Arizona homeowners could now qualify for up to $8,000 after a new state heat pump rebate went into effect.
The rebate is available to low-income residents who want to replace their air conditioners with heat pumps. Efficiency Arizona, launched on August 29, offers funding for up to the total cost of the replacement.
The money comes courtesy of the Inflation Reduction Act. President Joe Biden‘s legislation allocated funds for states to use as rebates for residents making more energy-efficient home upgrades.
In Arizona, up to $8,000 is available for qualifying residents.
“This is especially beneficial for low-income households who may not otherwise be able to afford to repair or replace their current air conditioning systems, which is crucial given Arizona’s record temperatures,” Kevin Thompson, a finance expert and the founder and CEO of 9i Capital Group, told Newsweek.
To be eligible, homeowners must upgrade to a more energy-efficient heat pump for their air conditioning system. Heat pumps generally use less energy because they transfer heat instead of generating it.
Newsweek reached out to Arizona’s Office of Resiliency for comment via email.
“It’s not going to stop being hot here anytime soon, and cost should not be a barrier to keeping Arizonans safe and healthy,” Governor Katie Hobbs said during the program’s launch event.
The U.S. Department of Energy is slowly making home energy rebates available across the United States as state governments adopt the funding and roll it out for qualifying residents.
“Few states have garnered headlines for rising temperatures more than Arizona, where it’s now routine to have new records each year for the most days an area has seen 100-degree days since data started being collected,” Alex Beene, a financial literacy instructor for the University of Tennessee at Martin, told Newsweek.
“It only makes sense this latest round of rebates would target some of the lowest income taxpayers in the state that are more than likely unable to handle the rising costs associated with home maintenance, particularly when it comes to improving cooling systems to make temperatures more manageable in living areas.”
President Joe Biden speaks at the White House on September 3. Biden passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which made home energy efficiency rebates available to the states.
Alex Wong/Getty Images
The new heat pumps are also likely to prevent Arizona households from experiencing A/C outages during future summers, saving them more money in the long term on energy bills.
Because summer temperatures in Arizona routinely reach between 90 and 120 degrees Fahrenheit, preventing outages has more at stake than mere financial costs, Beene said.
“Not only will this program provide some financial relief to those families, but ultimately given the extreme heat situation the state is currently facing, it could ultimately save lives,” Beene said.
The heat pump rebates are only the first step of Efficiency Arizona’s plan to take advantage of the Inflation Reduction Act money. In the next phase, residents will be able to get several other energy efficiency rebates.
So far, the full rebates are only available for Arizonans who make below 80 percent of the area median income, while those between 80 and 150 percent of the area median income can earn 50 percent of the costs for their heat pump upgrade.
The money from the Inflation Reduction Act will be available to the state until 2031, and the state expects more than 23,000 households will be affected by the rebates. In all, that would lower the average energy costs by over $763 each year.
“They must be spent on energy-related initiatives,” Thompson said. “If they are not used for this purpose, the government may require the funds to be returned.”
