Awarded Funding: $412,322

Although heat pumps can perform efficiently and effectively for most heating hours, available products perform poorly below 0°F and fail to function in the coldest conditions.

To ensure resiliency, current practice in Minnesota is to accompany residential heat pumps with a redundant heating system, either combustion or electric resistance. Redundant systems are expensive, technically challenging to integrate properly, and can cause excessive electricity demand, especially during the coldest days of the year.

The project team, led by Minnesota's Center for Energy and Environment, will evaluate at least two different commercially available thermal storage technologies that address many of the shortcomings of cold climate heat pumps for space heating in Minnesota.

These technologies integrate heat pumps with thermal storage to enable efficient space heating without the need for combustion backup and without causing excessive electricity demand.