Research that Informs Business and Public Policy
Don’t forget about the 11 million U.S. households that heat with these fuels. oil and gas fired hot water boiler
U.S. households are bracing for high winter heating bills . While it isn’t as bad as what’s going on in Europe , many households are still expected to spend a lot more on heating than they did last year.
Almost 90% of U.S. households heat their homes with natural gas or electricity, so these energy sources tend to get most of the attention .
But in today’s blog I want to focus on two other heating fuels that many people depend on. Heating oil prices are up 43% from a year ago. Propane prices are up 54% , with some analysts warning of a propane market “Armageddon”. As we head into winter, prices for both heating fuels are at their highest levels in years .
I want to look, in particular, at the geography of heating oil and propane. I constructed maps using data from the American Community Survey , and they reveal a pronounced regional pattern for both fuels. Depending on where you live, you are either very likely or not likely at all to have neighbors who use these heating sources.
Heating oil, also known as distillate fuel and very similar to diesel, is delivered by truck and then burned in a furnace. In the United States, 4.4% of households heat their homes with heating oil.
As the map above illustrates, heating oil is highly concentrated in the Northeast. There is little usage throughout most of the continental U.S., but then 16% of households in Pennsylvania use it, 19% in New York, 24% in Massachusetts, 29% in Rhode Island, 39% in Connecticut, 40% in Vermont, 43% in New Hampshire, and 59%(!) in Maine.
The Energy Information Administration publishes an annual “ Winter Fuels Outlook ” in which they predict household expenditures for home heating. For winter 2021-2022, EIA predicts that households burning heating oil will spend $1,700+ to stay warm. For millions of homes in the Northeast, this is going to be an unusually expensive winter.
Heating oil is highly concentrated among older homes. There is a striking age pattern, with 87% of homes that use heating oil built before 1990. In contrast, among all U.S. homes, 65% were built before 1990.
This geographic pattern reflects the historic pattern of regulation. During the 1970s and early 1980s, price controls for natural gas created a shortage which was addressed primarily by not allowing new homes in the Northeast to connect to natural gas. Even homes right next to existing natural gas lines were often not allowed to connect because there simply wasn’t enough natural gas in these states to meet demand.
Price controls were completely removed by the 1990s, but the effects have been long lasting. Even today — thirty years after the end of price controls — there are still millions of homes in the Northeast using heating oil, despite the fact that it cost the occupants more than using natural gas in almost every one of those years.
After all, once a home installs a particular heating system it tends to stay that way for a long time. While a home can be retrofitted, for example, from heating oil to natural gas, this can be very expensive.
Moreover, these decisions often end up being made under considerable time pressure . I know an energy consultant in Massachusetts who twice had his heating oil furnace fail in the middle of winter. In both cases, he ended up replacing the furnace with another oil furnace, largely because he needed to act fast to keep the heat on.
It has been a decade since prices for propane, also known as liquefied petroleum gas, were this high heading into winter. Back in 2011 — the last time November prices were this high — the winter ended up being warmer than expected so household budgets were granted a partial reprieve. Will households be so lucky this time?
Almost 6 million U.S. households heat with propane — 4.9% of households. Propane is produced during natural gas processing and crude oil refining. Propane is a gas but is stored under pressure in liquid form. Similar to heating oil, propane is delivered by a truck, stored in a tank, and burned in a furnace.
The geographic pattern for propane is very different from heating oil, and much more widespread. Propane tends to be adopted in places where natural gas is not available. The map above reflects that pattern, with high usage in predominantly rural states like North Dakota (14%), Montana (14%), New Hampshire (17%), South Dakota (18%), and Vermont (20%).
EIA predicts that U.S. households with propane will spend almost $1800 this winter on propane. If the winter ends up being 10% colder than expected, this could exceed $2200! Economists have studied the “ heat or eat ” decision finding that lower-income families tend to spend considerably less on food during cold-weather budgetary shocks, and these tradeoffs are likely to be particularly stark for many rural households this winter.
These high propane prices will also likely slow the fuel’s progress. Over the last two decades, almost all households with a choice between propane and heating oil have chosen propane. Although it isn’t true this year, in most years propane is cheaper than heating oil per unit of heating. In addition, propane heating systems require less maintenance and propane can be used more easily by other appliances like water heaters and stoves. –
High energy prices will stretch household budgets this winter. But it may also create an opportunity for electrification. As we’ve explored in previous Energy Institute blogs ( here and here ), there are a growing number of policies aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions through building electrification.
Homes with heating oil or propane are likely to be particularly good candidates for electric heating . Retrofits are always expensive , but it is also expensive to continue to pay high prices for heating oil and propane. Moreover, many of these homes are in places without access to natural gas, so it may take less of a nudge to get these households to go all electric.
There are of course many other factors to consider. An economist told me that his parents in rural Texas prefer propane because ice storms frequently cause power outages. There are all kinds of reasons why one particular home may be particularly suited to one particular energy source.
Still, I wouldn’t be surprised to see more GHG policies targeted at these homes in the near future. These other heating fuels aren’t the largest category of carbon dioxide emissions, but as policymakers continue to look around for opportunities this could be lower hanging fruit.
Keep up with Energy Institute blogs, research, and events on Twitter @energyathaas.
Suggested citation: Davis, Lucas. “The Geography of Heating Oil and Propane” Energy Institute Blog, UC Berkeley, November 1, 2021, https://energyathaas.wordpress.com/2021/11/01/the-geography-of-heating-oil-and-propane/
Lucas Davis is the Jeffrey A. Jacobs Distinguished Professor in Business and Technology at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Faculty Affiliate at the Energy Institute at Haas, a coeditor at the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He received a BA from Amherst College and a PhD in Economics from the University of Wisconsin. His research focuses on energy and environmental markets, and in particular, on electricity and natural gas regulation, pricing in competitive and non-competitive markets, and the economic and business impacts of environmental policy.
“In California, CARB GHG inventory data shows that gas usage is negatively correlated with increasing renewables.” CARB doesn’t track gas or renewables consumption, that’s the domain of the California Energy Commission. For gas consumption, I don’t know what it is and neither do you. The Power Content Label for each of California’s three major utilities classifies up to 44% of its energy as coming from “Unspecified Sources of Power”, a slush fund invented in 2009 (AB 162) which, at the prerogative of the utility, allows them to claim they don’t know where some of the electricity came from (most of it, likely dirty imports). I guess they got it for Unspecified Sources of Power ——————— 2016 PG&E 14% SDG&E 15% SCE 41% ——————— 2017 PG&E 2% SDG&E 17% SCE 34% ——————— 2018 PG&E 0% SDG&E 27% SCE 37% ——————— 2019 PG&E 7.3% SDG&E 44.2% SCE 32.6% ——————— Pretty easy to meet those renewables requirements when you can sweep as much coal or natural gas generation you like under the rug (especially when CEC reports yearly totals as either “0” or “N/A”- in direct conflict with the utilities’ PCLs).
First, your presentation is misleading because SDG&E is is less than 10% of statewide electricity demand. The amount of unspecified power has almost disappeared for PG&E and declined significantly for SCE, both of which are more than three times larger than SDG&E. In aggregate, the amount of unspecified is declining and quite small. In 2016, unspecified imported power was only 14% of statewide consumption, and that has clearly declined since then.
Second, the analysis of “unspecified” power that you ask for has already been done, first by CARB and several by outside researchers. Here’s one coauthored by John Weyant at Standford. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.est.0c08096. These outside analyses find that the unspecified emission rate is somewhat higher than what CARB is using, but it’s less than the average for a combined cycle plant, much less a coal plant.
“An economist told me that his parents in rural Texas prefer propane because ice storms frequently cause power outages. ”
Yes, this is why distributed energy resources are so key to electrification. More than 90% of customer outages occur due to distribution system breakdowns, not generation shortfalls. We have been focusing on the wrong end to improve reliability. We can see residential microgrids becoming cost effective, particularly in rural areas where outages are more likely. I recently posted this analysis showing where the breakeven point for installing local microgrids over undergrounding in California that shows microgrids are more cost effective below the average customer density in PG&E’s service area. https://mcubedecon.com/2021/10/26/comparing-cost-effectiveness-of-undergrounding-vs-microgrids-to-mitigate-wildfire-risk/
“But [high energy prices] may also create an opportunity for electrification. As we’ve explored in previous Energy Institute blogs (here and here), there are a growing number of policies aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions through building electrification.”
Lucas, there’s no evidence policies “aimed at reducing carbon emissions through building electrification” in the U.S. will succeed until electricity generation is substantially cleaner than it is now. With natural gas continuing to provide at least three times as much electricity as all solar and wind combined, there appears to be a positive correlation between consumption of natural gas with their adoption (a regression analysis would serve to either confirm or deny that premise, but no one in the renewables camp seems to want to know the answer).
If so, relying on solar + wind to lower carbon emissions is a fool’s errand, a lesson Germany is quickly learning the hard way. Whether the U.S. will learn from Germany’s lesson remains an open question.
Germany ‘set for biggest rise in greenhouse gases for 30 years’ https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/15/germany-set-for-biggest-rise-in-greenhouse-gases-for-30-years
In California, CARB GHG inventory data shows that gas usage is negatively correlated with increasing renewables. Nationally, natural gas usage has not increased as fast as coal burning has decreased, with renewables making up the difference. (This is a three-dimensional, not two-dimensional, process.) Even so, gas consumption has grown at a very slow rate so far.
baite burner Regardless, building electrification will likely proceed at a sufficiently slow process that most if not all of the incremental load will be met entirely by renewables. Those additional renewables will be induced and motivated by the increased demand from electrification. It is a mistake to separate added renewables and electrification as though they are being pursued separately with policy makers blind to developments in one sector while working on the other.