap.

The reader is probably wondering how the conversion has affected our energy bills.  A good question.  We probably won’t know for a few months but it will be tough to figure out because of fluctuating costs for electricity and gas as well as differences in weather from one year to the next.       

Big stretch – Installing a 220-volt line to the new electric water heater.

Closing off gas water heater vent (no longer needed)

Out with the old:  hauling away the old gas water heater.

In with the new:  replacement electric hot water heater to the right of the gas furnace.

 

Many readers received this article as an email attachment a couple weeks ago before I posted it on the blog.  The article generated a number of email responses including regrets that the Canyon Country Zephyr (which published my three articles on the Colorado River basin drought) has ceased publication as well as encouragement for me to revive the blog.  Comments regarding the electric hot water heater story are reproduced below. 

- I used only first names (except for one reader who said I could use his full name) and state or country where the respondent lives.

- Responses have been edited a bit for clarity and grammar.

- Now that I will be publishing these articles on the blog, please enter future responses on the blog ("Post a Comment" section) rather than sending them to me as an email.

There is a lengthy response from Ed (Colorado) in which he attacks Xcel Energy’s Windsource program and Xcel’s attempts to squelch solar installations on commercial buildings.  If these accusations are true, they paint Xcel in a very bad light.  I’ve done some checking and will address these accusations in my next post. 

 

Sandy

Florida

We never had a gas furnace. Never had gas hot water heater. Always Rheem - 85 gallons!!

 

Jane

South Carolina

Thanks for your article regarding switching to an electric water heater, in the end, it sounds as though the process was fairly painless, not too expensive, and better yet, not gas!!  Your bills may still be high since the price of electricity has increased (I know mine have), however the negative environmental impact is so much less than using gas.  Your HVAC system, as you mentioned, will be a lot more costly, however is many more people would purchase electric driven systems, the cost would come down...supply and demand.

BY the way, Will, seems I had heard some negative stuff regarding the Windsource Program you mention, as well, though I don't recall the details, so well worth looking into. 

I would also be interested in learning about the "on demand" water heaters, never heard of them before...I will do an online search.

 

Scott

Colorado

Thanks for the piece.   We just had a new tankless water heater installed, and unfortunately, it is gas-powered.  We had a new gas furnace installed about 3 years ago.  So we are wedded to gas for the foreseeable future for heating needs.  We do have solar panels on the roof, which we own, and our cars are a Chevy Bolt (all electric) and a Prius (gasoline hybrid, great mileage), so our transportation is as green as it can be for present.  Our electricity is getting greener, but that is a process lasting several years.  We vote for those in favor of energy transition, but they are all Democrats.  Perhaps there are some green Republicans out there, but they are few and far between.

When we first got the solar panels, we had an excess of power, so I figured we had to get either an electric car or a hot tub.  The car gets used a lot more than a hot tub ever would. 

Bruce Briscoe

Bali, Indonesia

Interesting article, BUT you left out the best water heater alternative: INLINE WATER HEATER or TANKLESS WATER HEATER.  It is the way people USED to heat their water in the US and how most of the rest of the world does it today.  Think about it, you are on vacation for 1 month for example, and yet your water heater is keeping 50 gals of water hot enough for you to take a shower every day 24/7.  Sounds silly, right?  So please keep that in mind if you mention alternatives to other's water heater needs.  I've lived outside the US, in China, Indonesia, etc., for 20 years+ and never had a 'normal' water heater, always a tankless one. Remember this: with your heater, unless you have solar hot water, when you start using hot water, it is adding COLD water to the tank.  With Tankless, it is ALWAYS unlimited hot water.  No more waiting for the water heater to heat up more water before the 2nd or 3rd person can take their shower.  That is my experience.  (AND they don't take much room. Some people put one wherever they need hot water.  For instance, each bathroom, kitchen, laundry, etc.)

 

Ed

Colorado

Thanks for the info. I thought it may be worth mentioning this for your awareness as you’re a man who wants to know these things. The Windsource program has been around for a very long time and I used to be on it. I quit when I met an Xcel employee at a party. He let me know, sort of in secret, that this program is a scam. He said it’s just a way to make more money from customers (like they don’t make enough already) and that there is ZERO relationship between how many people sign up for Windsource and how much of the electricity is sourced by wind. He said it’s an incredibly brilliant scheme developed, because it not only makes Xcel look like they are being green, but gives them a bunch of extra cash to boot! In other words, He said the decisions to plan for more wind are COMPLETELY independent of the Windsource program.

Xcel Energy could care a less about climate change or being green and secretly want a person to spend as much electricity as possible, but have to pretend they want to conserve. I have a real example from my own experience, rather than just from an employee. In 2014ish, I set out to be 100% solar at my house and at the building I owned where my company was based. My house was a no brainer as there were state-forced rebates imposed on Xcel (that they secretly fight every time, by the way) and so it was a great deal with a 6 year payback. The building, however, was a different story. They have successfully fought back state mandates on commercial buildings because it’s their cash cow, and there is not enough political push for commercial as it’s only a handful of voters directly affected (emphasis on directly).

But being a greeny wacko, I decided to pursue getting the building solar anyway. However, during the process of applying for the Xcel permits, I was called by not one, but TWO separate Xcel employees to try to convince me NOT to do this. When I was still wanting to pursue it, they provided me charts and financial data to show me that this was a really big mistake financially, and when I still resisted, wanted to come by and meet personally to show me how bad of an investment it was. I asked if this is what their job was and they said yes.

As a scientist and just curious person, I had to find out why Xcel would have people on payroll whose job it is to convince commercial building owners to not do solar, and even expend great effort in this. I found out the answer.  In commercial buildings, unlike residential, they are allowed to charge the highest point in time, electrical usage within a given month, and apply that to the ENTIRE month (not to that day, but the month)! Their rational for doing this is that they have to keep the coal-fired power plants running at peak demand and can’t just turn them up and down throughout the day or even between days as the turbines don’t work that way and it’s most efficient to just set them to run at the highest generation needed. So they have to charge for that peak because the power plants are kept running at that peak. They can’t charge residential customers for this because, well, it would be bad politically as described above, so they do it to commercial properties.

People don’t give a shit about commercial building energy costs because it’s not their bill.  Some probably would even think “stick it to them, they are rich” (not caring about the climate consequences, of course). Even if the building charges the businesses within their building, its simply the business owners that get tagged, so same argument as above. Therefore, most of their gravy revenue comes from commercial buildings. Because even if you only spike your electricity for a little bit one day, and the rest of the month keep if very low, they still charge you for that peak. THERFORE, they really Really REALLY don’t want commercial buildings to go solar, because that would trim off the peak demand by literally epic proportions. This is because peak demand days come when all the commercial buildings AC units are running simultaneously on the hottest part of the hottest day of the month. This is almost always exactly when solar panels are generating the most electricity. Are you getting the picture here?

So solar would GREATLY offset almost all commercial buildings peak demand, thereby reducing coal fired power plant peak need by an insanely HUGE amount, thereby reducing their bottom line income. So they lobby hard to keep commercial rebates from occurring, and even though they are successful in that, and make sure there is no financial incentive to do it, that’s not enough. They even have specialists hired to call people like me who still want to do it, despite it not being a good business decision!! They desperately don’t even want one single commercial building to go solar. Probably for fear of a trend, or the next commercial building to see it and then look into it. Heck it might even put pressure on other buildings to do it due to the pressure of the green movement and the value of stating “we are 100% solar”. So they have to make sure they have that squashed completely too.  If you notice, outside of a handful of government buildings, do you ever see commercial buildings with solar? Nope. I’m the only private commercial office building that I am aware of that has done it!!  What’s worse, it’s so unheard of, when I looked into selling the building, the realtor said there is literally ZERO increase from an appraisal perspective for having commercial solar. They simply don’t have it in the appraisal formulas, so it’s treated as if it doesn’t exist! 

Sorry if I am raining on your parade, and perhaps the Windsource program has changed and has been forced to link the two, but I very much doubt it, and I know the commercial hasn’t as I still have that building. I wish to hell that the general public knew about how disgusting Xcel energy is with their phony pamphlets about trying to conserve energy. I cringe every time I see a pamphlet in the bill or elsewhere, as I know that if they TRULY cared, they would incentivize commercial buildings to go solar, because as one single building’s peak demand is trimmed, it would literally reduce the coal plant’s peak need, allowing them to reduce the coal burn significantly. My little building had a $26,000 electric bill when I bought it. Now think about their pamphlets telling residential customers about replacing appliances with energy efficient ones, and LED rebates, Windsource, etc. Now think about how many of these line items would be needed to make up for my $26,000!!!

Scott

Colorado

This is very old data [from Ed], and not first-hand.  I'm told that Xcel came up with Windsource long ago, and they contracted with wind energy providers for some power.  However, they underestimated the demand for Windsource, so they were undersupplied with wind energy.  Windsource did cost more.  So they kept the change, or at least until a class action suit forced them to make refunds.  This was over 10 years ago, so it may have predated your choice of Windsource.  Is this what you heard, or was there something else?

 

Ed

Colorado

I have a pretty new tankless, on-demand, electric water heater, as I moved into the mountains 1½ years ago and only electricity [no gas line] is available up here.  The tenants of my old house needed a tank as the tankless can’t keep up with their demand. 

And to clarify, as I qualified, Windsource WAS the way I described years ago, and perhaps they have been forced to change if others caught on to them.

 

Glenn

New Mexico

Converting your water heater made perfect sense to us.   We make all kinds of trade-offs, and I think we all know that the way we live now is not sustainable for 8 billion of us now or even in the near future, not to mention decades, centuries, millennia.

We just bought (in Sept.) a new RAV-4 Prime, which will go forty+ miles on a full charge.  But the real trick is to drive less when not on battery, for which of course even bringing the car back from Trinidad was a defeat.

Emelie is good at taking advantage of little measures like solar-pickup and using shade and native plants to make some tiny impact on the ecological disaster that we're in.   I pretty much just tag along.

 

Bruce

Colorado

Did you consider the tankless water heater?  Why not?

We got a solar hot water system (plus a new higher-efficiency furnace) way back in 1983.  (The first year my wife was going to be home with a new baby full-time.)  Tho I've been the only one in the house who ever factored in trying to use "free" hot water.  It still works: tho the tank and guts had to be replaced some years back.

 

Jean

Colorado

Climate people I know would approve of your move.  I recently heard one say that he also did this, costing him about $3000-$3500 in total.  Here is a document he seems to think is golden for such endeavors.... https://www.rewiringamerica.org/electrify-home-guide  

Apparently there is also work being done to try and have some sort of micro-grid set-up as well so that if and when the power goes out (as ours did last week for a mere 1-1/2 hours) perhaps it will be for only short periods, unlike Texas last winter.

 

Olga

Colorado

Thank you for sharing your article about the hot water heater conversion. That is good information for the future. Hopefully more people will look at that option when it's time to replace the old water heater.

We were sad to hear that The Zephyr is ceasing publication. Maybe they can still work out something.... It was a great source of important news. It is unbelievably sad that the water level at Lake Powell has dropped so much again! And it's even sadder that no one seems to be too concerned about it. Except you, of course.

 

Lisa

Colorado

I live in a condo. I’ve been thinking about how to make if more energy efficient. It’s small, which is a good start for sustainable living. My HOA wants to transition the existing landscaping to a xeriscape, but they don’t have the money. I figure as things need replacement (as they do - it's old), I will make greener choices.

 

Roy

California

Sorry to hear about the Zephyr.  I definitely think you could create a blog, continuing the Saga of the Southwest Drought. I want to read the next installment. Also, I like the water heater upgrade.

Keep me posted...

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