Data
Yearly cost of a heat pump and of today's heating equipment (Project Drawdown)
What heating with a heat pump system costs per year, and what the equipment it replaces costs, in Project Drawdown's 2026 assessment of heat pumps: the running cost alone, and the running cost plus the purchase cost spread over the equipment's life without discounting. The baseline is a weighted average of the heating equipment heat pumps replace, not one type of boiler.
Latest value
990US$/system/yr
World (Project Drawdown's global estimate), 2023. Version Drawdown Explorer, Use Heat Pumps spreadsheet on Zenodo (methodology June 2026).
As published
“When we include the initial cost in the Net Cost, we amortize it without discounting over 30 years. If 30 years is not an appropriate time period for implementing the solution, we may choose a different period and state it in the narrative.”
Drawdown Explorer solution assessments, Methodology for Project Drawdown Solutions Assessments (June 2026), p. 17. Checked word for word against the stored copy of the document every time the data is rebuilt.
Every value
| Heating | Side | Cost | Period | Value (US$/system/yr) | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baseline heating equipment (Drawdown's 'BAU', a weighted average, 2023)Use Heat Pumps spreadsheet, sheet 'results', row 26: 'net cost per unit BAU' (2023 US$/unit/yr). | Baseline heating equipmentUse Heat Pumps spreadsheet, sheet 'results', row 26: 'net cost per unit BAU' (2023 US$/unit/yr). | Net cost per unit (initial cost spread over the equipment's life, plus operating cost)Use Heat Pumps spreadsheet, sheet 'results', row 26: 'net cost per unit BAU' (2023 US$/unit/yr). | 2023 | 1,180 | final |
| Baseline heating equipment (Drawdown's 'BAU', a weighted average, 2023)Use Heat Pumps spreadsheet, sheet 'results', row 24: 'operating cost per unit BAU' (2023 US$/unit/yr). | Baseline heating equipmentUse Heat Pumps spreadsheet, sheet 'results', row 24: 'operating cost per unit BAU' (2023 US$/unit/yr). | Operating cost per unitUse Heat Pumps spreadsheet, sheet 'results', row 24: 'operating cost per unit BAU' (2023 US$/unit/yr). | 2023 | 830 | final |
| Installed heat pump systemUse Heat Pumps spreadsheet, sheet 'results', row 32: 'net cost per unit solution' (2023 US$/unit/yr). | Heat pumpUse Heat Pumps spreadsheet, sheet 'results', row 32: 'net cost per unit solution' (2023 US$/unit/yr). | Net cost per unit (initial cost spread over the equipment's life, plus operating cost)Use Heat Pumps spreadsheet, sheet 'results', row 32: 'net cost per unit solution' (2023 US$/unit/yr). | 2023 | 990 | final |
| Installed heat pump systemUse Heat Pumps spreadsheet, sheet 'results', row 30: 'operating cost per unit solution' (2023 US$/unit/yr). | Heat pumpUse Heat Pumps spreadsheet, sheet 'results', row 30: 'operating cost per unit solution' (2023 US$/unit/yr). | Operating cost per unitUse Heat Pumps spreadsheet, sheet 'results', row 30: 'operating cost per unit solution' (2023 US$/unit/yr). | 2023 | 540 | final |
Where it comes from
- Producer
- Project Drawdown · Drawdown Explorer solution assessments
- Version
- Drawdown Explorer, Use Heat Pumps spreadsheet on Zenodo (methodology June 2026)
- Fetched
- 2026-10-05 (automatically), 686,799 bytes
- Fingerprint
- sha256 9eba37098c0c9002a2fad4fa2a92a8421f8ae0ad789df2077390c6679b2fb7cd
- Copies
- No Wayback copy recorded yet.
- Cite the producer
- Project Drawdown, Dioha, M., Gleeson, S., Hoff, M., Lam, J., Matthews, M., Smith, A. D., Swanson, C., Farac, N. F., Sweeney, A., Gerber, J., & Toensmeier, E. (2026). Methodology for Project Drawdown Solutions Assessments. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20865531. Project Drawdown. (2026). The Drawdown Explorer. http://drawdown.org/explorer.
- Producer
- Project Drawdown · Drawdown Explorer solution assessments
- Version
- Drawdown Explorer, Use Heat Pumps spreadsheet on Zenodo (methodology June 2026)
- Fetched
- 2026-10-05 (automatically), 3,230,671 bytes
- Fingerprint
- sha256 858b73fb3fd4230e4c014ef76351acaea2a3a63bd866c9c9ace07776f179fc2d
- Copies
- No Wayback copy recorded yet.
- Cite the producer
- Project Drawdown, Dioha, M., Gleeson, S., Hoff, M., Lam, J., Matthews, M., Smith, A. D., Swanson, C., Farac, N. F., Sweeney, A., Gerber, J., & Toensmeier, E. (2026). Methodology for Project Drawdown Solutions Assessments. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20865531. Project Drawdown. (2026). The Drawdown Explorer. http://drawdown.org/explorer.
What was done to it
Read the results sheet of Project Drawdown's Use Heat Pumps spreadsheet, checking the adoption unit, the headings and unit of the baseline and solution cost blocks and the label of every value cell.
Code: pipeline/src/envdash/transforms/green_premium/heating_drawdown_explorer.py · code sha256 c85406ea934884f6… · inputs 9eba37098c0c… 858b73fb3fd4…
Published 4 cached cell values as Drawdown gives them: the operating cost and the net cost per unit per year of the baseline heating equipment and of a heat pump system, in 2023 US dollars.
Code: pipeline/src/envdash/transforms/green_premium/heating_drawdown_explorer.py · code sha256 c85406ea934884f6… · inputs 9eba37098c0c… 858b73fb3fd4…
Checked in the methodology that the net cost amortises the initial cost without discounting. Left out the initial cost, the revenues and Drawdown's difference between the two; nothing was subtracted.
Code: pipeline/src/envdash/transforms/green_premium/heating_drawdown_explorer.py · code sha256 c85406ea934884f6… · inputs 9eba37098c0c… 858b73fb3fd4…
What it covers
- Geography
- World (Project Drawdown's global estimate)
- Basis
- Project Drawdown's meta-analysis of equipment and energy costs against a 2023 baseline, per installed heat pump system and per baseline unit it replaces, in 2023 US dollars. The net cost amortises the initial cost without discounting over the equipment's life.
- Unit
- US dollars (2023) per heating system per year (US$/system/yr)