What the bill will look like
Your gas therms drop — to near zero if the heat pump replaces the furnace entirely, or partway if you keep gas as backup for the coldest nights. Your electric kWh rise, peaking in the heating months. On Xcel’s time-of-use plan, evening heating during 5–9 pm on weekdays is billed at on-peak prices, which is worth planning around with thermostat pre-heating.
Whether your total energy bill goes up or down depends on your house, the heat pump’s efficiency in cold weather, and gas versus electric prices. We won’t promise a direction; the electrification calculator shows the added kWh and the solar needed to offset it.
Sizing solar before the history exists
Utilities cap net-metered system size relative to your usage, and many look at your past 12 months. A pre-heat-pump history can hold you to a system too small for your new load. Tell us about the heat pump plan up front so we can document the expected load in the interconnection application — how each utility treats that varies, so we confirm before designing.
If you’d rather wait, living with the heat pump for a winter gives you real numbers. The trade-off is a second design conversation later, and possibly a system that has to be added to rather than built once.
Panel capacity and incentives
A heat pump, an EV charger, and a solar backfeed breaker all compete for room in your electrical panel. Older 100-amp panels are where we most often find the constraint; see our small-panel page for the honest options.
On incentives: the federal §25C heat-pump credit ended after 2025, and Colorado’s federally funded HEAR home-electrification rebates stopped accepting new single-family applications in 2026 in the regions we checked. Local utility heat-pump rebates may still exist; check with your utility before you buy.
What to do next
- 1Get your heat-pump contractor’s estimate of annual heating load or added kWh.
- 2Run the electrification calculator to translate that into added solar capacity.
- 3Check your electrical panel rating and free breaker space before either project.
- 4Ask us to size solar to post-heat-pump usage and to confirm how your utility treats projected load.
- 5Decide whether to keep a gas backup furnace for the coldest nights — it changes the math.
FAQ
Questions we hear
Can summer solar really pay for winter heat pump use?
Under Colorado net metering, credits for surplus production carry forward month to month, so a summer surplus can offset winter usage. How completely depends on system size and your utility’s specific rules; municipal utilities like Fort Collins and Longmont credit exports differently from Xcel.
Should I install the heat pump or the solar first?
Either can work. Installing solar first, sized for the planned heat pump, avoids adding to the system later. Installing the heat pump first gives you a real winter of usage data. Tell us your timing and we’ll plan around it.
Are there still heat pump rebates in Colorado?
The federal §25C credit ended after 2025, and the state’s HEAR rebate program had closed or paused single-family applications in the regions we checked as of September 2026. Some utilities and cities run their own programs; verify current offerings.
Will a heat pump spike my bill during Xcel’s on-peak hours?
It can, if it runs hard between 5 and 9 pm on winter weekdays. Pre-heating before 5 pm helps; a battery can cover that window entirely.