Heat Pump Payback in Worthington, MN
Will a heat pump pay off in Worthington, MN?
In Worthington, a heat pump would cost more to run each year than what you have now. $5,500 is what Worthington would pay extra to go electric rather than replace the furnace and AC with the same again. Unfortunately the electric bill outweighs the gas bill it replaces by about $334 a year here, so the extra spend stays unrecovered. That's Worthington's own climate and rates talking, not a hedge or a caveat.
Checking a different city
This runs the same numbers for 3206 US cities, not just Worthington. Look one up here.
Worthington's weather, in the numbers that matter
6531 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Worthington has a cold winter that leans hard on heating equipment; the cooling side runs to 587 cooling degree days, where summers add a moderate cooling load. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: -16.1°F here (coldest 2024 reading -20.9°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.31 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Worthington needs the cold-climate class of unit: past a 25°F design temperature a standard heat pump falls back on resistance backup often enough to eat the savings. Source: NOAA station Worthington Municipal Airport, 1.5 miles from Worthington, the closest one on record.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 7,159 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $1,200 a year on electricity. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 68 Mcf a year at $10.98 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $866 a year including the old AC (electricity here runs 15.67¢/kWh). Because the heat pump costs more to run here, the gap only widens with time: $10,513 behind after 15 years compared with replacing the furnace and AC like-for-like.
What would change Worthington's answer
For the verdict in Worthington to flip, electricity would need to drop to about 10.8¢/kWh from 15.67¢, or gas climb past $15.89 per Mcf from $10.98. A utility offering a lower heat pump rate can change this. Until then, no quote price makes a heat pump pay back against gas in Worthington; the case for one here rests on comfort, cooling, or replacing electric heat instead.
Electric resistance heat in Worthington, compared
Not every home in Worthington has gas service. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. Switching saves about $1,510 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 6.6 years.
How Worthington compares nationally
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Worthington comes in at 87 for heating severity, 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset, and 2552 by population, where 1 is largest. That's the coldest third of the dataset, where climate does most of the work behind this figure.
What to do with this number in Worthington
Worthington, Minnesota is home to about 13,754 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 Worthington, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Line up a few local HVAC quotes before you decide.
Reading further on this page's numbers
Every constant behind this page, the 2.31 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs, is documented in the methodology guide. Worthington's -16.1°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.