Notice of Intent and Request for Information Regarding Establishment of a Program to Use Defense Production Act to Support Electric Heat Pump Manufacturing and Deployment

Heat pumps have the potential to significantly accelerate decarbonization of the industrial sector through the electrification of process heating and cooling. While heat pump technologies for residential and commercial uses have received some attention, the potential use of heat pumps in industry—and the associated energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) savings—is underappreciated and underexplored. Industrial process heat accounts for as much as 51% of on-site industrial energy use. Across all manufacturing, process heating is responsible for almost 300 million metric tons of onsite CO2e emissions. Electricity currently provides less than 5% of that heat. ACEEE research has found that industrial IHPs can reduce the energy use associated with industrial process heat by up to 518 TBtus and enable CO2e savings of between 30-43 million tons per year, which is equivalent to the emissions from 6.5–9.2 million gasoline-powered passenger vehicles driven for one year.¹