Finally, a heat-pump water heater that plugs into a standard outlet

Published by Canary Media: Last month’s launch of Rheem’s ProTerra 120-volt heat pump water heater might not seem like a big step forward in the fight against climate change. In terms of home electrification accessories, it’s not as sexy as a rooftop solar array, Tesla Powerwall battery or Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck. But to home electrification policy wonks, an efficient electric water heater that can plug into a standard wall socket is a major advance in getting U.S. households off fossil fuels.

Back in October 2018, New Buildings Institute and the Building Decarbonization Coalition gathered state policymakers, utilities and representatives of major U.S. water heater manufacturers at a conference in San Francisco to start tackling a problem that was impeding California’s building decarbonization goals: More than nine in 10 of the 14.5 million water heaters in California homes burn fossil gas.