Natural gas is a very convenient fuel for heating. Always even available in case of power failure. Those groups pushing moving away from natural gas always argue, the burning of natural gas produces NO, NO2, and CO2 and causes global warming. But switching to electric water heating and heat pumps for home heating and cooling uses more electricity. Power generation uses natural gas for one of its Fuel Mix components. In the summer, the natural gas component can exceed 50% of the total Fuel Mix. So, using more electricity causes increased use of natural gas. Using less gas from users in one area will increase NO, NO2, and CO2 in other areas. There is no free lunch here. Palo Alto likes to boast that the electricity they buy is all carbon neutral. But that is not what they sell. What Palo Alto Utilities sells comes right from the grid with a Fuel Mix of solar, wind, natural gas, large hydro, nuclear, geothermal, and even imports from out-of-state.
For me, keeping natural gas is very important. I have a solar hot water system. I can switch to all solar or solar plus natural gas water heater or just natural gas water heater alone. From early May to late October, I use pure solar water heating. I set the gas water heater on to Pilot during this period. Sometimes if there 2 or 3 days of cloudy weather I can switch back the heating mode to Winter and turn the gas water heater to On and in an hour, I have hot water again. Then a day later I switch back again to Summer mode and turn the gas water heater back to Pilot.
I have a furnace and a gas space heater for house heating. They are both controlled by a wall mounted thermostat. For several years now, we have just used the gas space heater. It provides all the heat we need. The cats love to lay in front of the stove in the winter months.
One problem I would have with a heat pump water heater is that the maximum water temperature output is about 120°F. Water coming from the solar tank could be about 100°F in the winter and then the heat pump may not turn on and I would have just warm water and not hot. For my gas water heater, I must set the temperature to 165°F, otherwise the water heater wouldn’t turn on. The hot water goes to a mixing valve to cool that hot water to normal hot water temperature for use.
Then there is cost, for my recent February 2026 utility bill, I used 877 kwh and the cost was $194.25 or $0.222 per kwh. For natural gas I used 113.18 therms. Converting therms to kwh, one therm = 29.3 kwh or in kwh I used 3,330 kwh of natural gas energy. Cost was $283.47 or $0.0851 per kwh. This means that on an energy basis, natural gas is about 1/3 the cost of electricity.