The auxiliary heat strips in your heat pump are the reason the POCO's promote the things. If the outside temp. drops to anywhere near freezing, the strips kick in and the profits of the utilities go up. Heat pumps are very inefficient below 30 degrees, except as revenue generators. They have the system capacity to handle summer air conditioning loads so they encourage you to use heat pumps, knowing that few people realize how much electric heat costs. BTW, from a system efficiency perspective, looking at the btu's of coal burned at the generating station and the btu's from your bathroom space heater, you get about 2% efficiency...distribution system losses. Burn wood, it involves the labor of 1 or 2 men; burn nat. gas, propane or elect. heat and you have to pay the labor of 1,000 men...go figure
