Preferred Heating and Cooling

Smart Heating and Cooling Choices

Heat pumps are highly efficient and help to maintain a comfortable home. In the warmer months, the units extract heat from inside your home and send it outdoors. In the cooler months, they do the opposite, bringing warmer air indoors from the outside. They can be paired with fossil fuel furnaces in a “dual-fuel” combination or with an electric thermal storage (ETS) unit that moves the use of electricity to off-peak periods as part of the co-op’s U-Shift, U-$ave program.

Heat Pumps

A geothermal or ground-source heat pump has the lowest operating cost of any heating or cooling system on the market. Using ponds, streams or underground loops in wells, the units collect heat from the ground in the winter and disperse heat into the ground during the summer.

During cold weather, an air source heat pump absorbs heat from the air outside and transfers it indoors. During warmer weather, the pump extracts heat from inside a building and pumps it outside. Heat pumps are especially effiicient in the spring and fall, when there may be a need for heating and cooling comfort.

Stored Heat

Electric Thermal Storage (ETS) units are designed to use off-peak electricity for heating a specific space (living room, family room, bedroom or basement). During off-peak hours, when electricity costs are lower, an electric coil heats high-density ceramic bricks inside the unit. The bricks store heat for at least 12 hours. The stored heat is released to warm individual rooms during peak hours when rates are higher.

Heat Pump Plus systems combine an air-source electric heat pump and an interruptible ETS unit. Ceramic bricks inside the ETS booster are heated electronically, off-peak. The ETS acts as a backup to the heat pump when teh outside temperature drops below freezing. It also monitors the temperature of the air to assure maximum comfort.