Taking Heat Pumps beyond ROI

Definitely an opportunity for a great talk. As the author mentions, the cost of electricity per BTU makes the ROI of heat pumps an unattractive investment/conversion. This talk can provide consultants and design professionals with additional talking points to help outline the other benefits of heat pumps.A conversation with Sims, Shapiro, and Sahagian (all proposed speakers) will confirm how they will approach the talk in order to ensure it captivates the audience while presenting technical points. 

Yes - Might also be helpful to break down the components of the "I" in ROI.  In some projects I have seen the big part of the "I" involves changes to building infrastructure to distribute heat more effectively and efficiently.  I don't mean to suggest that we ignore that, but breaking out the cost of heat pumps from changes in infrastructure might help us distinguish "heating equipment replacement" from "infrastructure upgrade".  The infrastructure cost is (hopefully) a longer term investment and might be less significant in new construction.

Round 1: Maybe/No - There isn't enough detail in the description to know what the session will focus on and whether there will be any data or evidence to support the claims being made. I'm also concerned that the benefits being described are not necessarily benefits that are valued by potential owners of these systems and there's no suggestion that the presenter has new information about what motivates an owner to feel comfortable choosing to install a heat pump. 

Round 1 Discussion:More detail about 'digging deep'. Is there data behind claims? Too general and vague. Speakers are phenomenal. Worth a conversation to understand basis of claims, what info they will present and backing it up.

Round 2 comments: No.Amalia and I spoke to Leia on 5/24. She said does not anticipate using any data sources to make her points and is trying to get away from data being the be all, end all for disucsssions on heat pumps. We asked about the claim that heat pumps improve IAQ. She mentioned how having AC improves comfort, but did not address IAQ. We then asked that if there wasn't data on these issues, does she have a specific case to present that improved these issues and there did not seem to be a specfic case study she had in mind. She has not confirmed with either proposed speaker but she said that she does know them both well and is confident that they would say yes if they are available. She has preented to community preservation corp about this topic but she did say that this would be a different presentation. After the conversation, Leia reached out with a few ideas for places that might have good data on how heat pumps improve IAQ, but did not have access to them currently. This session feels too qualitative and undefined. The general topic is interesting, but it's not fleshed out enough to be a session in it's current state. That heat pumps do have other benefits beyond ROI seems easy to believe. But without more information, the claim is speculative.