Gov. Janet Mills (D) announced Tuesday that Maine is expected to receive between $45 million and $72 million in federal funding to “accelerate the adoption of heat pump technology” in homes across the state.
Five New England states — including Maine, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island — were given a combined total of $450 million in federal funding for the joint New England Heat Pump Accelerator project.
This money was sourced through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Climate Pollution Reduction Grant program, which was funded by the Inflation Reduction Act.
According to the United States Department of Energy (DOE), the Inflation Reduction Act made “the single largest investment in climate and energy in American history, enabling America to tackle the climate crisis, advancing environmental justice, securing America’s position as a world leader in domestic clean energy manufacturing.”
The New England Heat Pump Accelerator project aims to “leverage the power of a multi-state market to rapidly accelerate the adoption” of various heat pump technologies in single-family homes and other residential buildings in the region.
The goal of this project is to install nearly 580,000 heat pumps throughout New England, covering 65 percent of “residential-scale” heating and cooling sales by 2030 and 90 percent by 2040.
40 percent of this funding will be reserved for expenditures in “low-income and disadvantaged communities.”
This project will “prioritize collaboration and information-sharing between states” and feature three primary components: the Market Hub, the Innovation Hub, and the Resource Hub.
The Market Hub will focus on working with manufacturers, distributors, and contractors to “drive sales, ensure adequate stocking, and promote quality installations of heat pumps that are well-suited to New England’s climate and housing stock.”
It will be the responsibility of the Innovation Hub to “support heat pump adoption among low- and moderate-income households” and execute up to two “large-scale, multi-year projects.”
The Resource Hub will serve as a “central portal” for distributors, contractors, program implementers, and other stakeholders to “access important data and educational resources.”
Maine’s share of the $450 million will be awarded to the Maine Governor’s Energy Office (GEO) and administered by Efficiency Maine.
“Maine’s nation-leading transition to heat pumps is creating good-paying jobs, curbing our reliance on expensive and harmful fossil fuels, and cutting costs for Maine families,” said Gov. Mills in a press release Tuesday. “This significant award will continue our momentum and ensure folks across Maine, particularly those in rural Maine, stay comfortable and safe in their homes and save them money in the process.”
“I thank the Biden-Harris Administration for this funding and for its support of our work to expand the use of heat pumps to lower energy costs, strengthen our economy, and protect our environment,” Mills said.
“Maine has set an example for the nation on how efficient, climate-friendly technologies like heat pumps can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, create jobs and support new businesses, and save people money on their heating and cooling bills,” said Hannah Pingree, Director of the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future (GOPIF), and Dan Burgess, Director of the GEO.
“This award from through the Inflation Reduction Act will ensure Maine can meet our ambitious target of 275,000 heat pumps installed by 2027, and we thank the U.S. EPA and our partner states for their support of this important initiative,” Pingree and Burgess said.
“For the good of the Maine economy, and in order to meet the ambitious goals of Maine’s climate action plan, it is imperative that we grow our programs to scale up the adoption of heat pump technology,” said Michael Stoddard, Executive Director of Efficiency Maine. “The funding from the Carbon Pollution Reduction Grant comes at a critical juncture as Maine seeks to ramp up its programs.”
Click Here to Read Gov. Mills’ Full Press Release
This past summer, Mills celebrated that Maine had met her administration’s goal of installing 100,000 heat pumps in the state two years ahead of schedule.
In light of this, Mills set an updated benchmark of having an additional 175,000 heat pumps installed in the state by 2027.
A few months later, the United States Climate Alliance — of which Mills is a co-chair — announced a new commitment to increasing heat pump usage nationwide four-fold by 2030, reaching a total of 20 million heat pump installations by the end of the decade, with “40% of the benefits flow[ing] to disadvantaged communities.”
Earlier this year, Mills announced alongside several others, including Burgess and Stoddard, that Maine had been awarded $10 million in federal funding to subsidize the installation of heat pumps in mobile and manufactured homes throughout the state.
[RELATED: Maine Pols Tout $10M in Tax Dollars to Subsidize Heat Pumps]
With this funding, Maine plans to install approximately 675 heat pumps in manufactured and mobile homes owned by low-income residents living in towns with populations less than 10,000.
Where
Where is the electricity coming from and what will it cost ?
How many people complain that these devices DO NOT WORK here in the North East…
They are expensive to run and costly to replace…
No thank you. You can keep your heat pumps. If the gov’t has to spend millions to try and bribe you to get them then you know it’s bs. More of your money pee’d away.
After 3 years of use, my assessment of heat pumps as a single source of heat or AC are as follows: They SUCK as far as being able to regulate AC temps; they SUCK even more as a source of heat in the winter. It’s just another scam to line the pockets of crony capitalists posing as environmentalists.
Democrats are too stupid to understand the physics behind a heat pump and the undeniable accurate facts are that heat pumps are 100% INEFFECTIVE when the temperature goes below 27 degrees. More importantly is the fact that heat pumps are running on electricity that has to come from somewhere…….like maybe a fossil fuel burning electric generation station? The hard core reality that even the EPA published in making a comparison with natural gas or home heating oil is that on the cost of just BTU values, heat pumps are at the bottom of the list with the highest cost per BTU yet this moron Mills seems to have drunk the Koolaid and thinks that heat pumps are the answer.
Should have kept Maine Yankee running, but you knew it all. That was cheep energy!!!
Good. I will get mine when I get an EV……….NEVER.
The only type of heat pump that will keep you warm in Maine winters are water source heat pumps which get either hot or chilled water from a central building system, these have been used successfully in apartment and condo buildings for decades.
I have two heat pumps. Good for A/C. still need the good old oil burner in the winter.
The more heat pumps people are fooled into buying , the more electricity we will need to run them , and the more that electricity will cost . Supply and demand .
Are “ You” really stupid enuf to think some solar panels and some windmills are going be an affordable solution for the entire state ? Wake up !
And REMEMBER THIS : If Harris wins Washington, one of the first things her nut case advisors are going to do is outlaw your wood stove , No joke .
Don’t let the democrats destroy our state and our country .
Vote them out in November .
From what I’ve researched, and talked to a few hvac techs, is for the A.C. they say it’s cheaper than a window a.c.
The most effective way to heat a house is a rocket mass heater 90% more efficient than a traditional wood stove. They are just hard to install in a already built home but all new construction should adapt the RMH it is the best way to heat and if you have trees for fuel like here in Maine does than it is cheaper than anything out there. Just grow some fuel wood trees on your property and coppice 1/5 every 5 years and your helping the environment and those trees just keep coming back. Its a win win win solution thats why it won’t be done.
Good thing the nation isn’t broke.
10,000,000 for 675 heat pumps? Seems kind of pricey, who is getting rich? And if taxpayers and rate payers were not paying for them then there would be none. Just like the rest of the “green’ industry. If you want to get rich make a product then convince the government to make it necessary, the money is endless.
I bought a heat pump for $3000 5 yrars ago it quickly broke down and no one can repair it ..so for 5 years it has just hung useless on thr side of the house.