Heat Pump Payback in Geneva, IL
Should Geneva switch to a heat pump?
In Geneva, a heat pump would cost more to run each year than what you have now. Against a like-for-like gas furnace and AC swap, going electric costs $5,500 more up front here. Unfortunately the electric bill outweighs the gas bill it replaces by about $295 a year here, so the extra spend stays unrecovered. There's no spin on that: Geneva's numbers say wait.
Checking a different city
This runs the same numbers for 3206 US cities, not just Geneva. Look one up here.
Why Geneva's climate drives this number
Geneva has a cold winter that leans hard on heating equipment, 5064 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base, and summers add a moderate cooling load, at 915 cooling degree days. The 99% winter design temperature here, the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average, is -7.1°F, and the coldest daily reading in the 2024 station record was -14.1°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 2.53 for the recommended cold-climate unit. A cold-climate unit is the right call in Geneva, below 25°F design temperature, a standard heat pump leans hard on electric-resistance backup, which erases most of the savings. These numbers come from Dupage Airport, the closest NOAA station, 4.8 miles out.
Geneva's running-cost comparison, in dollars
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 5,068 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $1,115 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 53 Mcf a year at $11.25 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $819 a year including the old AC (electricity here runs 19.06¢/kWh). With running costs higher every year, there is no payback at any purchase price; over 15 years, against a like-for-like replacement, a household here would end $9,930 behind.
What would change Geneva's answer
The heat pump would become the cheaper option in Geneva if electricity fell to 12.7¢/kWh (from 19.06¢) or gas rose above $16.85 per Mcf (from $11.25). At today's prices a cheaper quote cannot rescue the gas comparison in Geneva, since there is no yearly saving to recover it from.
Electric resistance heat in Geneva, compared
Gas isn't universal in Geneva, many houses run on electric heat already. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. Switching saves about $1,555 a year here, a heat pump moving heat rather than generating it needs far less electricity than resistance coils, so the extra $10,000 spent up front comes back in about 6.4 years.
How Geneva compares nationally
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Geneva comes in at 640 for heating severity, 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset, and 1832 by population, where 1 is largest. That's the coldest third of the dataset, where climate does most of the work behind this figure.
Next step if you live in Geneva
About 21,168 people live in Geneva, Illinois, and every number on this page is what a contractor would actually work from when quoting a system here, the point isn't to replace that quote, it's to tell you whether to bother asking for one. Here, there's no cost penalty to waiting until your current furnace or AC actually needs replacing.
Ask a local HVAC contractor for a quote before committing either way.
Reading further on this page's numbers
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Geneva's 2.53 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Geneva's -7.1°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.