Homeowners have a growing number of options when it comes to heating and cooling their homes and Boulder County has partnered with an online marketplace to make it easier for residents to make decisions.
The county Energy Smart program has teamed up with EnergySage to give county residents access to information about contractors, comparison quotes for service and equipment and third-party advice from experts on heat pumps. The heat pumps can be used for heating and cooling and are an option for people who want to electrify their homes.
EnergySage is a national marketplace for solar and other renewable energy systems. Colorado is just one of four states where EnergySage has started offering its services for people in the market for heat pumps.
Boulder County has set a goal of cutting greenhouse-gas emissions 45% by 2030 and is looking at upping the mark, said Zac Swank, deputy director of the Boulder County Office of Sustainability, Climate Action and Resilience.
“In order to hit our goal, as furnaces and boilers and hot water heaters fail we need the majority of those to be replaced by heat pumps,” Swank said.
The county wanted to make it easier for people who are interested in electrifying their homes. The online service is available to people across Colorado.
Estimates of the global emissions that buildings generate range from 30% to 40%. An inventory by the Colorado Air Pollution Control Division puts the estimate at roughly 10%, based on how the state categorizes the source of emissions.
Getting off natural gas to heat buildings is one of the next big strategies to help reduce the emissions causing climate change, Swank said. Homeowners also make the switch to avoid price swings of natural gas.
Heat pumps are used to both heat and cool buildings. There are also heat pump water heaters.
An air-source heat pump transfers heat from outdoors to inside a house when it’s cold and transfers heat inside to the outdoors to cool a house in hot weather. A geothermal heat pump transfers heat between a house and the ground.
Global sales of heat pumps increased by 11% in 2022, according to the International Energy Agency.
The EnergySage marketplace platform was developed about 12 years ago with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, said Vikram Aggarwal, the CEO and founder.
“The idea behind the whole marketplace is that these are really big-ticket items, the industries are very opaque and consumers are generally shopping for solar, etc…, for the first time and they don’t even know what questions to ask,” Aggarwal said.
People create an account on EnergySage, answer questions about their home and what they spend on energy. People receive competitive quotes from three to seven companies.
“They’re highly qualified, highly experienced companies that we have prescreened,” Aggarwal said.
EnergySage standardizes the proposed prices, equipment and financing options so people can make “apples-to-apples” comparisons, Aggarwal said.
Shoppers don’t pay for the service. Energy companies pay a fee to participate. Aggarwal said EnergySage’s partners include utilities, corporations, nonprofits and state and local governments.
Information on incentives and rebates on heat pumps is available. Liam McCabe, who leads EnergySage’s research on heat pumps, said the state of Colorado offers a tax credit and sales tax exemption for heat pumps and heat pump water heaters. Some Colorado utilities provide incentives.
In addition, thousands of dollars in federal tax credits and rebates are available or soon will be, some of which will be targeted to low-income customers.
McCabe said heat pumps can cost as low as $6,000 to as high as $25,000, depending on how much space is covered and the duct work. The average cost is around $15,000.
Boulder County offers a rebate. Swank said the city of Boulder also has incentives and Boulder County residents who sign up through EnergySage can receive another $150.
Swank used EnergySage to shop for a heat pump, which was installed in his house in March, in time for one of the last cold snaps.
“Before we signed on in a partnership, I wanted to try it out myself and see what the experience was like,” Swank said. “It was helpful. It made the process easy.”
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