4 Strategies to Boost Heat Pump Adoption
My recent heat pump installation highlighted key areas needing improvement for widespread adoption [Part I of II]
“When it dies, electrify.” That’s the mantra we’re hoping homeowners across the country embrace as their fossil-fuel appliances reach their end of life. These are the key moments where long-term purchasing decisions are made — with material impacts both for the individual and in aggregate for our destabilizing climate.
So when our home’s A/C went on the fritz this past summer, it was our opportunity to install heat pumps for our family’s heating and cooling needs. After a ~4 month process, we are now proud owners of Mitsubishi Hyper-Heat Heat Pumps, optimally designed for colder climates like ours in Massachusetts.
However, despite my personal excitement for our home’s new all-electric system, I’m leaving this process more concerned with our collective ability to electrify HVAC at the speed required. The purpose of this post is to share some insights based on my own experience on what still must be improved to ensure heat pumps reach mass adoption quickly.
Here are 4 things that I believe we need to do to make this happen:
Scale up heat pump coaching
Steer home retrofits towards air-source, not geothermal
Get HVAC contractors on-board [will be covered in part 2]
Radically simplify financing [will be covered in part 2]
1. Scale up heat pump coaching
The installation journey can be daunting, even for those somewhat familiar with the process. Swapping out an HVAC system is a dizzying array of steps and decisions that all must be closely coordinated — with enough obscure jargon to make your head spin (HSPF, SEER, BTU, Manual J…the list goes on).
At a minimum, any person looking to install heat pumps will need to:
Compare quotes and proposals across multiple contractors, each of which has their own biases and may not have your best interest in mind
Understand your current HVAC setup and what switching to heat pumps will mean economically (e.g. $ saved differs based on current fuel type) and logistically (e.g. do you already have ductwork that can be reused?)
Navigate financial incentives which can be complex based on local programs, equipment qualification, and available financing options
Make critical system configuration decisions that balance tradeoffs between cost, comfort, and efficiency. This goes far beyond simply what heat pump you choose — like should I have a backup heat source for the coldest winter days? Or Do I value a quieter system vs. a noisier one?
After going through this somewhat overwhelming and intimidating process myself, I recognized just how important heat pump coaching will be to the speed and efficacy of heat pump deployment. The idea of a heat pump coach is to provide a homeowner unbiased advice to help them navigate the end-to-end process of a heat pump install. I am fortunate to live in one of the few towns where heat pump coaches are provided to residents at no cost.
I saw first-hand just how useful consulting with an objective expert adviser was in our heat pump journey. My coach had worked with dozens of other residents in our town and had installed heat pumps in his own home. He not only provided general expertise on how to go about buying a heat pump, but localized know-how as well.
Our coach helped us identify contractors who installed the largest quantity of heat pumps in my area, meticulously compared the pros/cons of the various proposals I received (see above), and ensured the heat pumps recommended would qualify for our town’s heat pump rebate. At a high level, it also just made me feel more confident to know that I had someone truly “in our corner” whose advice was not tainted by any financial incentives.
What we need to do now
Heat pump coaching programs are live across Massachusetts, but this is obviously far from sufficient to support broader efforts to electrify heating and cooling. I see 2 general opportunities for making this type of coaching more accessible:
Scale the Massachusetts model to more states. Like what is available to me in Concord, MA, build the infrastructure such that any city or state can adopt a heat pump coaching program that’s free to residents. Consultancies like Abode are key pieces of the infrastructure required such that these programs can scale to other municipalities.
Bring electrification as-a-service to more consumers. Startups like QuitCarbon are part of a class of new startups bringing advisory services for homeowners to electrify. These platforms are a direct-to-consumer alternative to the MA model for more homeowners to get access to this type of coaching. Importantly, like the MA model, these services are often offered to the consumer at no cost, but also benefit from the scalability of a software-led approach.
2. Steer home retrofits towards air-source, not geothermal
Personally, I was quite intrigued with the prospect of putting in a geothermal a.k.a. ground source heat pump and explored this alongside air source options. Geothermal promised some benefits like longer system life (25+ years vs. 10-15 years) and lower operational costs (geothermal heat pumps capture heat from deep underground compared to ambient air, making them more efficient to run).
However, after going through the quoting and system design process with Dandelion Energy, I’m left with the conclusion that geothermal has too many friction points for residential retrofits and really only makes sense for new construction.
Here are the reasons why I’m skeptical about geothermal for retrofits based on our experience:
Long wait times: We were given a lead time of 6-8 months from contract sign to installation due to drilling permitting and crew availability. Given our system was already in a degraded state, this was simply too long for us to wait. The average homeowner, like us, won’t start exploring new HVAC solutions until their current system isn’t working properly. As such it’s hard to imagine many people accepting this long of lead time.
High up-front cost: The out of pocket cost for geothermal was roughly 2x as air source heat pumps (we were quoted ~$80k for our 3k sq. ft. home). While there are federal tax credits that can bring geothermal’s net-cost to roughly the same as air source, the up-front cost is still staggeringly high and difficult for many to shell out at time of purchase. And yes, financing is always an option — but significantly elevated interest rates make this option much less attractive today than was the case previously.
Disruptiveness: Geothermal requires drilling deep underground and installing a looped system to exchange heat. With this comes logistical complexity and disruptiveness to the homeowner. At a minimum, a portion of yard space will be returned to ‘rough grade’ meaning grass or other landscaping will have to be redone . Also, we were asked to remove part of our permanent outdoor fence for the drilling machinery (read: you will need to spend even more money than the high sticker price of the system itself).
At least for us, the combination of these three drawbacks of geothermal were hard pills to swallow, and ultimately pushed us to go the air source heat pump route. I can’t imagine our situation is too outside the norm, and as such it would be hard for me to see a scenario where geothermal is a realistic solution for retrofitting existing homes en-masse.
What we need to do now
Don’t get me wrong, as an energy nerd, I loved going through the design process and picking out the ideal spot for our bore hole to be drilled. And I do think that geothermal has a place in new builds where these issues would not be nearly as problematic.
However, my recommendation would be to steer consumer-facing messaging on heat pumps squarely around air source, rather than as a choice between geothermal and air source — which was my experience. Relatedly, I would also recommend focusing new local heat pump rebate programs on air-source heat pumps.
This way, we can guide the majority of retrofits towards a solution that will be more palatable and sensible to homeowners in the short-term. Conversely, I do think there’s an opportunity to more narrowly focus go-to-market efforts of geothermal heat pumps to construction companies and engineers involved in new construction.
What’s next?
In part 2, we’ll explore my other takeaways from installing heat pumps to accelerate go-forward adoption:
Getting HVAC contractors on-board
Radically simplify financing
Update 12/13: Part II of this series is now available, covering HVAC enablement and streamlined financing for heat pumps.