Royal Palm Beach, FL: the heat pump payback math
Royal Palm Beach is a clear case: a heat pump beats what you have by a wide margin. 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). That premium is recovered through $334 of lower running costs every year, landing the payback clock at roughly 3 years. That verdict holds specifically for Royal Palm Beach's own climate and rates, not a national average.
Royal Palm Beach's weather, in the numbers that matter
Royal Palm Beach barely has a winter to speak of — 106 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base — and summers are severe enough that cooling can dominate the annual bill, at 4633 cooling degree days. The 99% winter design temperature here — the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average — is 48°F, against a record low of 46.9°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 3.63 for the recommended standard unit. Royal Palm Beach's winters don't get cold enough to need the cold-climate premium — a standard unit holds up fine. Source: NOAA station PALM BEACH INTERNATIONAL AIRP, 8 miles from Royal Palm Beach — the closest one on record.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 74 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $621 a year on electricity. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 1 Mcf a year at 25.48 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $955 a year (electricity here runs 15.43¢/kWh). Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is roughly 33 years, leaving the 15-year total $4,005 ahead.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Gas isn't universal in Royal Palm Beach — many houses run on electric heat already. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Royal Palm Beach's answer improves. The saving here runs about $347 a year, which recovers the extra $5,500 spent going electric in roughly 15.9 years.
Where Royal Palm Beach ranks in this dataset
Royal Palm Beach lands at position 3147 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 979 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). That's the mildest third of cities covered, where utility rates carry more of the answer than climate does.
What to do with this number in Royal Palm Beach
Royal Palm Beach, Florida is home to about 41,948 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. Given the math above, Royal Palm Beach is a place worth lining up quotes ahead of a breakdown, not waiting for one.
Ask a local HVAC contractor for a quote before committing either way.
Where Royal Palm Beach's figure comes from
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Royal Palm Beach's 3.63 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. The $2,000 federal credit baked into Royal Palm Beach's number is explained, with the before-and-after math, in the tax credit guide.