Why heat pumps are still so hot in the US

为什么热泵在美国依然如此火爆

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY It feels as if it should be illegal to even think about heating appliances during the height of summer—seriously, these heat waves in New York have been brutal—but we need to talk about heat pumps. The appliances use electricity for heating, they’re incredibly efficient, and they’re on the rise. (For what it’s worth, many heat pumps can also be run in reverse to cool buildings.) 执行摘要 在盛夏时节考虑供暖设备似乎有些“不合时宜”——说真的，纽约最近的几波热浪简直太残酷了——但我们确实需要谈谈热泵。这种设备利用电力进行供暖，效率极高，且正处于上升期。（值得一提的是，许多热泵还可以反向运行，为建筑物制冷。）

In the US, heat pump sales have doubled over the past 15 years, according to a new report. And they’re winning the heating race against fossil fuels, outpacing natural-gas furnaces by 32% during the first quarter of 2026. These stats are especially striking at this moment, because a key tax credit for heat pumps just ended with the close of 2025. But you wouldn’t know it from looking at the data. Why are heat pumps still so hot? 根据一份最新报告，过去15年里，美国的热泵销量翻了一番。在与化石燃料的供暖竞争中，热泵正占据上风，2026年第一季度的销量比天然气炉高出32%。这些数据在当下显得尤为引人注目，因为一项针对热泵的关键税收抵免政策刚刚在2025年底结束。但从数据上看，你完全看不出政策退出的影响。为什么热泵依然如此火爆？

In case you need a quick refresher, heat pumps use electricity to essentially move heat from one spot to another. A refrigerant moves around a loop in the device, expanding and compressing, gathering and releasing heat at different points in the cycle. (For a more in-depth look at the thermodynamics, this explainer I wrote in 2023 still holds up.) The result is an appliance that can be incredibly efficient. Once you pay for and install a heat pump, it’s generally significantly cheaper to run than a gas or oil furnace or other types of electric heating systems. And because they’re more efficient and don’t involve burning fossil fuels, heat pumps can be a major help in decarbonizing buildings. 如果你需要快速复习一下：热泵本质上是利用电力将热量从一处转移到另一处。制冷剂在设备内的回路中循环，通过膨胀和压缩，在循环的不同阶段收集并释放热量。（若想深入了解其热力学原理，我2023年写的这篇科普文章依然适用。）其结果就是一种效率极高的设备。一旦购买并安装了热泵，其运行成本通常远低于燃气炉、燃油炉或其他类型的电加热系统。由于它们效率更高且不涉及燃烧化石燃料，热泵能为建筑脱碳提供巨大助力。

One of the major hurdles to wider use of heat pumps is the appliances’ cost: They tend to be more expensive to buy and install than gas furnaces. For this reason, many governments offer incentives to encourage their adoption. In the US, people who installed heat pumps between 2023 and 2025 were eligible for up to $2,000 in tax credits. Last year, though, the Trump administration slashed those tax credits, along with many of the other incentives that were part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Effective January 1, 2026, no more financial help for heat pumps. 热泵普及的主要障碍之一是成本：它们的购买和安装费用通常比燃气炉更贵。因此，许多政府提供激励措施来鼓励采用。在美国，2023年至2025年间安装热泵的用户有资格获得最高2,000美元的税收抵免。然而，去年特朗普政府削减了这些税收抵免，以及2022年《通胀削减法案》中的许多其他激励措施。自2026年1月1日起，热泵不再享受财政补贴。

I think I’ve seen this film before, and I didn’t like the ending. Tax credits of up to $7,500 for new EVs ended on September 30, 2025. In the quarter leading up to that deadline, sales spiked as people rushed to take advantage of the incentive. Then they fell off a cliff. Things are starting to normalize now, but clearly the tax credit’s sunset had a major effect. But as it turns out, heat pumps are an entirely different story. 我想我以前看过类似的剧本，而且我不喜欢那个结局。针对新电动汽车（EV）最高7,500美元的税收抵免于2025年9月30日结束。在截止日期前的那个季度，由于人们争相利用激励措施，销量激增，随后便断崖式下跌。虽然现在情况开始正常化，但很明显，税收抵免的取消产生了重大影响。但事实证明，热泵的情况完全不同。

In the first few months of 2026, sales have actually gone up, as Lucas Davis, an energy economist and UC Berkeley professor, points out in a new analysis. Heat pump shipments were flat from December to January and have seen a gradual rise since then, according to data from the Air Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute, a trade group that represents about 90% of the US market. This increase from winter into spring follows a seasonal trend seen in previous years—and it’s actually a bit stronger in 2026. 正如能源经济学家、加州大学伯克利分校教授卢卡斯·戴维斯（Lucas Davis）在一项新分析中指出的那样，2026年的头几个月，热泵销量实际上有所上升。根据代表美国约90%市场的行业组织——空调、供暖和制冷研究所（AHRI）的数据，热泵出货量从12月到1月保持平稳，此后逐渐上升。这种从冬季到春季的增长符合往年的季节性趋势，而且2026年的增长势头实际上更强劲一些。

This data isn’t what you’d expect to see if losing the tax credit were hurting demand. As Davis lays out in his post, it seems the credit wasn’t really convincing people to install heat pumps, or at least the case for doing so was sufficient without the added incentive. “It appears that the U.S. market for heat pumps is strong enough that it does not depend on tax credits,” Davis writes. 如果失去税收抵免真的损害了需求，你不会看到这样的数据。正如戴维斯在他的文章中所述，税收抵免似乎并没有真正说服人们安装热泵，或者至少在没有额外激励的情况下，安装热泵的理由已经足够充分。“看来美国热泵市场足够强大，并不依赖于税收抵免，”戴维斯写道。

In 2024, MIT Technology Review put heat pumps on our annual list of breakthrough technologies. “We’ve entered the era of the heat pump,” I wrote at the time. While heat pump sales have been up and down over the last few years, the era is going strong. The appliances have outsold gas furnaces in the US for the last four years. It’s not just the US, either. Countries including China and Germany have seen strong movement to heat pumps in recent years. 2024年，《麻省理工科技评论》将热泵列入我们的年度突破性技术名单。我当时写道：“我们已经进入了热泵时代。”虽然过去几年热泵销量有所波动，但这个时代依然强劲。过去四年里，热泵在美国的销量一直超过燃气炉。不仅是美国，包括中国和德国在内的国家近年来也出现了向热泵转型的强劲趋势。

There’s rarely a straight path to adoption for new technology, especially something that requires so many individual households to make a significant change. But it’s encouraging that a major decarbonization tool is going strong, even when roadblocks pop up. 新技术的普及很少是一帆风顺的，尤其是那些需要大量家庭做出重大改变的技术。但令人鼓舞的是，即便出现障碍，这一重要的脱碳工具依然保持着强劲的发展势头。