Same — I maintain four (one RHEEM and three AO's).
The AO is a much cleaner/simpler/nicer install. The Rheem stupidly requires duct adapters (for small-space, <700sqft "closet" installations). AO won't last as long, but at $250 who cares?!
This reduces electric infrastructure demand, which is why it's subsidized. Presumably, this saves money (duh) for the company (duh) and possibly the customers (presumable duh). Presumably people who care about the planet understand this.
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Running a single heatpump waterheater is the equivalent of not driving your car, annually, according to TVA (in carbon footprint).
I'm running four [two households, ten people]. What's your question?
> This reduces electric infrastructure demand, which is why it's subsidized. Presumably, this saves money
Short term gain, long term pain. The story of our entire electrical infrastructure the past couple generations. Why invest in capital infrastructure like generation or transmission capacity when you can simply reduce peak demand via stuff like this.
Eventually you run out of cheap tricks and need to actually build things. We are roughly at that inflection point now - brought forward maybe half a decade or so by datacenter demand.
We had it really damn good the past 30-40 years due to investments in all area of the grid our grandparents and great grandparents paid for. Then we decided it was cheaper to let a lot of that stuff age out and deteriorate vs. replacing it via efficiency gains and de-industrialization. We reap what we sow. It was obvious electrical demand was going to increase at some point, and we have run out of the cheap parlor tricks of the past couple decades while we let everything else decay around us.
It's been incredibly frustrating to watch since I was a teenager 30 years ago and figured out why electric companies would pay someone to use less power against the obvious incentives. It's so they didn't have to do their jobs - just sit on capital equipment others paid for and collect rent.
TVA delivers among the least expensive power in the country. This is largely due to substantial nuclear and hydro, albeit with coal and gas-peakers to fill in gaps.
We also have a huge pump-storage facility, and are (foolishly, IMHO) pursuing a second pump facility in Alabama (instead, we should pursue battery electric storage at sub-stations). The currect structure can sink an entire nuclear facility (or deliver, relatively instantaneously by grid standards).
µicronuclear is the next big buzzword in TVA – which I think is smart but question-inducing (e.g. consider the multi-billion dollar Bellafonte facility, which has never generated a single kWH – and has largely been scrapped to lowest-bidding salvagers). I love nuclear energy, but TVA doesn't have the best track-record (despite substantial generation from current facilities).
My personal suggestion for a unified electric america would be to have Texas join the federal grids (i.e. accept national regulation) so that their massive wind and solar can then slosh around the entire continent (similar to how PNW buys most of California's main daytime generator: solar; then offset dips with their own massive hydro). As they operate now, they refuse federal regulation (so don't have any substantial cross-border connections). See: ERCOT (Texas Grid Operator, ideal crony capitalist market IMHO), particularly how they regulate/price MWHs.
The AO is a much cleaner/simpler/nicer install. The Rheem stupidly requires duct adapters (for small-space, <700sqft "closet" installations). AO won't last as long, but at $250 who cares?!