The New England Heat Pump Accelerator (Accelerator) is a multistate initiative to rapidly increase the adoption of heat pump technology in single-family and multifamily residential buildings in the New England region. Maine is one of five states participating in the Accelerator. The other states are Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire.
In Maine, the Accelerator’s primary function will be to fund incentives for heat pump water heaters sold at participating distributors and retail stores and installed in Maine homes. Maine’s portion of the Accelerator’s budget is approximately $43 million dollars.
Maine will also use Accelerator funds to conduct a range of innovative pilot projects.
The first category of pilot projects will be administered by Efficiency Maine to overcome specific technical, design, and economic barriers to whole-home heat pump adoption.
The second category of pilot projects is focused on communities. This category of pilots seeks to encourage community-level pilot projects focusing on providing consumer information, education and outreach campaigns, coordination, and/or workforce training to address barriers to heat pumps that are experienced by specific classes or communities of customers, such as rural, low-income, and renting residents. These projects may last one or multiple years, up until the conclusion of the grant period in 2029.
The first solicitation for projects is expected in late spring 2026. Maine will be sharing more information about the application process as it becomes available. If you’d like to receive email notifications about these grant opportunities, please complete the form below.
Maine released a Request for Information (RFI) in October 2025 to collect stakeholder input on project priorities, technology solutions, and other ideas for how to deploy the pilot funds in Maine.
Heating up water in a home — for a hot shower, to clean the dishes or run the laundry — is responsible for about 18% of a typical home’s energy use. To save money and reduce pollution, homeowners can switch from a conventional water heater to one that uses heat pump technology. As the Efficiency Maine Water Heating Cost Calculator shows, heat pump water heaters are extremely energy efficient, consuming less than half as much electricity as a standard electric resistance water heater. It is especially important for homeowners to consider the option of switching to a heat pump water heater when their old water heater nears the end of its useful life (or when it stops working entirely). To make this switch attractive to homeowners, it needs to be affordable, quick, and easy. Using the Accelerator funds to provide instant discounts at participating distributors and retail stores is a proven strategy to meet these criteria in Maine.
Maine forecasts that it will incentivize more than 30,000 heat pump water heaters with this initiative.
Efficiency Maine Trust is seeking a qualified contractor or team of contractors to implement a suite of initiatives in Maine to demonstrate new or emerging applications of heat pump technology. In particular, the Trust seeks to use field testing to analyze, optimize, demonstrate and report out the performance and economics of technical solutions (e.g., models of heat pump equipment, engineering designs, installation techniques) for whole-home heating in cold climates.
This project will serve as the core component of Maine’s State-Level Heat Pump Innovation Pilot funded through the New England Heat Pump Accelerator.
For more information, visit efficiencymaine.com/opportunities/rfp-em-009-2026.
The New England Heat Pump Accelerator is now accepting applications from Maine stakeholders and community organizations for Community Grants. These grants provide organizations with $100,000 to $500,000 to test new ways to overcome local barriers to heat pump adoption in low- and moderate-income communities.
The Community Grants Request for Applications (RFA) launched on July 6 and will close on August 14, 2026.
For more information, visit nehpa.org/grants-pilots/community-grants/apply.
