FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: ALBANY, N.Y. A new Empire Center estimate shows that heating an average home from October to March would cost approximately $790 with natural gas, compared with $1,100 with a heat pump and $3,300 with electric resistance heating. The estimates show that natural gas is significantly less expensive than electricity for residential heating.
“Replacing natural gas with electricity for home heating could add hundreds or even thousands of dollars to New Yorkers’ energy bills,” said Zilvinas Silenas, President of the Empire Center for Public Policy.
The Empire Center estimated October-to-March home-heating costs using the previous year’s natural-gas and electricity prices from the U.S. Energy Information Administration and heating degree days from NYSERDA. The calculation assumes that a residence requires 40 MMBtu of heat energy. It excludes the cost of purchasing and installing heat pumps or other equipment, which can range from thousands to tens of thousands of dollars.
“Ditching cheaper gas for expensive electricity makes no sense. No wonder two-thirds of New Yorkers oppose it,” said Silenas. “Lawmakers and candidates need to come clean: Are they going to force home-heating electrification on New Yorkers, or are they going to drop it?”
New data in the Empire Center’s Energy Data Bulletin show that New York residential natural-gas prices were 17 percent above the national average and 7 percent higher than the previous year. Earlier data showed that residential electricity prices were 63 percent above the national average and 14 percent higher than the previous year.
About the Empire Center for Public Policy
The Empire Center is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank located in Albany, New York. Our mission is to make New York a better place to live and work by promoting public policy reforms grounded in free-market principles, personal responsibility, and the ideals of effective and accountable government.
Media contact:
Zilvinas Silenas
Empire Center for Public Policy
518.434.3100
[email protected]
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