Why heat pumps are still so hot in the US

It feels as if it should be illegal to even think about heating appliances during the height of summer—seriously, these heat waves in New York have been brutal—but we need to talk about heat pumps.

The appliances use electricity for heating, they’re incredibly efficient, and they’re on the rise.

(For what it’s worth, many heat pumps can also be run in reverse to cool buildings.) In the US, heat pump sales have doubled over the past 15 years, according to a new report .

And they’re winning the heating race against fossil fuels, outpacing natural-gas furnaces by 32% during the first quarter of 2026. These stats are especially striking at this moment, because a key tax credit for heat pumps just ended with the close of 2025.

But you wouldn’t know it from looking at the data. Why are heat pumps still so hot?

In case you need a quick refresher, heat pumps use electricity to essentially move heat from one spot to another. A refrigerant moves around a loop in the device, expanding and compressing, gathering and releasing heat at different points in the cycle.

(For a more in-depth look at the thermodynamics, this explainer I wrote in 2023 still holds up.) The result is an appliance that ca

Referencias

• Original
  Why heat pumps are still so hot in the US