US apartment buildings tip toward heat pumps

A new apartment does not need a gas pipe to keep its residents warm. Across the United States, apartment construction has continued shifting toward electric heating for more than two decades, and heat pumps are part of that movement. In the South, 96 % of new apartments are electrically heated; in the Northeast, the figure is 52 %, according to Canary Media.

The appeal is not only about winter. Heat pumps can provide heating and air conditioning in the same system, a useful combination as climate change–fueled heat waves increase demand for cooling. Alan Durning, executive director of the Sightline Institute, points to improvements in the technology and that cooling demand as the two leading forces behind the shift. Heat pumps are pricier upfront than gas furnaces, he said, but can compete with a gas furnace plus central air conditioning.

There is also a construction calculation. Every building needs electrical infrastructure, while adding a gas connection means building a gas pipeline on top of it. New Mexico land developer John Moscato says his company saves $ 3 , 000 per lot by leaving gas lines out. For an upcoming development of 4 , 500 lots, he expects the all-electric design to save approximately $ 13 . 5 million.

A federal tax credit expanded under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act offered developers up to $ 5 , 000 per energy-efficient housing unit and may have helped accelerate installations. That credit expired last month after President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress removed it. The shift does not depend entirely on that incentive: developers can still benefit directly from avoiding gas-line construction.

So what changes in practice? New housing can become more electric even in states unlikely to ban gas in new buildings. California, Colorado, and Washington have standards encouraging fully electric construction, while pro-housing zoning reforms in Montana and Idaho show another route: making it easier to build can push developers toward electric systems without a gas phaseout mandate. The trade-off is that the regional pattern remains uneven, and the figures describe new apartments rather than every building already standing.