I consciously went with a reverse cycle air con. Main reason being I set a goal for my current house to be able to generate (well, net generate) ALL the energy used, and I can't make gas (without going the whole hog with a biogas plant, etc).
Our electricity is supplied by either solar PV or the grid in which we subscribe to 100% with credits from the local (Codrington) wind farm about 40km away.
Even though we're on the Southwest coast of Victoria, we don't need heating very often. Nothing since Oct 17 last year but that will change when we hit June or July, and that middle of winter period will see the heater used every third night or so (on the days that are cold and fully overcast ALL day). On each of those nights the heater will consume about 2kWh (about 50c worth), or about 80kWh ($20) for heating (and cooling) for the year.
Of course at those times our PV system certainly won't be contributing to the energy used so it will all be grid-based wind-credited power.
Sure natural gas is even more efficient from a cents per joules point of view, but still is an unrenewable resource ultimately supplied by the fossil fuel industry.
By the way the heater used is the smallest high efficiency split system I could find, and only cost a little over $1,000 fully installed. This heating equipment saving helped pay for some of the 'things' (like extra insulation, better double glazing, etc) that contributed to make the house efficient enough to use such a small system and have such a small heating/cooling bill.
Posted Monday 3 May 2010 @ 1:27:56 pm from IP
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