Las Vegas, NV: the heat pump payback math
A heat pump earns back its extra cost in Las Vegas within a sensible timeframe. Against a like-for-like gas furnace and AC swap, going electric costs $1,000 more up front here (already netting out a $2,000 tax credit). Lower bills claw that back: about $319 saved annually, for a payback of roughly 3.1 years. That's a real payback, built from Las Vegas's own climate and utility rates, not a national guess.
The climate behind Las Vegas's payback figure
Las Vegas has a mild winter by US standards — 1795 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base — and summers are severe enough that cooling can dominate the annual bill, at 4522 cooling degree days. 28.9°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here — the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day — with a record low of 28°F on file. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 3.06 on the standard unit fit for this climate. A standard ducted system is enough here; Las Vegas's design temperature doesn't justify the cold-climate premium. These numbers come from NORTH LAS VEGAS AIRPORT, the closest NOAA station, 4.1 miles out.
Las Vegas's running-cost comparison, in dollars
A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 1,485 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $750 a year on electricity. That compares with roughly 19 Mcf a year of gas at Las Vegas's 13.14 per-Mcf rate — about $1,068 a year — against a local electricity rate of 14.04¢/kWh. Priced as a standalone purchase rather than against a like-for-like replacement, equipment payback runs about 34.5 years, for a 15-year net position $3,779 ahead.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Not every home in Las Vegas has gas service. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Las Vegas's answer improves. About $711 a year comes back this way, enough that the 7.7-year payback clears the $5,500 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.
How Las Vegas compares nationally
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Las Vegas comes in at 2544 for heating severity — 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset — and 24 by population, where 1 is largest. That's the mildest third of cities covered, where utility rates carry more of the answer than climate does.
Next step for 678,922 people in Las Vegas
About 678,922 people live in Las Vegas, Nevada, 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, it's worth getting quotes before your current system fails, not after.
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 Las Vegas's 3.06 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. See what Las Vegas's figure looks like without the $2,000 federal credit in the guide to how that credit moves the payback window.