Heat pump running cost calculator
Look up the outdoor unit, narrow it to the exact certified pairing if you know the indoor model, and see what a unit of heat costs at your rate. Heating only — cooling is not included in these figures.
What is certified, what is calculated, what is assumed
Certified: the efficiency ratings, and only for a specific pairing of outdoor unit with indoor coil. HSPF2 is a seasonal heating efficiency measured under a standardised test procedure at reference conditions, and the rating already includes an allowance for supplementary electric heat within that test. It is not a measurement of your house, and not a prediction of your bill: real performance depends on your climate, how the system is sized, how it is installed and how it is run.
Calculated: cost per million BTU of heat delivered. This depends only on the certified rating and the rate you enter, so it is the fair way to compare two systems.
Assumed: how much heat your home needs, if you choose to enter it. The field starts empty and we do not estimate it for you. The optional example is a worked scenario, not a measurement: 40 million BTU of delivered heat in a 4,000 heating-degree-day climate, scaled by your state's degree days and rounded to the nearest 5. The round numbers are the giveaway — it is an illustration, and we make no claim that it resembles your house or the average house in your state.
We do not offer a "typical" figure because the published household aggregates measure energy consumed for space heating across homes with gas, electric and heat pump systems mixed together. That cannot be turned into delivered heat by applying any single efficiency, so quoting it here would be putting the wrong number in this box. A heating contractor's load calculation, or your own metered use, is the figure worth entering.
Why one outdoor model shows several ratings
The EPA certifies combinations. The same outdoor unit can appear in dozens or hundreds of certified pairings at several different ratings. 2,444 of 5,521 models (44.3%) carry more than one certified HSPF2 — a median of 3 distinct values, and in one case 19.
A lower-rated pairing is not a faulty installation. It is a different certified product, often cheaper, sometimes the only one that fits your ductwork. What it is not is interchangeable with a brochure headline. Counting how many pairings carry each rating tells you what the EPA has certified — it says nothing about what is actually sold or installed, and we do not claim otherwise.
Sources and dates
- EPA ENERGY STAR Certified Ducted Heat Pumps— 266,456 combinations. Most recent certification date in the set: 2026-09-23. Retrieved 2026-09-26.
- EIA Form EIA-861M — residential electricity prices, period 2026-07, for the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.
- EIA State Energy Data System, series ZWHDP — heating degree days, period 2024.
- EIA RECS 2020, table CE3.1 — site energy consumed for space heating, used only for the optional hypothetical example.
The catalogue is the EPA's ENERGY STAR list of ducted heat pumps. It does not cover the whole U.S. market: non-certified equipment and other categories sit outside it.