Heat pumps in the United States - statistics & facts
The popularity of heat pumps in the United States has been rising in the past few years, gaining terrain to more traditional heating and cooling systems. In fact, the number of shipments of air-source heat pumps in the U.S. surpassed those of air furnaces in 2022, remaining higher in the years after that. Air-conditioners (ACs) were still more popular option than heat pumps, as 5.56 million AC units were shipped in 2024 in contrast to the 4.12 million air-source heat pump shipments. Nevertheless, that difference was smaller than a decade earlier. Additionally, if the sales figures of other less popular types of heat pumps were included in that equation, that difference would be even smaller.
The United States has one of the largest heat pump markets in the world, and if the trend of the past couple of years continues, heat pump sales will keep growing in the coming years.
Heat pump water heaters also rise in popularity
In 2023, there were roughly 190,000 shipments of Energy Star-certified heat pump water heaters in the U.S., which was nearly three times higher than in 2018. Nevertheless, those figures only refer to the units certified by Energy-Star, and therefore, the actual market size of heat pumps used for heating water might be even higher. In fact, the ranking of Energy Star-certified HVAC products shipped showed significantly lower figures for air-source heat pumps than the total figures mentioned in the previous paragraph, showing that there is a significant share of heat pumps in the U.S. without such a certificate. The available data shows that heat pump water heaters have also increased considerably in popularity in the past years, although their exact market size is not possible to determine.The U.S. heat pump market is larger than the European one
The number of heat pumps in stock per 1,000 households in a few European countries was very high. As of 2024, there were 686 heat pumps per 1,000 households in Norway, 546 units per 1,000 households in Finland, and 452 in Sweden. Denmark and France also had well over 200 heat pumps per 1,000 households. Meanwhile, the number of space-heating heat pumps in stock per 1,000 households in the U.S. amounted to 185 units in 2024. Although the United States was therefore below the Nordics and France in terms of heat pump usage, it had more heat pumps per household than Italy, or than Spain, the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, or the UK, which actually were far behind. In addition to that, while in the U.S. there were, as mentioned in the first paragraph, 4.12 million air-source heat pumps sold in 2024, 3.02 million heat pumps were sold in 21 of the major European economies, not including Russia or Turkey.The United States has one of the largest heat pump markets in the world, and if the trend of the past couple of years continues, heat pump sales will keep growing in the coming years.
