 Great. Well, thank you Nick for bringing us together today. Thanks everybody for joining us This is a topic that is near and dear to my heart and so I'm going to start sharing my screen and We'll get right into it We're going to start at home today Figure out how to reduce emissions and support resilience in our buildings So the first slide we have here is a great illustration of a main home You'll see there's an efficiency main logo on here my my co-chair of the buildings Infrastructure and housing working group of the main climate council was Michael Stoddard who is the executive director of efficiency main and My my guess is that many of you are familiar with efficiency main and the fabulous Programs that organization offers This this illustration is a little bit of a guide to those programs So each of those little yellow dots represents a place where there's an opportunity whether it is a heat pump on the wall insulation in the attic Solar panels on the roof or an EV in the driveway. There are all sorts of places where emissions may be originating in main homes and where there may be opportunities to mitigate those emissions by using less energy shifting to cleaner fuels shifting to lower carbon materials and Really making our houses work better as a system Why does all of this matter? Well, it matters because when we take a look at Main means greenhouse gas emissions profile We'll see that when we take all main buildings into account the residential commercial and industrial We're looking at nearly 40 percent of the emissions that's second only to transportation and There's a tremendous amount of opportunity here, right? So we're looking today at the emissions that that are generated directly from inside of these buildings for Heating and cooling and everything we saw in that house diagram The energy supply that's feeding these buildings And the embodied carbon in the materials used in the construction of these buildings That makes buildings a top priority for the work of the main climate council Whoops, let's go back here. So the climate council has been working for about a year We're getting right up to the the moment the climate action plan will be delivered to the legislature at the beginning of December and We expect that plan to lay out the steps that we need to take as a state to get our greenhouse gas emissions 45 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 and 80 percent below those levels by 2050 We also are looking to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045 and Crucially to make sure that our people and our industries and our communities and our buildings are resilient to the impacts of climate change How are we doing? We're doing all right. We've made tremendous progress this Well, I guess this is right where we are here 2020 and this yellow line shows what we might expect to see over the next couple of decades We are on track to meet our 45 percent reduction goal by 2030 But we have a ways to go to get to that 80 percent reduction So this is what the main climate council has been tasked with right we started back in June 2019 when the council was established and just about a year ago the Working groups of the climate council were established and the members were appointed and we got right to work So for for about seven months the working groups of the climate council looked through all of the the data and the strategies that you know are Available to us and came up with a set of recommendations those recommendations were delivered to the climate council in June and They're crunching those now As well as a whole slew of analysis that was conducted by outside consultants So we had a vulnerability assessment that looked at the climate change Impacts that our state will likely face and in fact is already facing and where we expect to see those kinds of impacts There was a cost-benefit analysis that looked at the the relative impacts of recommended strategies in terms of economics and greenhouse gas reductions and there was some really interesting energy modeling and an equity analysis that is expected soon That's a lot to work through and it's that's what the climate council is doing now You can explore all of that at climate council dot mean dot gov But today we're going to really focus in on the strategies that were proposed by the buildings infrastructure and housing working group Not going to go into a ton of detail about all of these but I did want to give you the high-level overview the working group laid out six big buckets of work that we could do as a state Improving the design and construction of new buildings Transitioning to cleaner heating and cooling systems. That's what we're going to focus on today Improving the efficiency and resiliency of existing building envelopes Pantsy way of saying whether is that weatherizing insulating our homes? The possibility for me by example in in publicly funded buildings The decarbonization of industrial processes and then all of the work on our electric grid that's necessary to support that I Mentioned the cost effectiveness Analysis that was done by some outside consultants as part of this process And you'll see here that that the strategy is proposed by the buildings working group top-of-the-list in terms of cost effectiveness That's not going to surprise any of the many many main people who have already Invested in and reaped the benefits of energy efficiency We know firsthand many of us that as we air seal and insulate our homes they get more comfortable We lower our heating and cooling costs and we reduce our energy consumption along with all the associated carbon emissions The other great thing about these strategies is we know how to do this In the last decade main has weatherized more than 20,000 homes through efficiency main programs That that doesn't count the pro the the efficiency and Weatherization work that happened outside of efficiency main programs That's thousands more through the low-income programs of main housing and the action programs And the buildings working group really recommends that we expand on that great record of success that we make sure that we're Extending those benefits of weatherization to households of all income levels and making sure that we really need the needs of low-income Mainers including those who rent rather than own own homes Go back for just a second because as we tackle that number three the efficiency and resiliency of existing buildings We also recognize that it is so much more cost-effective to build in those measures in the first place It's the old ounce of prevention is worth a pound of pure a thing that we can can build in Efficiency and resilience from the beginning of our buildings. We can incorporate clean energy and low-carbon building materials and Our working group recommended that the week lay out a path to reach net zero emission building codes By 2035 so we ensure that the new buildings that we're building in this state use only as much energy as they generate either on-site or off We are also going to do a deep dive today Get to that into the transition to cleaner heating and cooling and Dana will be able to go into a ton more detail on on How we make that transition and what it looks like for for main people But I can give you the high-level recommendations from our working group We know that as we accelerate the transition to low-carbon and high-efficiency heating systems that that there are a number of things of Benefits right we have the potential to lower energy costs and improve comfort There are a whole bunch of jobs Associated with installing these new systems We know and Dana will tell us about this about the the consistent quality of the products and services and The ability to scale up this success It's really important to recognize and to celebrate means leading role in the transition from from fossil fuel heating To high-efficiency electric heat pumps. We're actually leading the nation in the rate of that transition and we need to keep scaling that up We also talked as a working group about the use of modern wood heating which has some really interesting Intersections with our natural with our forest products industry Not going to go into a ton of detail about that But we do see here that a high-performance heat pump up is just a Huge improvement in an effect in an emissions Impact level We also took a look at What it might what we might see Over a period of years as we make this transition so one of the sets of analysis that was done by the outside Consultants for both the climate council looked at what happens as we move to Getting towards two-thirds of our heating in the state as electric heat pumps and then as we move towards all electric heat pumps And what we see is there is a tremendous reduction in emissions over time a Little bit of a difference as we go through the the years But by 2050 we are where we need to be we see an 80 percent reduction in emissions as we transition to to heat pumps. I Think I'm going to leave it there for now and let Dana tell us more about what that means from a Consumer perspective and then when we get to the back to the questions we can Talk more about the the climate council process if folks are interested in that so I'm going to stop sharing Great, thank you very much Exciting things happening. It's exciting to be a part of this process in Maine. We're actually going to make some progress And Dana, I'm going to ask and see if you could turn your video back on There you go There you go. We're back at it so great Why don't you take it away and Kathleen and I will shut down Okay, great. I'll I'll jump I'll jump to my screen share right off I have a good handful of slides to view this morning, but I I really want to Nick can you confirm you can see my my slide that go right at this point. Yep, I can see it great Okay, super. Thank you. So Good morning, everyone. Thank you so much to Maine Audubon for for holding this session and Really really pleased to to play a part in this and how and part of the conversation You know, I've known Kathleen for a great number of years You know prior to joining Mitsubishi in my current role supporting installers all across Maine in New Hampshire And and doing training regionally I worked at Efficiency Maine for seven years from 2010 when the trust was first formed up until 2017 and played some role and and was involved directly in the establishment of the the loan program That's continuing as well as the structure of residential rebates for weatherization conventional heating systems as well as heat pumps and so I've really seen this transition from a place in 2010 when virtually no heat pumps were being installed and the state was really trying to figure out how we could Get get weatherization off the ground and make it happen Through the series of you know, the original has program that was funded from a DOE grant $10 million back in 2010 2011 Up until you know when we had the whole stimulus and aura grants and funding that basically enabled Maine to establish the revolving loan fund that is active today and provides loans for people to Make substantial upgrades to their homes, whether that's weatherization or upgrading their heating systems Or you know installing heat pumps and so it's it's been an exciting period at time And there's a tremendous amount of work to do and in fact, it's it's really you know You know Kathleen and I have been involved in this in a number of years But we're really standing on the shoulders of giants. There were certainly plenty of people that were advocating for weatherization You know going back decades, you know inside of Maine housing and and elsewhere and and we know that This is going to take a while. It's not something that we that we fix right away And so, you know, it's important to continue to foster the conversation about this and keep people engaged Because you know, we're this solution of weatherizing and tightening houses and installing heat pumps and going with more renewable energy It's the kind of thing that's going to continue to take, you know effort over this period of time So sometimes people ask the question. Well, what's new? What's gonna what's coming out? Well, what's new and what's coming out and what's really gonna solve this problem is the same thing We've been doing or trying to advocate for for a decade, which is building really tight buildings and ventilating them correctly Using plenty of good and sustainable insulation, you know, you know, dense packed cellulose rock soul And and heat pumps are really the answer and they're continuing to get better but today, yesterday, last year, the next year The technology that's here and is right now Is tested and proven and used throughout the globe And you know, that's that's really, you know That's the big news and the thing that's going to move the needle Today and and next year as well. So, you know, here's here's a picture of the globe and this is a snapshot from Satellite back, you know, six months ago, january seven eight months ago I guess nine nine months boy time passes Quick when you're hiding out And not socializing so much, I guess And really the thing I want to point out on this map is you can see this january, you know Obviously, here's the polar vortex hiding out up up in the Arctic And, you know, we've had times in previous not this last winter, but the two prior winters We'd have arms of the polar vortex swing down and and side swipe the midwest or main and make it particularly cold And during those periods of time over the last several years You know, I've been going around and talking to contractors and vendors and you know And they're oftentimes when it's very very cold scrambling around for no heat calls And that's almost entirely been a focus on conventional heating systems that are breaking down When I go out and I ask people about the performance of heat pumps when we get to those super extreme temperatures It's crickets. They work at really cold temperatures And there's things to understand about how they work But they you can displace, you know, if you adequately size equipment or have multiple systems in order to do it Even in a very leaky large house You can displace all of the heating load with heat pumps And so there may be strategies in the middle where you want to supplement it with a wood stove or with a conventional heating system But it is entirely reasonable to displace the vast majority of your heating load in any kind of building It really comes down to having contractors and designers architects engineers On board with what the constraints of these systems are So that they can select the right stuff to get the job done One the second thing I'll note on this this image is you can see, you know mains here in this sort of teal green Greenish blue. Well over on the other side of the Atlantic is Scandinavia Norway Sweden and They have had ductless heat pumps in in their Heating infrastructure for about a you know, 10 years 12 years longer than than we have here in New England It they arrived the technology showed up in in a way that was Usable in relatively cold climates back in the early 2000s in Europe It's also prolific in in parts of northern Asia And you know coming down through Canada. And so what we're seeing is this phenomenon of growth that's occurring And entering into the northern united states and and that's part of the reason why Main really is sort of you know a leader in this this phenomenon of a growth curve of this product arrival is happening here and so The bar graph shows the growth of sales of heat pumps in Norway back between 2002 and 2015 And in that 12-year period Nearly a million heat pumps were installed in homes in Norway And of course Norway has about five million people or four times the state of Maine. And so You know in a 12-year period, you know, that's the equivalent of main installing something like 250,000 units which would get us to about 50 percent of all homes Being heated with heat pumps, which is pretty much where Norway ended up at the end of that period of time And and it continued to install so that the the majority the continuing majority of homes In Scandinavia use heat pumps of one form or another that operate in cold climates And so our trend line this blue line Is pretty much consistent with the growth activity of heat pumps In in Maine and also in New England and Maine and Vermont really, you know We're kind of neck and neck on the installs per capita And this past year we had about 10,000 indoor units Installed in Maine and using that four-time multiplier that basically puts us in somewhere in the ballpark of what was equivalent in Norway 15 years ago This gold diamond and so our normal growth trajectory, which is really quite steep Is in blue the blue line here with Massachusetts in New York On a similar trend line, but maybe two or three years behind us in terms of their growth per capita And then the gold line and the red line are representative of the new policies that have come forward from the state Legislatures the red line for Maine to have 100,000 heat pumps installed in a five-year period And the gold line Representative of the objectives of New York state to have 500,000 heat pumps installed in a single year within six years so Extremely high growth rates already existing and pressure from policymakers to increase those further But at the same time you can see that all those growth curves are not inconsistent with the kind of growth that was occurring In Scandinavia last decade. So can it be done? Sure. It's been done before But it is going to involve a you know A real focus on on this transition and messaging out to people about heat pumps Best practices and you know part of my role is training heat pump installers On best practices to ensure that they're selecting the right equipment and installing it in the right ways But you know at this point at this juncture, you know, Maine has the perhaps the the most Experienced and capable core of installers anywhere in the country It's really fantastic. And so for those of you that are on the call if you don't have a heat pump in your home right now Or you have an endeavor to you know, take care of those weatherization measures It may be something that you should really think about Sooner than later. There are great incentives from Efficiency Maine and the loan program allows you to Make it get complete a project with no upfront cost whatsoever and spread those costs over a 10-year period Pay off anytime early if you if you so choose Up to $15,000. So there's really, you know, there's there's a lot of great reasons to install heat pumps And a lot of great resources to do that and Mainers have taken advantage of those programs. This map Is a little bit dated. It basically shows the installations over a four-year period from 2013 to 2017 The number of dops on this map since then has more than doubled. Um, but what you can really see is the The pattern of where they're installed where heat pumps being installed Well, they're being installed everywhere that there are people Basically, uh in the state of Maine. So, you know, it's it's almost a perfect reflection Of exactly where there's population density, whether you're talking about the Prescott area and Holton far up north Or out to j and then all all across You know the central counties of Maine where the vast majority of the population is So, um, and you know, it's also reflected in efficiency main rebate activity There are definitely heat pumps that are being installed Outside of the rebate program for a variety of different reasons, you know, efficiency, Maine has, uh, you know, uh constraints on what they Provide rebates for and to whom they provide them based on the cost effectiveness and the calculations that they put forward to The public utilities commission, but there are there are good reasons to install products outside of that And it's happening all the time, but just looking at what's at efficiency, Maine You can see that in 2020 we had a total of more than 10,000 almost 11,000 heat pumps Installed and that's despite an incredible slowdown in the industry that occurred in april and may related to the the pandemic And since then, I mean like people are living at home. They're spending more time their offices that are home You know, I think nick and Kathleen can chime in on this they're they're experiencing that too And so a lot of people are installing heat pumps to make their homes more comfortable year round So we're we're just seeing a tremendous amount of activity Most installers right now are actually booked out about six weeks And and you know, I I I can't help but notice uh and and point out on this chart that Some of these other key weatherization and heating system measures from the home energy savings program continue along at pace and Kathleen rightly mentioned that, you know, more than 20,000 homes have been ins Insulated and received weatherization improvements through efficiency, Maine You know since 2010 really and we had like, you know, kind of a fast growth of weatherization Early in that decade up to about 2015 where it's kind of plateaued around this a thousand homes per year Which is great. I mean like those thousand homes per year that are that are getting treatment That's super but really in order to achieve objectives for weatherizing effectively 100 of the state We have to have a substantial growth in the level of weatherization that occurs in the state and and you know, it's not as though the funding is not You know somewhat robust to provide incentives towards insulation and air sealing You know, the pandemic has impacted them more dramatically than some other fields But there is there's a much bigger need, you know, we need to be doing 10 15 20,000 homes per year in order to meet objectives that are in law regarding weatherization by 2030 or Carbon reduction goals. So Definitely need additional focus on that heat pumps, you know are kind of a bright shiny object people are Attracted to them for a number of reasons including the fact they get good air conditioning out of them And so if that drives people to install systems that they're also going to use to displace oil and propane And reduce their carbon footprint. I think that's a pretty good thing Now so i'm going to dive a little bit into heat pumps. I know that That von hasn't joined us quite yet and we still want to wrap up for for 1145 to allow for questions. So nick if you see von pop in don't hesitate to chime in so that So I can offer him some time, but you know, not all heat pumps are the same The vast majority of the heat pumps that are installed in the state of Maine and the ones that are predominantly receive rebates through efficiency main Maintain a hundred percent of their heating capacity down to about five degrees Fahrenheit Before they start to lose some of their capacity And you say well that I mean and this is one of the tricky things that you know confuses people about heat pumps They think oh, they don't work when they called one. Well, they do It's just that what what heat pumps are doing is they're extracting heat energy from outside So if you think about heat energy as a particle a phone on a Quasi, you know particle from quantum mechanics. It's just drifting around the air and the the The manifestation of a high temperature is a high density of of heat particles. Okay, so The absence of heat particles is outer space. It's it's, you know, absolute zero or pretty close to it And so even when it's very cold outside negative 10 degrees 10 degrees Whatever really freaky cold there's still a lot of heat particles dancing around in the air and one of the things that About the heat pump technology is that it uses a refrigerant called 410 a that That circulates through the system from the indoor unit to the outdoor unit And that 410 a has a boiling point of negative 50 degrees Fahrenheit So through the mechanics of the system going between low pressure and high pressure in the system and the compressor and the in the coils It basically goes into a low pressure state in the outdoor unit when you're in heating mode And dives for its boiling point and when it's approaching its boiling point It's way colder than it is even when it's very very cold outside So those heat particles cling to the outdoor coil get transferred into the refrigerant and go into the compressor and the compressor increases the pressure of the refrigerant and condenses and Increases the density of the heat particles. Oh, there's von now And that allows the temperature of the refrigerant to get up to a temperature of 120 or 130 degrees Travel into the home and transfer that heat energy throughout in order to You know Heat your room and your house and and your sofa and everything else And that cycle Is efficient because and the reason why you get such high efficiency out of it Is that the you're only moving heat from outside to inside and you're just using electricity to run motors The compressor motor and the fan motors and the indoor and out your unit in order to move that heat energy from outdoors to indoors And so that's why when it's moderately temperature, you know 30 degrees 40 degrees outside You get incredibly high efficiency like for every one unit of energy that you put into the you get four units of heat energy inside When it gets very cold like zero or five degrees it takes more effort because you've got to you've got to Circulate more refrigerant in order to extract that energy move it into the house But on a seasonal basis It's still a ratio of about three to one and that basically Translates into a very low cost of heat relative to just about anything else except for maybe free firewood Which of course isn't really free when you take into account the amount of work that's involved in it So that's why uh, you know in main with our electricity costs and the relative costs of propane or or oil It's it's significantly cheaper. It's 16 cents a kilowatt hour if you run your heat pump throughout the entire season And it's one of these high performance heat pumps that's uh provided a rebate through efficiency main Your cost on a seasonal basis is something equivalent to about a buck 55 bucks 60 a gallon heating oil of course it's fluctuates depending on the model and the The manufacturer you choose and the uh and the way that you use it But it's it's a reasonable and practical practical way of achieving it So I'm going to skip over this just for time constraint But this is basically the cycle that I referred to you're just cycling refrigerant through and extracting heat energy from outside The refrigerant stays in the system There's a wide range of indoor style units The meat and potatoes the units that are installed most frequently are the wall mount units But there are certainly ducted units as well as ceiling cassettes and floor mount units Depending on the preferences of the homeowner or the constraints of the home You could select one or the other and some may be more appropriate than others If somebody already has existing duct work putting in a ducted system makes a lot of sense and you know, uh, some people don't like to see the wall mounted units on the wall so Of course if if uh, you know, if they would prefer to have something in the ceiling That would allow them to transition to Higher efficiency technology placement is critical You want to make sure that you're placing the unit such that you get good distribution throughout the house You know putting it behind a door likes depicted in this That has some impact you're going to have airflow going, you know bouncing off the door Creating a little micro climb in there So it's not going to get a good sense of what's going on, you know on the other side of the room Or in the hallway just outside of the room So um really consulting with your installers to ensure that you have good placement is important Likewise, you know with floor mount units, you wouldn't want to put them someplace where they're going to be potentially put under a table or behind a sofa Different kinds of ducted units and ceiling units are available for different preferences And uses and they're being used on new construction All the time modular homes. This is a contractor that builds modular homes in vermont and sends them all over New england and they use heat pumps Exclusively to heat the entire homes And we're seeing people gravitate towards Not just units that handle multiple heads, but also Incorporating multiple outdoor units in order to address the seasonal patterns And this is what I kind of started out with is No, you know the installers knowing the equipment that they need and being able to select the right equipment Can provide the highest levels of comfort and efficiency And sometimes that means multiple outdoor units in order to achieve those objectives but You know Talking to your installer or finding an installer Can allow you to do that and create the best of all worlds for your for your for your Comfort in your home and lower energy bills and low apartment. So I I see vaughn's on here. So I want to make sure I provide him at least a couple of minutes to chime in I also a good friend of mine from a long long time ago. So thanks again for your time this morning Fantastic. Thank you Dana very much and we were joined by vaughn woodruff on are you are you up there still? Um, I am hi there Hey vaughn, how you doing? You're well, Nick. How are you? I'm doing great So it's a it's 11 43 by my clock Vaughn welcome if you could Give us a few minutes about in-source and and what you all do that'd be great. We'll still Take questions In a moment. Please put those questions I see them piling up already put them in that q&a box And we'll get back together in a minute vaughn turn it over to you Great. Thanks a lot, Nick. You want me to share my screen here? Is that helpful? Yep, sure. You're a co-host so I should be able to do that All right sounds great. Thank you everybody. I'm sorry for lateness. It's fall and as such our schedule is crazy And I really apologize for being late here so Vaughn woodruff i'm ceo of in-source renewables Based in pitsfield main and try that screen share one more time. I think I just made you Okay, perfect. I don't see it yet Get that rolling Yeah, so let's go let's go there Yep, okay. Here we go. Should be good well If not, we'll just go Go ahead. We'll continue this stellar presentation. So We got we got five minutes so I can give a break over you and thank you may not have fun everybody who's online And dan is good to good to see you today. So um And chat a little bit about how solar integrates into this, you know, dana talked about the heat pump side of things and and once we get to efficiency Generally, the next piece is about generation. So what what are we doing with an efficient home? What are we doing with efficient technologies in order to really maximize, you know, a number of things whether it's climate benefits whether it's our autonomy or independence from the grid and you know, what's really triggering things now is Getting to a point where it actually has huge financial benefit um, you know with solar technologies You know from a generation side, you know, there are a number of things to consider as we kind of move into uh a really critical time period and the time period right now is that Taking out a loan for solar the monthly payments are roughly equivalent to the utility savings from that system Which is a huge threshold to break because as we've seen throughout the history of solar technologies It's not the environmental aspect of renewable technologies that typically drives markets. It's the monetary So even though we do see a lot of folks that have that bring that perspective to the table oftentimes it's really about Um, you know, it's about making sure that it's practical. There are lots of ways that money can be invested to make climate You know benefits And so making sure that that money gets put in the right place Is great. So um As it relates to kind of looking at solar right now for this year Frankly, what's happening between coven and workforce and you know a step down in the federal tax credit is making it really difficult for folks You know, we're seeing a lot of demand a lot of pent up demand And folks who are trying to get solar this year are really going to be looking at next year whether they know it or not You know this weekend's typically common ground fair and it's increasingly becoming that the solar company is at common ground fair typically are booking construction for the following year So there's there's a there's a lot of demand The tax credit as I mentioned at the federal level is stepping down from 26 percent this year to 22 percent next year And that's triggering uh increasing demand as well as kind of dropping prices. Uh, covet has actually had some positive impacts from a pricing perspective in solar and that it's reduced kind of global demand, which means that the Uh, the pricing of equipment has dropped a little bit Um, you know, I would say that you know, we're generally the workforce issues in main And across the country are also kind of you know, we're seeing prices fairly stable um as a result of that because of those two competing pieces so Uh, you know, as it relates to just kind of give the big hitters as it relates to solar right now in main Uh, and I think I can wrap that up in two minutes. Nick is that I think for the public Uh, there's a really big shifting conversation that's happening right now in that Uh, many of you probably if you're online or you know, we get one in the mail even though We have solar on our house already from solar developers who are putting in community solar projects And that's been a you know, main autobahn was involved Quite a bit as well as a number of other organizations like main conservation voters and nrcm In helping to get progressive solar policy passed in the state And that opens up a lot of options that can you know be great in some ways But you know, as many of you know, lots of options can also kind of handcuff folks in terms of indecision So as you're thinking about solar and how it might help you I think the first thing to know is that if you have the tax Tax credit appetite and a site with which to put solar panels at your home You're going to have the best short term and long term benefit from that investment Especially as storage becomes more prevalent It's going to give you a lot more flexibility and you'll get your biggest You know bang for your buck from an investment standpoint um Then you're going to see uh, you know community solar in which it's really low Low transactional cost in and out. You don't have to make any long-term commitments And you will see savings on your electricity bill Um, it's great for renters great for folks that don't have that tax credit appetite So i'm really excited about what that's going to do for low and moderate income households across the state And then there'll be an in between which is community solar that you own instead of just getting credits from it And so that will be another model That I think it's it's it's going to be a savvy niche market But I think at the end of the day is we're thinking about climate um If you do decide to move into the community solar realm and take that easy entrance in A big piece to watch is what happens with the renewable energy attributes of those and whether you're getting the environmental benefits out of the project Or simply getting money savings and not to put a judgment value on either But it's important that is you kind of take a look at those things That you're aware of, you know, if you're doing it for the environment making sure that you get the benefits benefits for the environment So with that i'm 1150 and i'll kick it right on over the next Okay, all right. Thanks. Good job. Uh, von coming in very speaking of efficiency You're not wasting any time you're coming on in when you need to speak and you get right to it. I love it Um, thank you all and dano. Let's get your video back going to um And we let's get to some questions. So, um, folks if you have questions for our presenters, please put them in the q&a box down below Um, and we'll get started. Um, we have a couple questions here about heat pump technologies Um, they're getting they're a little technical, so i'm going to read them word for word this one here from thomas o'brien Um and dano, are you out there? Yep, i'm ready to go Okay, you want to turn turn everybody back on if you could there you go Yeah, gang's all here. Um, so thomas Yeah, thomas asks If you convert an existing home to a heat pump and the home is currently water baseboard with gas-fired broiler Is the only heat pump option forced air? Uh, well, so at this point in time, uh, you know, so Like we talked about 410 a and the refrigerant and the temperature of 120 130, you know Most the majority of homes in main use baseboard, uh Heat whether it's from a gas or an oil boiler or something like that And usually the temperature that's flowing through those baseboards is like at least 150 if not 160 70 180 degrees And that high temperature is needed for the style of baseboard that we have in new england in order to throw enough velocity of the air to distribute, uh, that heat energy, uh throughout your room, so like Currently the heat pumps that are available that do air to water Are not able to achieve that high of a temperature in europe air to water heat pumps are all over the place And that's because instead of having a style of baseboard that we have they use radiative panels And people around here can install them in their low temperature radiative european style panels But unless you converted all of your base pan over To something like that the current heat pump technology that's available in main Is is really not appropriate for that So you'd either put in ductless heads that would blow into the space or put in duct work that would deliver Heat energy to a number of rooms. It's plausible that in time something along those lines would come to the us But they've been talking about it for a long time and it really it hasn't manifested you either need to have a booster Um another compressor to jump the temperature up or you need to have a co2 system and while there's co2 systems A very limited number in the united states specifically for domestic water heating They're not of the size or rigor in order to provide What we would need to displace a baseboard heating system Gotcha. Thank you Question here about sort of where to start so say for example, I bought a house and Wanted to make it more efficient Uh, would I how would I get started would I start by installing a heat pump or doing weatherization things or or where would uh How do you get started on this process? We open that to anyone. Yeah, yeah, it's a it's a really good and common question and um, there's From a from a building science perspective There's a clear answer right the first thing you want to do is is tighten up your house Get it air sealed get it insulated and then once you've reduced your your need for heating By by making the house more efficient. You can talk about replacing the systems That's the building science perspective The the human perspective the human answer is There's no wrong place to start You if what you want is to to to cut your costs and to cut your emissions You can Weatherize and keep the systems that you have You can switch out the systems and get to weatherization later You can put solar on on your roof because you've really really been wanting it and it's so cool And all of those are going to have a good benefit. So, uh, You know, if we were being really strict about The building science order of things we'd have a good clear answer The real answer is Any place you start is a great place to start and it will be a gateway to future improvements There we go. Great um, a question here from natalie um Realistically, can a consumer generate enough electricity through solar panels to power a heat pump during the winter months and be carbon neutral That's a that's a great question And I think it kind of goes between kind of the the micro of a household and the macro of How our energy grid functions, right? So from a from a micro perspective a lot of folks aren't doing a direct Powering of equipment. I mean the only folks who do that are off grid Generally, right so with the grid it's a flow. It's uh electricity on electricity off You know, there'll be times of the year where this time of year You ran your heat pump You know, you probably ran it this morning before the sun came up and so obviously the electrons that are being generated from solar Aren't directly powering that heat pump though as we you know in the next month or two I don't even want to think about it right now, but in the middle of the day When the sun's cranking we'll be running heating Um, and I think that lends itself more to the macro because the micro is that folks that have grid tied solar Don't really care when energy is generated. They care how much is generated because they're in a crediting situation with the utility When it comes to the macro as we look at the grid Uh, we do want to watch kind of when we're putting peaks onto The grid and how we're dealing with that increased consumption as we you know move towards beneficial electrification And really move away from fossil fuels and and that's being that's being handled a number of ways Some of it is with load management So making sure things power on it certain times Some of it's going to happen with storage and some of it comes from diversity. Uh, you know Everything you know diversification it makes for resilience And so having solar and wind and you know other generations such as we have biomass and hydro and others I can really help to help to stabilize that in the near term Yeah, and I I just I just add to that that you know sort of from that You know a typical homeowner that's doing a grid tied installation where they have a number of panels on their house And they're they're trying to displace their annual load, you know Get a bunch of credits Book during the summer to kind of compensate for all of the needs that they have in the winter that would exceed Their solar production during those months Just as a general rule if you have an appropriately sized heat pump And you take energy from your solar panels that are generated over the course of the year and dump it into your heat pumps Pretty much for every 100 gallons of oil that you displace with an appropriately sized heat pump You know or equivalent heat whatever it is, but 100 gallons or equivalent displace with a heat pump appropriately sized It will use the same amount of electricity that's generated on an annual basis as one kw of capacity installed on your roof You know appropriately installed of course, right? So there's a bunch of little caveats there But if somebody said well, I use 500 gallons of oil per year I want to put in heat pumps and this and I'm going to put it up a large enough array to displace that and ensure That I'm meeting all my needs throughout You'd anticipate that approximately the production from 5 kw would be required in order to cover 500 gallons of oil displacement Great. Thank you. I want to So we only have a couple minutes left. I want to end I think a little bit with kathleen talking about the Buildings of infrastructure and housing group, but first I want to get quickly to this question from tristan About home air quality Dustin mold etc and and sort of how that may relate to what we're talking about if there are Considerations to keep in mind as you're weatherizing your home about also to make sure that you're keeping the air clean inside So I I'll touch on this. I'm sure there's some other Notes regarding this. I mean like building tight and ventilating right is really part of that strategy keeping, you know You know filtering your air Having a makeup air come into the house and be tempered Throughout the year Instead of having just haphazard. Well, the wind's really blowing So my my air is ventilated because it's blown right through the house You know, that's that's the typical ventilation in main homes And it's much much better to have a tight house and have controlled ventilation mechanical ventilation throughout And that also affords you the ability to have, you know filtration built in And and make sure that you're improving that air mold mildew is everywhere It's in the air that we breathe all the time It's really a question of whether you give it the opportunity to grow And so mold mildew and all these, you know, bacteria viruses everything requires certain kind of air Circumstances humidity temperature in order to grow and so if you're maintaining your winter temperature, you know Sort of between 40 45 percent and 55 60 percent, you know Kind of 50 is sort of considered optimum throughout the course of the year You're going to have much less incidents of anything that, you know Anywhere in your house that would provide the opportunity for mold growth or mildew so The best thing is is ventilation and controlling your humidity Throughout the entire year to ensure good indoor air quality Great. Thanks. I do want to get to one last question from Ernie before we Wrap up is how practical is a ground source heat pump in main versus air? It really depends on on on the cost that you're that you can that you can manage When I was managing the efficiency main program and we were providing rebates to Ground source heat pumps they would range in cost from 28,000 to 80,000 You know, there were outliers on either side But the average cost of the installation was like $50,000 And of course, there's you know, there are federal tax credits that are associated with that that helps bring that down But that's significantly more expensive Than the average install of the single zone heat pump, which might be You know $5,000 or $4,000 or a multi-zone system that might be 10 or 12 or $15,000 or something like that. So And frankly the difference in the efficiency between the two You know is is pretty darn close You know, I mean like there are situations when it's really really cold that geothermal might be better If you have sufficient well space But on a seasonal basis the difference in electrical costs would not Overcome the initial upfront cost of doing geothermal But you know to his each his own if you want to do geothermal and power that with solar and and not have a unit That's air source on the outside of your house Go for it Great. Thank you very much. And I just want to end with a question for Kathleen She co-chaired the buildings infrastructure and housing working group for the main climate council and provided that body with recommendations about how to Move forward and hopefully meet our climate goals. I'm wondering if you could just quickly cover those recommendations Yeah, so one of the things that we we had in mind as we were developing those recommendations is that there are really two key policy options when you think about making a transition from in this case fossil fuel dependent heating to high efficiency electric heat which can be be powered by clean energy Uh And those are incentives and regulations, right? Do you do you encourage people through the financial incentives or tax credits to to take the action you want to see? Or do you create regulations that say they're not allowed to do the take the action that you don't want to see as much of and we recommend both Because it's a continuum Early on so far. We have incentivized heat pump adoption and and we've been really successful We need to see so much more heat pump adoption such an increase that that we need to keep those incentives going right now But we're going to hit a point at which No one is even talking about putting an oil fired burner in their basement Where a new builder says Obviously, we're going with heat pumps. That's the only that's the way it's done At that point you don't need to give incentives to people to to make that choice that everybody's going to make anyway You need to start putting in regulations that say You're not allowed to think about that that that is not going to work That's not the heating system of the future So the the building's working group really recommended that we keep building on the success of the efficiency main incentive programs And we track really carefully that tipping point where we need to make a change in the policy and go from incentives to regulations Outstanding thank you very much and thank you for your work and thank you to everyone who joined me today Thank you to the folks Attending on the zoom. Thank you to my panelists kathleen meal from main conservation voters Dana fisher Dana fisher from miss ubishi and von woodruff the last minute man from insource renewables It was great to have you. I really appreciate you taking the time to join us today Thank you for the work that you do For folks attending at home. Thank you Feel free to join main autobahn at main on bottom dot org All the presentations this and the other presentations will be on there very soon. Have a great afternoon Thanks again everyone and have a good day Thank you. Thanks. Bye