Its not hard to say at all, the math can be done pretty easily based on your local electric and gas rates, and most people who go for a heat pump already need an air conditioner for summer.
The math actually works out in many places unless you have cheap gas and expensive electricity. Its also better then to burn the gas at a power plant at 60% efficiency then 300-400% efficiency at the heat pump than pipe and burn the NG at 80% efficiency in your furnace.
> Its not hard to say at all, the math can be done pretty easily based on your local electric and gas rates, and most people who go for a heat pump already need an air conditioner for summer.
I went on to do the math for operating costs for myself in the very next sentence. Excluding labor and material to replace a furnace with a heat pump, operating costs are lower as long as the heat pump has a COP of 2 or higher.
Predicting future electricity and gas prices is virtually impossible but it is possible to quantify how much it costs to convert a natural gas furnace to a heat pump system at present. I’m saying it’s difficult to know at the present time if the TCO of the heat pump beats out natural gas. Where I live in Minnesota, I’m skeptical you’d come out ahead. In a state like Arkansas or Tennessee, the heat pump is likely to come out ahead due to lower heating needs.
The math actually works out in many places unless you have cheap gas and expensive electricity. Its also better then to burn the gas at a power plant at 60% efficiency then 300-400% efficiency at the heat pump than pipe and burn the NG at 80% efficiency in your furnace.