Nine States Make the Pledge to Boost Use of Climate-Friendly Heat Pumps in Homes
California, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Rhode Island signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) launched by Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management (NESCAUM), an association of state agencies that tackles air pollution and climate change, supporting the transition to cleaner buildings. This MOU is to to ensure heat pumps make up 65% of statewide residential heating, cooling and water heating equipment sales by 2030—and 90% by 2040.
“It’s helpful for the manufacturers to hear from states that this is the direction we’re going. This is how we see the market shifting and we need this transition to happen to meet our climate and energy goals,” said NESCAUM Senior Polisy Advisor Emily Levin. “And in turn that will give manufacturers confidence to invest in new manufacturing and expand their lines of technologies. So hopefully it creates a kind of positive virtuous cycle.”
According to City Limits, By signing the agreement, New York and other participating states— like California, Oregon and Maine—commit to crafting an action plan within a year to support the goal of amping up heat pump installations, and to track their progress.
The states will also encourage manufacturers and distributors to share data on shipments and sales of heat pump equipment so they can better understand how markets are developing.
National heat pump sales overtook gas furnaces for the first time in 2022, and outpaced gas furnace sales by 26 percent in the first three quarters of 2023, according to market reports analyzed by NESCAUM.