Energy property - Heat pumps and biomass stoves and boilers
Heat pumps that meet or exceed the CEE highest efficiency tier, not including any advanced tier, in effect at the beginning of the year when the property is installed, and biomass stoves and boilers with a thermal efficiency rating of at least 75% qualify for a credit up to $2,000 per year. Costs may include labor for installation.
Qualified property includes new:
Electric or natural gas heat pumps
Electric or natural gas heat pump water heaters
Biomass stoves and boilers
https://sunamp.com/en-gb/hot-water-solutions-thermino-range/
https://www.tn.gov/environment/program-areas/energy/state-en...
Earth's oceans and seas act as giant heat sinks.
And that means more trouble as global climate change impacts..
https://www.earth.com/news/ocean-warming-broke-records-for-4...
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/01/29/samsung-releases-new-...
> The South Korean giant [Samsung] said its new EHS All-in-One provides air heating and cooling, floor heating, and hot water from a single outdoor unit. It can supply hot water up to 65 C in below-zero weather.
> Dubbed EHS All-in-One, the system provides air heating and cooling, floor heating, and hot water from a single outdoor unit. It is initially released for the European market, with a Korean rollout expected within a year. “It delivers stable performance across diverse weather conditions. It can supply hot water up to 65 C even in below-zero weather and is designed to operate heating even in severe cold down to -25 C,” the company said in a statement. “The system also uses the R32 refrigerant, which has a substantially lower impact on global warming compared with the older R410A refrigerant.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqyAWkXXt3A
https://www.neshw.com/residential/solar-heat-pump-water-heat...
I have one of these: https://cta.ch/en/private/products/ah-i-eco-innen
I got it in October so most of the time I've had it has been <10C. It's produced 806.3 kWh of heating for hot water and 6587.2 kWh for the floor heating. It consumed 302.7 kWh and 1801.4 kWh respectively, for a COP of 2.66 and 3.66.
I live in Switzerland where these are available. A Cowa 58 [0] costs CHF 4692 [1] and stores up to 13.5kWh. If you're heating the water with a heat pump, that's ~6kWh of electricity, so ~CHF 782/kWh.
I'm in the process of installing a 33kWh battery and the battery + inverter cost CHF 13600 in total for just the hardware, so ~CHF 482/kWh.
If you add solar panels, the inverter does double-duty producing AC from both the battery and the panels. The battery does double-duty producing both hot water and allowing you to use solar energy outside the times when the sun is shining.
That said, having ordered a heat pump recently and being in the process of having solar + batteries installed, the amount of electrical work needed for the solar/battery install is substantially higher than was needed for the heat pump and here, the labour costs quite a lot, pushing the upfront cost difference even higher.
I think that's where these heat storage things fit in: they have a much lower upfront cost. No matter how cheap the battery, for it to be useful in a Swiss residence, it needs to output a substantial amount of 3-phase power (3-phase is standard here, even in most apartments), which means you need to spend a couple thousand Francs on an inverter and electrical work. These heat storage devices are quite cheap and don't even need someone qualified to handle refrigerants, I imagine they could be installed by a normal plumber.
That reduced upfront cost makes them far more accessible than electrical batteries, at least for now.
[0]: https://www.cowa-ts.com/uploads/files/Dokumente/Datenblaette...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J52mDjZzto
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zrx-b2sLUs
Unless you live in a cold climate, they are worth it for a discounted energy bill =3
Electricity (standard): 33.34 p/kWh
Heating oil (gas oil): 10.54 p/kWh
Kerosene: 6.20 p/kWh
Mains gas: 7.68 p/kWh
https://www.nottenergy.com/advice-and-tools/project-energy-c...
See page 758 of the Chapter 22 for the Unicode 9.0 standard:
I've got a 1930s semi-detached house (UK, north of England) - heated solely by a ASHP for both heating and hot water.
Our Seasonal Coefficient of Performance is currently 3.47 (347% efficient) - even if limit that to just last month (coldest month of the winter so far in the UK) our COP was 3.25 (325% efficiency).
Roughly speaking if you can achieve a COP over 3.2x in the UK it should be roughly on a par with gas, assuming you go 'gas free' (i.e. you can make the saving on the gas standing charge).
Personally we're running at ~£200 annual saving vs. my estimate of what costs would be for equivalent gas boiler - that's thanks in part to being able to do all our hot-water heating at night rates.
House wise - we don't have cavity wall insulation, have 15+ year old double-glazing and probably should have more insulation in the loft (it fills the rafters but I think these days that's considered not enough).
Also with changes to ECO (energy company obligations) and RO (renewables obligations) the differential between gas and electric will reduce further
Anyhoo - added my example to show that ASHP can work perfectly fine in old, poorly insulated homes in (moderately) cold climates.
ECO/RO link - https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2025/11/energy-bill-c...
https://www.heatgeek.com/articles/legionella-and-water-tempe...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricit...
You're right, of course heat pump water heaters use tanks to smooth out DHW demand, but that same thing isn't feasible for space heating.
Right, but UK has/had "storage heaters" which were bricks with nichrome wire. They would heat the bricks really hot during cheap electricity times, and use that heat the rest of the day.
EDIT: I misread "ripping out these energy storage devices" as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storage_heater
Of course heat pumps for DHW should all have a tank for smoothing demand across several hours.