Heat Pump Payback in Highland, UT
Is a heat pump worth it in Highland?
Highland technically pencils out, but only past the point the equipment would need replacing anyway. Against a like-for-like gas furnace and AC swap, going electric costs $5,500 more up front here. Highland's residents would see roughly $50 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 109.1 years. That's a technicality, not a recommendation, for anyone actually living in Highland.
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Landed on Highland by mistake, or want to compare it against somewhere else? Search the other 3206 cities below.
Highland's weather, in the numbers that matter
5203 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Highland has a cold winter that leans hard on heating equipment; the cooling side runs to 1246 cooling degree days, where summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 12.9°F here (coldest 2024 reading 12°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 3.01 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. A cold-climate unit is the right call in Highland, 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 Provo Municipal Airport, the closest NOAA station, 14.9 miles out.
Highland's running-cost comparison, in dollars
A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 4,377 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $714 a year on electricity. That compares with roughly 54 Mcf a year of gas at Highland's $10.19 per-Mcf rate, about $764 a year with the old AC included, against a local electricity rate of 13.12¢/kWh. If the current system still worked and you replaced it anyway, the full cost would take longer than the 15-year equipment life to earn back; against buying a new furnace and AC regardless, the 15-year total lands $4,744 behind.
The break-even point in Highland
Gas would only overtake the heat pump in Highland if electricity rose past 14.4¢/kWh from 13.12¢, or gas fell under $9.26 per Mcf from $10.19. A useful quote test for Highland: the heat pump is worth it within a decade if it costs less than $500 more than replacing the furnace and AC, and within 7 years if the gap is under $350.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Gas isn't universal in Highland, many houses run on electric heat already. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. The saving here runs about $1,227 a year, which recovers the extra $10,000 spent going electric in roughly 8.2 years.
Highland against the rest of the country
Among 3206 cities, Highland's winter puts it at rank 569 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 1834 for population, 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the coldest third of the dataset, where climate does most of the work behind this figure.
Next step if you live in Highland
Highland, Utah is home to about 21,146 people, and the figures above are the same ones a local HVAC contractor uses to size and quote a system, this site doesn't guess where a real quote would land, it just tells you whether it's worth asking for one. In Highland, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
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 Highland's 3.01 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Highland's 12.9°F design temperature is below the 25°F line, which is why a cold-climate unit is the right call here, see what that changes in the cold-climate unit guide.