Where the figures live
Rates and production facts on this page are already on the solar record. The links below are the places to read them. This page repeats only figures those pages already carry.
- Methodology, how consumption benchmarks and citations are handled.
- How solar works, the meter, production serves the house first, then exports.
- How solar works, production, daylight output and snow cover.
- How solar works, questions, sizing when a new electric load is coming.
- Research library, four worked examples and the utility tariffs.
- Utility pages: ComEd, We Energies, Xcel Energy, Portland General Electric.
A heat pump moves conditioning load onto the electric meter
Space heat that used to arrive as gas, oil, or a delivered fuel can, with a heat pump, arrive as kilowatt-hours. Cooling from the same machine is already an electric load. Either way, the household total the solar pages compare with production can change. The solar explainer states the sizing rule without an equipment rating: an array can serve a heat pump, and the mistake to avoid is sizing to last year’s bill when a heat pump is coming in the next year or two. Projected annual consumption, read with the production model, is the input.
The 2026 sizing note lists a heat pump and a heat-pump water heater among the changes that move the annual target, alongside an EV, an induction range, a pool pump, or a finished basement. Its illustration is a household moving from 10,000 kWh to 14,000 kWh over two years. That pair is an example of rising use. It is not a measured heat-pump consumption figure, and the difference between those two numbers is not an equipment rating this page will treat as one.
Winter load and daylight production do not share a schedule
The production section describes the resource as daylight energy and notes that snow on the array cuts output while the snow sits. Annual production figures on that page already fold in typical snow loss. The page does not publish a winter-versus-summer split, so this explainer does not create one.
The practical reading stays inside that description. Heating load that shows up on a dark evening, or while snow is covering the array, is not production the house can use in that hour. Those kilowatt-hours come from the grid at the delivered rate. Midday production from a clear day has its own clock, covered on the daytime cooling page. This page does not claim a summer surplus equals a winter heating load. The site has no such balance.
The tariff still decides what an on-site kilowatt-hour is worth
The Illinois buyback page groups heat pumps with loads that earn the all-in delivered rate when they run against live production under Smart Solar Billing. A heat pump running at midday in mild weather fits that sentence. A heat pump running on a winter evening fits the export problem instead: production from earlier in the day has already been credited at the lower export rate, and the evening kilowatt-hour is purchased at the delivered rate.
Where the published record talks about electric heat as a bill-size fact, it stays with the threshold it already printed. The Oregon solar note says offset value compounds fastest at an above-average bill, typically $130 per month or higher, and that households with electric heat or an EV typically clear that threshold. It does not isolate a heat pump’s share of the bill. The Wisconsin note lists daytime HVAC as a favorable load under avoided-cost exports, and it treats a high overnight profile with little daytime use as the harder fit. A heat pump that runs through the night sits in that second description.
Worked examples, without a new rating
Lake Zurich, Brookfield, and Beaverton are the worked examples for the Illinois, Wisconsin, and Oregon notes this page cites. Centennial is the Xcel example. The Xcel Energy page publishes a retail-rate export credit, and this explainer does not convert that credit into a heat-pump savings figure. Sizing still starts from the questions section and the methodology.
What this page will not size
Capacity, efficiency ratings, cold-climate performance, and installed price are absent because the repo does not carry them as cited solar inputs. Adding them here would be a new statistic. The honest use of the existing record is the one the solar explainer already gives: put the expected annual kilowatt-hours, including a planned heat pump, next to production for that roof, and price the on-site share and the exported share with the current tariff.
Water heating that uses a heat pump is a related load with its own clock. That clock is covered in when a water heater draws power.
Existing research this page uses
Every rate and consumption figure above is already published on a solar page. This explainer adds none. Where the solar record has no water or HVAC number, the paragraph states the mechanism and stops.
- How solar works, common questions . States that an array can serve a heat pump only if it is sized to the higher load, and that last year’s bill is the wrong sole input when a heat pump is coming.
- Solar sizing note, 2026 . Lists a heat pump and a heat-pump water heater among loads that can change the annual target. Uses a household moving from 10,000 kWh to 14,000 kWh as an illustration of rising use, not as an equipment rating.
- Illinois solar buyback rates . Groups heat pumps with loads that earn the delivered rate when production is consumed on site under ComEd Smart Solar Billing.
- Oregon solar note, 2026 . Treats an above-average bill, typically $130 per month or higher, as the stronger offset case, and says households with electric heat commonly clear that threshold.
- How solar works, production . Describes production as daylight energy and snow cover as a cut to output while snow sits on the array. No winter-versus-summer percentage is published there.