Welcome to Spring! It’s awesome to see the new green tree leaves and Spring flowers popping up around town (although this is wreaking havoc with my allergies). At the same time, policies are springing up in our region and country around carbon reduction that have the potential to reinforce the value of energy efficiency to reduce energy waste. NEEA’s overall emerging technology and market transformation portfolio includes electric and natural gas products that deliver great value and save energy. For the first time and from this time forward, this emerging technology update will highlight products for both fuels. This is consistent with NEEA’s 2020-2024 business plan that combines the electric and natural gas work in one plan. You will notice that efficient products from both fuels share common market barriers and a combined focus will help accelerate the development and adoption of all energy efficient products. This is especially true of heat pump water heaters. The largest manufacturers of domestic and commercial water heaters offer standard electric and natural gas products. In fact, the market share is nearly equal between the two fuels. We know of at least one major water heater manufacturer who is actively working on commercializing a GAS heat pump water heater. Once this is available, water heater manufacturers will have heat pump products for both fuels giving their customers viable, cost effective, and efficient options regardless of their application.
