What’s the COP at -15F? It’s probably close to 1, which means you’re paying for resistive heat which happens to be the most expensive possible way to heat something up.
That’s the thing, I do live in Minnesota. Most of the lower 48 can benefit from heat pumps but unfortunately in Minnesota (and the upper Midwest that isn’t directly adjacent to a Great Lake which moderates the temperature) you either need resistive heating on the heat pump condenser coil to prevent icing and/or a backup natural gas furnace/boiler for the few weeks it stays below zero for days on end.
For the west coast or areas south of 40 degrees north and east of the Rockies in the US and most of Canada where people actually live (southern Ontario is warm to due Lake Ontario), heat pumps are probably more efficient and cheaper overall.
Minnesota is definitely an outlier with regards to heat pump vs natural gas heating.
Institutional type buildings in Minnesota are switching over to condensing boilers, which are amazingly efficient, well over 90% of the heat is used, and they’re a fraction of the size of the old tube style iron boilers. I’m personally involved in multiple commercial boiler replacements a year.
I am seeing more geothermal installations in MN as well, that works better than air source heat pumps in Minnesota due to the source/sink being a stable 50F instead of having a 80-90F delta like an air source heat pump when it’s -20F outside
One more thing, both Minneapolis and St Paul have district heating and cooling systems in their downtown areas. The University of Minnesota also operates district chilled water and hot water plants in both their Mpls and St Paul campuses.
Whoops, my bad when doing the transformation. It won't work that low, only down to 20degC and at that point it probably approaches 1. Lucky me, the temps never dropped to under 19degC in the last 20 years in my area. So I'm probably going to be fine.
