The Brief

If you’re a California homeowner and you’ve been feeling chilly this winter, there are plenty of reasons to go get a heat pump.

An all-electric, energy-efficient alternative to gas-burning furnaces, heat pumps are widely seen as the climate-friendly home heater of choice.

They can do double-duty as both home heaters and AC-units and are pretty good at maintaining a constant temperature inside a home without the blast-then-cool-off cycle typical of a furnace.

What about a guaranteed lower monthly utility bill? Not in California.

Call it California’s heat pump conundrum.

On the one hand, California has hyperambitious goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to curb the worst effects of a changing climate. Most experts see the electrification of buildings — swapping furnaces, water heaters, stoves and ovens that run on burning fossil fuel with appliances plugged into California’s increasingly green electrical grid — as a necessary step toward meeting those goals.

California has built one of the most aggressive heat pump strategies in the country. The state aims to install six million heat pumps in homes by 2030. Lawmakers are also moving this year to boost heat pump adoption – proposing to streamline permitting, and make it easier to electrify homes.

On the other hand, California’s residential electricity prices are among the highest in the country — expensive even compared to its also pricey natural gas. That makes heat pumps a tough sell to many Californians.

A new Harvard University study maps exactly where that reality bites – and tries to explain why some places are more heat-pump friendly than others.

The public is “overwhelmed with these sorts of plans now for decarbonization: ‘This by 2030,’ ‘this by 2050,’” said Roxana Shafiee, an environmental science policy researcher at Harvard University. “But then you scratch the surface a bit more and you look at things like electricity prices.”

Reaching those goals amid such high prices is a tough circle to square, said Shafiee.

By looking at residential energy costs, usage and winter temperatures in every county in the United States, Shafiee and Harvard environmental science professor Daniel Schrag found in a recent paper that typical households living across the American South and the Pacific Northwest would likely see lower utility bills by making the switch to a heat pump.

Average homes in northern midwestern states, in contrast, would see their bills increase. That’s partly because heat pumps work by extracting heat from outdoor air, compressing it, and piping it indoors, a thermal magic trick that’s harder to perform in places with subzero winters. It’s also thanks to the region’s relatively cheap gas.

Then there’s California: A surprisingly mixed bag.

Though the state’s temperate coast is ideal for heat pump adoption, high residential electricity prices can make swapping a gas furnace for a heat pump a pricey proposition. That’s especially true in counties where homes tend to be larger, winters are colder or electricity is costly. .

Quentin Gee, a manager at the California Energy Commission, said the advantage of heat pumps comes down to thermodynamics. Unlike a gas furnace, which burns fuel to create heat, a heat pump compresses and expands a refrigerant, like a refrigerator in reverse. That moves heat from outside into a home — allowing it to deliver several units of heat for every unit of electricity it uses.

Even in PG&E territory, where electricity rates may be some of the highest in the U.S., Gee said that efficiency can allow heat pumps to compete with — and in some cases beat — gas on operating costs, depending on local rates and home characteristics.

In lower-cost municipal utility regions such as Sacramento’s SMUD, he said heat pumps can be a clear financial win.

“Gas prices have also gone up over time as well — so both are tricky when it comes to heat pumps versus, say, a gas furnace,” Gee said.

Between 2001 and 2024, average retail gas prices have gone up by 80% in California, according to federal data. Retail electricity rates, padded out with wildfire prevention costs and state-manded social programs, have increased by twice as much.

Even in parts of California where the average home isn’t likely to save with a heat pump, there are plenty of exceptions. Smaller, well-insulated homes can often stay warm with minimal output from a heat pump.

For some homeowners, solar panels have helped bridge the gap. Doug King, a green building consultant in San Jose, installed his first heat pump in 2021 alongside a new rooftop solar system; those panels more or less covered the monthly cost of running the heat pump. A second unit installed last year has pushed his bills higher. "But that's fine, I don't mind," he said. "I was willing to pay a bit of a premium for using electricity over gas anyway."

Homes that already use old-fashioned electrical baseboard or space heaters are guaranteed to save on monthly costs by switching since that entails swapping an inefficient electrical heating system that uses a ton of energy (“basically like heating your home with a toaster,” said Shafiee) for heat pumps that use up to 60% less.

But for all of California’s reputation as a climate champion, most of its homes don’t rely on electric heat. Nearly two-thirds use natural gas, well above the national average of 51%.

That isn’t surprising, said Lucas Davis, a UC Berkeley energy economist.

Looking at 70 years of home heating data across the country, Davis’ research has found that the best predictor of whether a household uses electricity to stay cozy in the winter is the price of energy.

“To this day, where do we see that electric heating is the most common? Throughout the southeast,” said Davis. “What do we know about the southeast? Cheap electricity.”

The consequences of costly electricity extend well beyond any individual household’s ambitions for a heat pump or its utility bill. Using fossil fuels to heat up water, warm indoor air and cook food inside homes and businesses was responsible for 13% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2022, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Gas-powered cars and trucks used for private use make up another 16%.

Focusing on upfront costs

Heat pumps are a 19th century invention and started popping up regularly in American homes in the 1960s, but you would be forgiven for thinking they’re a new technology.

Spurred on by concerns over climate change and policies meant to address it, heat pumps have outsold gas furnaces each year since 2021, according to the Rocky Mountain Institute, a clean-energy research nonprofit. Demand saw a particularly sharp spike after 2022 thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden-era law that threw rebates and tax credits at homeowners.

Installation costs can reach into the tens of thousands of dollars, which is why most federal and state policies promoting heat pump adoption have focused on defraying them. In California, the push runs through multiple agencies:

• The California Energy Commission tightens building codes that steer new construction toward all-electric homes. 
• The Public Utilities Commission sets rate rules and oversees utility rebate programs. 
• Utilities offer rebates and special rate plans. 
• State and federal dollars have reduced upfront costs, especially for lower-income households.

This year state lawmakers are considering bills to speed up the local permitting process for heat pumps and to require gas utilities to offer homeowners cash to electrify their homes in lieu of replacing an old gas line.

Even as the federal supports subsided with President Trump’s return to the White House, installation costs are “pretty competitively priced with traditional units, especially since in most cases, you are installing two appliances for the price of one,” said Madison Vander Klay, a California policy advocate for the Building Decarbonization Coalition, a national nonprofit which represents appliance manufacturers and utilities.

That may not be the case for all homeowners.

Many homes need new wiring, larger breakers or a full panel replacement, and some require upgrades to the service connection to the grid, said Matthew Freedman of The Utility Reform Network. Costs rise quickly when homeowners electrify more than just heating, he said.

Customers often underestimate how complex and costly that electrical work can be, he said, another uncertainty on top of the potential for long-term rate savings.

Installation costs aside, month-to-month electricity costs remain an obstacle.

Last year, the Legislative Analyst’s Office released a report warning that California’s residential electricity rates are among the highest in the country — nearly double the national average — and rising much faster than inflation.

The report, authored by LAO analyst Helen Kerstein, cautioned that those high rates could undermine the state’s climate strategy by discouraging households from switching to electric cars and appliances like heat pumps from gas-powered ones.

“If I'm a consumer, I'm going to be thinking about — not just, ‘is this good for the environment?’ That's certainly one consideration, but also, ‘is this something I can afford?” Kerstein said. “Unless folks are saving money on the operating cost, it often doesn't pencil out.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Dan Shimell, an attorney and a new face in local politics, is Santa Ana’s next mayor after a shocking win against incumbent Valerie Amezcua. His win has become one of the most surprising upsets in Orange County’s general election and marks a shift for a city that previously elected its first Latina mayor.

Amezcua congratulated Shimell on social media late Monday night after the last round of election results nearly doubled Shimell’s lead. As of Tuesday night, Shimell held a 5-point lead over Amezcua. Amezcua did not respond to LAist’s requests for comment.

“It has been the honor of my life to serve the people of Santa Ana,” Amezcua said in a post. “Together, we have accomplished great things. We invested in our neighborhoods, expanded opportunity for families, and strengthened the services that make Santa Ana home. Our work was never about one person. It was about all of us moving this community forward.”

Aside from Shimell, progressives Sandra de Anda and Isuri S. Ramos are also projected to win City Council seats, deepening the Santa Ana City Council’s progressive bench.

A flashpoint in Amezcua’s re-election campaign was during the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids that rattled much of Southern California, including Santa Ana, Orange County’s only sanctuary city. The raids sparked protests that drew a heavy law enforcement response from Santa Ana police, including rubber bullets and tear gas.

In Amezcua’s first public response, she accused protesters of inciting chaos and violence. She later walked back her comments in a city statement, saying most protesters were demonstrating peacefully and that she did not support the raids.

Shimell told LAist he thinks Santa Ana voters, especially young and first-time voters, went to the polls to vote for those who can't.

“Those who have been or might in the future be impacted by immigration policy and enforcement,” Shimell added. “Taking a bold stance on immigration and police accountability seemed to resonate with voters I spoke with, and stood in stark contrast to the [police]-backed candidates who remained largely silent on those issues.”

What does this say about Santa Ana politics? 

Orange County Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento served as mayor of the city from 2020 to 2022, and his current district includes Santa Ana. Sarmiento told LAist that the results were surprising but reflected the change voters want to see in their elected officials.

“I think the underlying message is that money and establishment conventional politics no longer is the formula to success in a campaign in the city,” Sarmiento said. “It's really the influence of people and voters over money. That's really the theme here.”

Santa Ana City Councilmember Thai Viet Phan told LAist that the race results were somewhat surprising — but spoke to a larger trend.

“[In] the election results throughout the country … you saw a very leftward shift, with not just candidates but also just how voters voted,” Phan said. “I think that was reflected here in Santa Ana on the council.”

Amezcua outspent Shimell — by a lot

Shimell raised about $28,500 in his campaign for mayor. Amezcua raised more than $75,000 and received more than $200,000 in outside support — more than half of that came from the Santa Ana Police Officers Association.

Mike Moodian, a public policy professor at Chapman University, told LAist that in many ways, the races capture the zeitgeist of Santa Ana.

“Here we saw that there was a police union-backed group, and there was a resistance to that,” Moodian said. “People might have seen the incumbent mayor as part of a police union-backed establishment."

He explained that voters may have looked at Shimell as a fresh face who can represent more people and that the city is experiencing a deeper progressive shift.

“I find the residents of Santa Ana tend to be much more involved and engaged in local politics than most other cities in Orange County. So you also have a well-informed, engaged citizenry that showed up, and the voices were heard in Santa Ana,” Moodian said.

Moodian said Amezcua may have lost support from some voters because they were unsatisfied with her response to immigration enforcement.

What’s next?

Ballots are still being counted. The OC Registrar of Voters posts updates every day, except Sundays, at 5 p.m. Election results will be certified by Dec. 3. You can find updates on key measures and other races here.

For seven years, Nazmul Chaudhry has been trying to get the city of Los Angeles to fix a broken sidewalk in front of his store.

Chaudhry owns Deshi Food, a restaurant and grocery store in Little Bangladesh. Before I could even begin our interview, he led me to the front of his store to show me the sidewalk that pedestrians sidestep and electric scooter riders slow down around.

He said he’s tried to get the attention of city officials, but nothing has been done.

The broken sidewalk in front of Nazmul Chaudhry's shop in Little Bangladesh.

(

Yusra Farzan

/

LAist

)

He’s hoping that will soon change. He said then-candidate Nithya Raman spent time in the historic enclave just north of Koreatown this fall, talking with community members about their problems. For the first time since he moved to the United States in 1989, Chaudhry is excited about a mayoral election.

“Everybody's happy because we've never seen anyone [come] like that directly to us,” Chaudhry said.

Mayor-elect Raman is of Indian descent and an immigrant. When she takes office, she will be the first South Asian mayor of Los Angeles. Chaudhry is proud of that distinction. But what means more to him is that Raman spent time walking the streets of Little Bangladesh, visiting businesses and speaking to community members about their concerns. Chaudhry said that, because of that, he asked all his customers and family members to vote for Raman. At dinner parties, Chaudhry said, Bengalis would share how they were excited to vote for Raman in this election.

Nazmul Chaudhry and one of his customers, Mohamed Hassen. They both voted for Nithya Raman for mayor.

In the Little Bangladesh area, vote returns to date show Raman with a 2-to-1 margin over Mayor Karen Bass.

 "Hopefully she's gonna take care of the city," Chaudhry said.

His business has been hit hard after federal immigration raids ramped up in Southern California. People are afraid to leave their homes for fear of being taken by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And for those who do come to his store, he said, they are met with increased prices because of tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump's administration on imported goods.

Nazmul Chaudry offers a lunch buffet at his restaurant but he has seen a drop in foot traffic after ICE raids ramped up.

(

Yusra Farzan

/

LAist

)

"Everybody's suffering actually these days," Chaudhry said. “If you see, Nov. 3 is a huge change because people [are] fed up."

Chaudhry also said city services don’t do a good job keeping the streets clean. So he takes it upon himself to pick up trash in front of his shop.

A few weeks before Election Day, Raman posted a social media video from Little Bangladesh addressing the trash along the street.

His relatives in New York told Chaudhry that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, also of Indian descent, has “changed the whole city.” He’s hoping for some of that change in Los Angeles when Raman takes office in December.

Shift away from identity politics

While Raman’s Indian background was a feature of her campaign, it was “not the central thesis,” said Sara Sadhwani,  an associate professor of politics at Pomona College and a senior researcher with AAPI Data.

In 2020, when Kamala Harris, also of Indian descent, was running for vice president, Sadhwani said, she conducted research on Indian Americans who wanted to see more representation in politics. In 2024, some of them turned away from Harris.

“When the economy is bad, identity slips away as the top issue on someone's mind,” she said.

Identity politics, Sadhwani said, was important in 2008 when the nation elected the first Black president, Barack Obama.

Los Angeles mayor-elect Nithya Raman poses for a photograph with family members after casting her vote on Election Day during the midterm elections at the Silverlake Community Church.

(

Frederic J. Brown

/

AFP via Getty Images

)

“ We're ushering in a new political generation of millennials and Gen Z; diversity is just expected at this point amongst a vast majority of Americans,” she said, highlighting how at the last census more people identified as multiracial.

Nationally too, Sadhwani said, thec ountry is seeing a shift. South Asians have gone from “model minority” to “governing minority.”

”The old script was that for Indian Americans, for South Asians, that being that quiet professional is what success meant,” she said. “When we look at Raman and also Mamdani, they're fighting for executive power in very visible, very messy city politics, and they won not by following the rules, but they won by challenging the status quo.”

South Asians as a political force

That idea resonates with Faizah Malik, managing attorney for housing justice at Public Counsel and a former L.A. City Council candidate.

“When we were growing up, our parents said, ‘Just keep your head down, go to school, get educated, make a nice life for your family, and that's it,’” she said. “Politics was not really part of the conversation, but I think what we're seeing is that we can run for office, we can win by being our full selves.”

This is an exciting time, she said, for “South Asian political empowerment,” with Raman set to join Mamdani in leading the country’s two largest cities.

Malik said that, as a housing advocate, she cares about Raman’s fight “to build more housing around the city that people can afford, her fight to keep renters in their homes, to prevent homelessness, her fight to try and really solve our homelessness crisis but also be efficient with our public dollars.”

Nikita Chaudhry, an actor and political organizer, wants to see Raman revitalize L.A.’s film industry, “to call the city the home of Hollywood again.”

“Having that kind of representation and knowing that it exists is really exciting because I think and hope it will activate South Asian Americans of all ages to get more involved in their communities,” Chaudhry said.

Raman's and Mamdani’s victories were years in the making, Chaudhry said: from organizing in their communities to holding other elected positions to engaging voters who are otherwise ignored by elected officials. And she hopes that it will inspire other South Asians to become more involved in their communities.

“If you're feeling activated, if you're feeling excited, that's great," she said. "Take that energy and the time and the skills and the specificity of what fires you up towards your local organization, towards your neighborhood, towards your community.”

As the race to represent L.A.’s Council District 9 remains too close to call, candidate Estuardo Mazariegos’ campaign has accused the campaign of Jose Ugarte, the front-runner, of potential ballot tampering.

The Mazariegos campaign made the accusations Monday, saying it had filed a complaint with the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk. In a press release, the campaign alleged that representatives for the Ugarte campaign had collected voters’ ballots to drop off without signing the appropriate line identifying the individual who returned the ballot.

In one case, Mazariegos’ team accused Ugarte campaigners of filling out a ballot on a voter’s behalf without her knowledge of who she was voting for.

“Taking people’s ballots, filling them out, and not following legal voter assistance guidelines in a district that has faced so much disenfranchisement is disgusting,” Mazariegos said in a statement.

Mike Sanchez, a spokesperson for the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, said his office had forwarded the news release to the district attorney for review. He also pointed to the California Elections Code, which says that a “ballot shall not be disqualified solely because the person authorized to return it did not provide on the identification envelope their name or signature.”

Under California law, a voter can authorize another person to return their mail-in ballot — an approach also called ballot harvesting.

Justin Levitt, a  professor of constitutional law at Loyola Marymount University, told AirTalk Tuesday that there is no legal limit on the number of ballots an individual can turn in on others’ behalf, so long as they aren’t being compensated per ballot returned.

“Even if there were some sort of administrative wrongdoing, as long as there's no indication of fraud with the ballot itself, those ballots will all be counted,” he said.

Levitt said, however, that signing a ballot and then handing it to someone else to fill out would be illegal.

“ To the extent that there are allegations now that the DA may investigate, I suspect that's what they'll be focusing on,” Levitt continued.

The Mazariegos campaign also sent a collection of photos to the press, including one of a campaigner, USC student Amir King, returning a stack of ballots at a ballot drop box.

The Mazariegos campaign alleged that representatives for the Ugarte campaign had collected voters’ ballots to drop off without signing the appropriate line identifying the individual who returned the ballot.

(

Courtesy of Estuardo Mazariegos' Campaign

)

Ugarte’s campaign responded to the accusations by pointing to a post by King on Instagram in which he accused the Mazariegos campaign of bullying him and making false claims about him.

“Why is he attacking me? For participating in our democracy, as is my right under California state law and for helping others participate in democracy, as is their right under California state law,” King said in the post.

As of Tuesday morning, just under 300 ballots separate Ugarte and Mazariegos, with 44,000 ballots left to count in L.A. County. It’s not clear how many ballots in Council District 9 are left to count.