Even on a carbon-heavy diet, heat pumps eliminate tons of emissions annually compared to other heating systems.
depending on the scenario and level of efficiency, heat pumps lower household annual energy emissions on average by 36% to 64% — or 2.5 to 4.4 metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year per housing unit.
The team modeled the entire U.S. housing stock and found that, over the appliance’s expected lifetime of 16 years, switching to a heat-pump heater/AC slashes emissions in every one of the contiguous 48 states.
Emissions savings tend to be higher in states with colder winters and heaters that run on fuel oil, such as Maine, according to the study.
RMI estimated that heat pump emissions prevented in that first year were 13% to 72% relative to gas-furnace emissions, depending on the state.