Decarbonizing Residential Space Heating with Heat Pumps in the United States

Abstract

Heat pumps are a critical technology for decarbonizing the buildings sector, but adoption rates remain low in the United States. Here, we examine policies to promote widespread heat pump uptake based on a national-scale analysis of the impact of heat pump adoption on consumer heating bills and patterns of heating usage across the contiguous United States. At current fuel prices, we show that heat pump adoption would widely reduce heating bills in households using electric resistance, propane, or oil. Drawing on residential energy consumption data, we highlight that for these households, policy interventions should focus on overcoming barriers associated with financing and include incentives for landlords to implement heat pump upgrades in multi-unit dwellings reliant on electric heating. However, for approximately half of U.S. residential heating energy demand—households using natural gas in northern regions with cold winters—our analysis shows that heat pump adoption would significantly raise annual heating bills. In these regions and households, policies should prioritize lowering the price of electricity, such as through time-of-use pricing structures, paired with technologies like thermal storage that allow households to shift heating to lower-cost periods. More generally, targeting high electricity prices will be essential to promoting electrification across all sectors in these regions.

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