In Bar Harbor we stayed in a Inn outside of town, largely because it had both an indoor and outdoor pool and my daughter has gotten into swimming this year. That seemed to weather proof us for some activities.

The room had a pretty standard through wall AC unit, which was loud (clearly not going to last much longer), but is what we had. After the first night I really thought to myself, this would be the perfect use for mini splits. Individual controls per unit, super quiet, and it could also do heat in the colder months.

Already ahead of me

When we walked around downtown later in the day, we found another Inn was totally on it.

Look at all those heat pumps in this high end Inn. I wished for their quiet comfort at night. As we walked further along we saw how truly all in they had gone.

Every room in this Inn had their own mini split. These looked to be the Mitsubishi units that work down to -15F, so these are enough to provide the heat for those rooms as well in the winter months.

Main Heat Pump Policy

In 2019 Maine set a target of installing 100,000 by 2025. Just a week before we left on our trip it was announced that Maine had just passed 104,000, so upped the target to 175,000 by 2027.

Maine, like upstate New York, relies on Fuel Oil to heat a lot of homes. Fuel oil has the advantage of being easy to move in trucks (it's a liquid) and energy dense. It has the disadvantage of being Diesel fuel, so being terrible on carbon pollution, particulate pollution, and cost. Between Covid bounce back, and the war in Ukraine, fuel oil prices jumped from $2/gallon to $5/gallon over the course of 2 years. So there were always huge climate reasons to get off fuel oil, but the economics kicked into high gear with an equivalent of a $200 / ton carbon price being applied over the last couple of years.

The fossil fuel industry would have you believe that heat pumps don't work in the cold. This myth is so pervasive I've had to knock it down myself on social media. The problem is saying heat pumps don't work in the cold because 1980s heat pumps in the south didn't, is like saying phones don't have working internet. That was true 20 years ago. But a lot has changed.

Heat Pumps Everywhere

As we drove out of Bar Harbor we noticed heat pumps on the outside of buildings everywhere, and Heat Pump installer businesses as we passed.

Heat pumps are my new indicator of progress on the climate crisis. Every single one directly replaces fossil fuels, both by being more efficient than in window AC, and actually providing heat. Maine's huge embrace of this technology is such a big win for the climate, and warms my heart to see it.