A Regional Champion of Ductless Heat Pumps for 14 Years
Ductless (also called “mini-split”) heat pumps have quietly reshaped how Northwest homes get heated and cooled. For more than a decade the Northwest Ductless Heat Pump Project (NW DHP Project or NWDHPP) was the region’s coordinated effort, led by the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (NEEA) and supported by local utilities and program partners, to jump-start that market. The project combined field pilots, research, contractor training, consumer outreach, and utility rebate program support to move ductless heat pumps from niche technology into mainstream practice across the Pacific Northwest.
Why This Initiative Mattered for Lane County, Oregon
Lane County’s housing stock includes a large number of older homes, manufactured homes, and buildings without ductwork. These are exactly the places where ductless heat pumps shine. The project’s work helped create contractor networks, consumer awareness, and utility program templates that made it practical for Lane County homeowners to choose heat pumps instead of costly furnace replacements or patchwork electric resistance heat. That meant lower bills, warmer rooms, and, for many households, access to cooling for the first time, all with much higher efficiency than the fossil-fuel options they replaced. Local utilities and co-ops in and around Lane County now run rebate and loan programs that use the standards, contractor lists, and installation practices that grew out of the NW effort.
A Huge Benefit for Local HVAC Contractors
The NW project did more than advertise heat pumps to homeowners. It equipped the trade. Key contractor supports included:
Technical guidance and best practices such as sizing, siting, refrigerant handling, metering and commissioning, which reduced poor installs and performance complaints.
Training and certification pathways so local HVAC businesses could confidently sell and install DHP systems and qualify for utility programs.
Market development and demand building through outreach and coordinated rebates that meant more customer leads, predictable work, and easier inventory decisions for suppliers and contractors.
For many small contractors in Lane County this combination turned an uncertain, unfamiliar product into a viable revenue stream. Training reduced installation risk, program incentives lowered customer price resistance, and the regional project amplified consumer demand. Industry groups that supported contractors, such as the GoingDuctless and NW Ductless Project communities, also helped contractors share lessons and research aimed at maximizing savings and performance.
Studying the Outcomes
NEEA ran multiple Market Progress Evaluation Reports (MPERs) and long-term monitoring studies that tracked installations, savings, consumer acceptance, and contractor experiences. Over successive evaluations they documented a steady increase in market adoption, improved installer practices, and robust energy-saving performance in the Pacific Northwest climate. These findings supported NEEA’s approach: intervene to accelerate the market, then step back once the market is self-sustaining.
Why the NW DHPP Ended
The NW DHPP was, by definition, never meant to be a long-term program. It was a project which succeeded in its targeted outcomes. It was intentionally phased out, largely because it achieved the transformation it set out to do. NEEA’s initiative life cycle is explicit: after years of active market development and evaluation, the organization transitions mature efforts into long-term monitoring and hands them off to local programs and market channels.
In practice that meant:
Market transformation success. Evidence showed the market could continue to grow without the same level of centralized intervention. NEEA moved DHP tracking into a long-term monitoring phase.
Local programs stepped up. Local utilities, municipal programs, and statewide incentives increasingly carried the torch with rebates, contractor networks, and program administration. For example: EWEB, Lane Electric, and others run their own ductless heat pump programs.
Organizational and funding wrap-up. As with many market transformation initiatives, funding and staffing that supported a centralized project eventually moved to other priorities once the initiative met its goals. The NW Ductless project formally retired operations. Resources and community functions were either transferred or sunset. The GoingDuctless resource community, for example, passed the torch in 2022.
The end was a policy success – a planned phase-out. The job became local and programmatic rather than centralized and grant-driven.
The Impact in Lane County
While, as a community, we miss some of the additional training opportunities that used to be funneled through the NW DHPP, the majority of the work has been continued through local programs. Lane County homeowners still have access to rebates, financing, and approved contractors. Many of those local programs were built on NW project standards. State-level and utility programs continue to evolve, and as recently as 2025 Oregon introduced new heat pump incentives that show continuing support for electrification.
An Enduring Legacy
The NW Ductless Heat Pump Project helped convert a promising technology into an everyday option for Northwest homes. For Lane County that meant more trained HVAC contractors (including Climatize), more customers who knew what mini-splits could do, and local rebate and loan programs that made installations affordable. When the regional project wound down it was not because ductless heat pumps failed, but because they succeeded. Enough of the market, the contractors, and the local programs were in place that the ongoing work could be handled locally and monitored long-term rather than led as an active regional initiative. If you live in Lane County and are considering a ductless upgrade, check your local utility’s contractor list and rebate pages. That is the legacy of the NW DHPP effort, right there as one of the practical outcomes.