{"id":414820,"date":"2026-07-28T05:16:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T05:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/414820\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T05:16:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T05:16:12","slug":"rural-kern-county-became-californias-heat-pump-hotspot-with-water-heaters-for-just-130","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/414820\/","title":{"rendered":"Rural Kern County became California’s heat pump hotspot, with water heaters for just $130"},"content":{"rendered":"

In one of California’s hottest regions, rural Kern County has become a surprisingly affordable success story for heat pump water heaters<\/a>, with many homeowners paying little or even nothing to make the switch.<\/p>\n

Chris Burmester, chief strategy officer of Energy Solutions and board chair of the California Efficiency + Demand Management Council, argued in a Capitol Weekly<\/a> opinion piece that the county shows how quickly heat pump adoption can grow when support reaches both homeowners and contractors.<\/p>\n

What’s happening?<\/p>\n

Figures from TECH Clean California show that 45 contractors in Kern County have completed more than 1,790 heat pump water heater installations.<\/p>\n

After incentives, the median homeowner cost was only $130, and some households paid nothing. Per capita, Kern County’s installation pace was about six times higher than Los Angeles County’s.<\/p>\n

Much of that growth came through TECH Clean California, a state program that helps residents pay for heat pump water heaters and gives contractors training, technical support, and access to equipment.<\/p>\n

Burmester said those benefits for households and workers could be at risk without more state funding, warning that the program could otherwise shut down.<\/p>\n

Why does it matter?<\/p>\n

Heat pump water heaters can bring down energy bills while improving home comfort.<\/p>\n

Because summer temperatures in Kern County can rise above 110 degrees, cooling costs are especially important. Swapping out an old furnace-and-AC setup for a heat pump saved households roughly $304 annually on utility bills, and over $500 a year in the hottest areas.<\/p>\n

Households moving from gas water heating to a heat pump water heater saved an average of $97 per year.<\/p>\n

For homes that had no AC before, swapping in a heat pump brought reliable cooling through dangerous heat waves and raised the typical yearly energy bill by only $35.<\/p>\n

The technology can also reduce pollution indoors and outdoors, while cutting the carbon pollution that drives warming.<\/p>\n

What’s being done?<\/p>\n

Since 2021, TECH Clean California has supported more than 80,000 heat pump HVAC and water-heating projects in 54 counties.<\/p>\n

Survey results also suggested contractors are becoming more capable: from 2022 to 2024, Capitol Weekly reported, the share of TECH-enrolled contractors who said they gained heat pump water heater experience despite beginning with no prior knowledge increased by 12%.<\/p>\n

TECH’s analysis found that counties with the largest contractor networks had average project costs that were $1,031 lower than counties with less participation.<\/p>\n

Customer satisfaction was also high, with 90% of heat pump water heater customers and 91% of heat pump HVAC customers saying they were satisfied.<\/p>\n

“This is what market transformation looks like: skilled workers gaining new business opportunities, consumers gaining access to better technology, and costs declining as adoption grows,” Burmester wrote in the opinion piece.<\/p>\n

Get TCD’s free newsletters<\/a> for easy tips, smart advice, and a chance to earn $5,000 toward home upgrades. To see more stories like this one, change your Google preferences here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In one of California’s hottest regions, rural Kern County has become a surprisingly affordable success story for heat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414821,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,165949,9,8,72782,735,44420],"class_list":["post-414820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-efficiency-demand-management-council","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-heat-pump","tag-kern-county","tag-water-heaters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}