Why ‘Electrify Everything’ Doesn’t Always Work — And What to Do Instead
- Octavian Vasilovici
- 10 hours ago
- 3 min read
If you’re managing an institutional, commercial, or campus-scale facility, you’ve likely heard the call: electrify everything.
It sounds good on paper. Cleaner energy. Fewer emissions. A visible step toward decarbonization. But here’s the problem — in many regions, the electrical grid is still heavily carbon-based. So while full electrification may look progressive, it can actually drive up costs, increase operational complexity, and fail to deliver meaningful emissions reductions.
That’s not transition. That’s a tradeoff. What you need is a smarter bridge — one that prioritizes performance and sustainability without locking you into a brittle, expensive system. That’s where hybrid heating systems come in.
What Hybrid Heating Really Means
Hybrid systems combine high-efficiency electric heating — like seawater-to-water, ground-source, or air-to-air/water heat pumps — with conventional backup fuels such as propane or natural gas.
The result? A system that uses low-carbon heat sources under normal conditions and switches to traditional fuels only when needed — like during peak heating loads, extreme weather, or system interruptions.
It’s not about resisting electrification. It’s about doing it better.
Performance Without the Penalties
Heat pumps are highly efficient. Connected to renewable sources like seawater or ground loops, they regularly hit COPs between 2.0 and 4.0 — delivering 2 to 4 units of heat for every unit of electricity consumed. That’s real performance during shoulder seasons and moderate winters.
But in colder climates, heat pump performance drops. In peak winter? You’ll need significantly more power — which can trigger demand charges, stress local grid capacity, and inflate your lifecycle costs.
A hybrid approach avoids those pitfalls. Backup boilers kick in only when needed — without requiring expensive electrical upgrades, without maxing out your service capacity, and without betting your entire strategy on one technology.
Simpler Ops, Smarter Control
One of the most overlooked benefits of hybrid systems? Operational simplicity.
Fully electrified heating often demands complex controls, demand management platforms, and larger emergency generators — which can overwhelm O&M teams already stretched thin.
Hybrid systems, by contrast, are easier to manage:
Familiar components
Clear operating logic
Reduced training burden
Fewer moving parts
And because they can often be phased in, you avoid disruptive retrofits or major utility upgrades.
Lifecycle Wins — Not Just Capital Savings
Full electrification can come with steep upfront costs — especially when paired with service upgrades, switchgear replacements, and demand-side controls.
Hybrid systems not only lower capital costs, they give you options:
Optimize which system runs based on temperature, utility pricing, or demand response signals
Plan for future electrification as grids decarbonize
Maintain control over both cost and carbon, without compromise
It’s a strategy — not a gamble.
Real-World Application
On a campus, this might look like a centralized hot water loop driven by heat pumps, with propane-fired boilers providing peak capacity or emergency coverage. Domestic hot water and distributed loads? Handled by localized electric systems and/or heat pump domestic water heaters.
The point isn’t to electrify every circuit. It’s to build a resilient system that performs today — and adapts tomorrow.
Bottom Line: Electrification Is Not Binary
You don’t have to choose between clean energy and system resilience. Hybrid heating lets you do both.
It’s a flexible, scalable, and financially smart approach for facility teams who need to decarbonize without compromising performance, budget, or reliability.
This isn’t about resisting change — it’s about engineering smarter transitions.
Thinking beyond electrification?
Let’s talk about how hybrid heating can lower emissions, reduce risk, and future-proof your system — on your terms.