Heat Pumps Can Struggle in Coldest Winter, But New Models at CES Show Promise

Bosch claims that its new IDS Ultra heat pump can work effectively even at temperatures as low as 5 degrees Fahrenheit. Jon Reed/CNET

All-electric, energy efficient heat pumps are great because they can both heat and cool homes, replacing your home’s furnace and air conditioner in one go. They can also save serious money. Unfortunately, there’s one weak spot that’s hurting widespread adoption — they don’t work as well as gas furnaces at very low temperatures.

However, newer versions are part of an effort to solve that problem and catapult heat pumps forward to become the future of both heating and air conditioning. Case in point: a model just unveiled by Bosch at CES 2024 (where we’ve seen other great energy tech and exciting developments across the board).

Heat pumps are seen as a key tool in America’s electrification and decarbonization. They can replace furnaces, which largely run on fossil fuels like natural gas, with an electric appliance. If that electricity is coming from a clean, renewable source like solar or wind, it cuts fossil fuels largely out of the energy equation.

Bosch’s new heat pump, the IDS Ultra, is the company’s first air-to-air heat pump designed specifically for colder climates. The model, which Bosch says can maintain a home’s temperature down to 5 degrees Fahrenheit and keep working down to minus-13 degrees, is one of several that has passed the first stage of the Department of Energy’s Residential Cold Climate Heat Pump Challenge. Others include products from Daikin, Midea, Johnson Controls, Lennox International, Carrier, Trane and Rheem.

“From a cold climate perspective, it’s really about the technology advancement,” said Ashley Armstrong, senior advisor in DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and program manager to the Office of State and Community Energy Programs.

Here’s why your next heating system might be all-electric, even if you get snow and frost.

Why cold-climate heat pumps matter

There are generally two types of heat pumps: air-source and geothermal heat pumps, but they both use similar principles to operate. To heat, they capture thermal energy from a source outside of your home (the air or the ground) and transfer it to your home using a pumped refrigerant. To cool your home, they do the same thing, just in reverse.

“In very simple terms, a heat pump is transferring heat from one side to the other,” David Lopes, director of marketing and business strategy at the Home Comfort Group for North America for Bosch, told CNET. “In the summertime it’s transferring heat from the inside to the outside. In the wintertime it’s the opposite.”

Air source heat pumps even work when it’s cold — there’s still thermal energy outside, just less of it, despite how it may feel. But they don’t work as well.

That’s why it’s important, both for the homeowners in cold climates and for the US energy transition generally, for heat pump technology to get better at operating below freezing.

Astounding CES 2024 Tech Concepts We Can Hardly Wait For

CES 2024 is a candy-colored box of goodies. While you can certainly buy some of the wares at the show, some of the most intriguing tech concepts trumpeted at CES are visions of the future we wish were already real. (Others were straight-up wacky.) Here’s what’s sparking our imagination.

Remember KITT, the talking car from Knight Rider? It’s getting closer to reality thanks to Dee, a talking, color-changing BMW concept car displayed at CES. It will listen and respond to commands from curbside, as well as remotely via a smartphone app. Plus, the concept’s exterior skin is covered with new full-color E Ink technology that can instantly shift between up to 32 colors, allowing you to generate patterns and multicolor schemes on the fly to customize your ride.

Airport security lines are never fun, and they can be so long they result in travelers missing their flights. Thankfully, the Transportation Security Administration is testing a new self-service system that could let you complete the screening process on your own. The self-service screening pods are for TSA PreCheck passengers to use as individual screening consoles. When a passenger steps inside the screening pod, they show their ID and the machine will begin scanning them and their bags. Each station includes a video monitor with step-by-step instructions. The prototype that’s being shown at CES this week is the Micro-X self-screening system.

Jackery displayed two concept items — one more practical than the other. The company showed off a “Mars rover” with solar panels. The Solar Generator Mars Bot is like a portable power station on wheels with solar panels sliding out of the sides to capture more sunlight, somewhat like NASA’s Opportunity Rover, with power outlets. And a more practical item on display was the company’s rooftop camper tent. Solar panels mounted inside the hardshell roof of the pop-up tent and extending wings of panels can provide power through one of the company’s power stations, running plenty of camping equipment for long journeys.

Kia debuted three concept vehicles at CES 2024: the PV1, PV5 and PV7, the automaker’s new Platform Beyond Vehicle family. They are electric vans that can be customized to move products, serve as work or living spaces, be converted to modular pop-up stores, and operate with or without a driver behind the wheel. Think Legos for vehicles — they can be reconfigured almost at will.

The Hyundai Mobion concept vehicle moves unlike any other vehicle you’ve probably seen. The newly developed eCorner steering technology uses advances in robotics technology to allow the vehicle to move laterally, rotationally, and do all sorts of crazy things. The wheels can be moved independently, but also in multiple different configurations. The car can even crab walk, and it can do rear-wheel steering on a level that we’ve almost never seen before. Hyundai hopes to begin shopping the tech around in 2025 or so.

Nanosys has created a prototype 12.3-inch nanoLED screen that could be thinner, brighter and more efficient than OLED. What’s nanoLED, you ask? It’s a technology based on electroluminescent, aka “direct-view” quantum dots, and its screens boast improved picture quality, energy savings and manufacturing efficiency. While the screens can’t quite be made in TV size yet, the new prototypes are big enough for tablets, small laptops and automotive uses.

The electric air taxi flies closer to reality with the CES debut of the Supernal S-A2. Hyundai’s advanced air mobility wing Supernal displayed its new, second-generation S-A2, an electric vertical takeoff and landing, or eVTOL, air taxi. It’ll take to the air as early as 2028, the company said.

A Finnish startup created some impressive software, called Doublepoint, that turns your smartwatch running Android’s WatchOS into a kind of remote control you can wear on your wrist.It makes your watch a general-purpose controller for any device via a Bluetooth connection. You may be able to dim your lights, scroll Netflix or do any number of other things.

Hisense doesn’t make cars, but the company is demonstrating its laser TV in-car technology at CES. CNET’s David Katzmaier calls it “basically a drive-in movie theater built into your car.” There’s a laser projector right on the front bumper — you could project a movie straight from your car onto a flat surface, like your garage door. Inside the car, you can turn the windshield into an information hub, allowing drivers to simultaneously observe virtual images and the real environment.

Transparent OLED and even LCD-based screens have been around for a while, but Samsung says its micro-LED display technology produces brighter, clearer images and is more transparent than the going tech. That means you should be able to see through it more easily to objects on the other side. One intriguing use: One day, you could be in a luxury box at an athletic event or concert looking through this transparent micro-LED glass. Scores, replays and highlights could appear on the “windows” and augment the experience of the game without obscuring it. (You’re still on your own for getting those luxury box tickets, however.)

Samsung’s Flex In & Out Flip concept is like a Galaxy Z Flip you can fold in both directions. Unlike the Galaxy Z Flip 5 and other flip phones you can buy today, it folds completely backward so that you use the phone’s 6.7-inch screen even when the device is shut.

If you’ve ever wanted to sync up The Wizard of Oz with Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, the LG DukeBox might be just the device for you. It’s a 360-degree speaker with a transparent OLED panel at the front to show off the tube amplifier inside. LG says the screen can be used to watch movies or “create a cozy fireplace ambiance where the vacuum tube is visible amidst the flickering flames.”

LG has a car? It’s just a concept for now, but this futuristic beauty features completely autonomous driving, seats that turn completely around, and of course, plenty of screens. It also works with LG’s smart home system, and there’s a video game system and concierge station that holds a wine bottle. AR displays give you information on businesses you’re passing as the car drives you around.

Imagine Samsung’s flexible rollable OLED display technology inside your car. These screens offer small, unobtrusive displays when you’re driving, but when you need to charge your electric vehicle, you can fold out the screen to a larger size for movie watching or playing games. It folds right back up to the size of a chunky highlighter when you’re done.

Think you know what solar panels look like? Think again. This crystal isn’t just an art object but a solar panel capable of turning sunlight energy into power. Extra points for not looking like a giant, unsightly black box.

Razer showed off its new Sensa HD Haptics technology with a concept for a gaming chair cushion. Project Esther, an add-on cushion unveiled at CES, is the first demonstration that Razer has offered of the new technology, which comes via its acquisition of Interhaptics in 2022. It straps on to a chair and creates sensations to let you feel as if you’re really experiencing the game you’re playing.

Panasonic has a plan to one day turn walls and windows into solar energy. The new solar technology, perovskite, uses different materials than traditional silicon solar panels. The fact that the materials are printed onto walls and windows means Panasonic can manufacture components at much lower temperatures — which saves energy — and the solar cells themselves have the potential to one day capture as much energy as traditional solar panels, if not more.

Honda gave CES attendees their first peek at its next generation of battery electric cars, the Honda 0 (pronounced “zero”) series, expected to launch in the US in 2026. Shown here is the sharply styled 0 Series Saloon, the flagship model.It will be joined by the more upright and van-shaped Honda 0 Space-Hub, featuring a transparent canopy and center-facing bench seats.

A wide range of changes are needed to improve energy efficiency and reduce fossil fuel emissions all across the country, Armstrong said. “These cold-climate heat pumps, especially those that are next generation that can provide more heat in heat pump mode when temperatures get even colder, are just part of the suite of solutions that are needed to reduce energy consumption and also reduce onsite carbon emissions.”

Making a heat pump work in the cold

The problem with heat pumps in cold weather is the same as what anyone who’s been through a northern winter will tell you about roads: Ice makes everything stop.

The heat pump is cycling refrigerant through coils outside of your home, trying to pick up what thermal energy is available in the air. When it gets too cold, water in the air starts to condense on the coils and then freeze around them, blocking the refrigerant from being able to absorb that energy.

Heat pumps are equipped with defrosting technology to keep this from happening, but that usually means the pump’s energy is being spent trying to warm those coils up rather than warming up your house. At a certain point, if it’s too cold, it becomes a losing battle.

“In very cold weather situations it just ends up doing that the whole time and it never heats up the inside,” Lopes said.

If the temperature drops below minus-15 degrees, a backup electric heater in the Bosch IDS Ultra will kick on and still provide some heat, Lopes said.

The Bosch IDS Ultra heat pump. Bosch

Will a heat pump save you money?

Bosch conducted a survey of homeowners that bears out the current problem with heat pumps: Ownership rates in colder places like New England and the Upper Midwest were six to seven times lower than in warmer places, like the Southeast.

Even if you have a heat pump in a cold-climate area, you might also have a gas-powered furnace or other fossil fuel heating system for those extra-cold days and months. Not only is that burning fossil fuels, but it’s keeping you connected to the gas lines, adding to your monthly bills.

Switching to a heat pump will certainly change your home energy situation, but whether it actually saves you money depends on a lot of variables, like your current equipment, the weather where you live and your energy use.

“It’s not that you put this in to make it more or less efficient than a gas furnace. The gas furnace burns fuel and releases emissions, and this one uses electricity,” Lopes said. “If you don’t have a unit capable of efficiently using electricity in the wintertime, even if you have green electricity you won’t be able to use it reliably for heating in the wintertime.”

How you heat and cool your home is somewhat less important than how well insulated it is. “These efficient heat pumps, especially when paired with efficiency measures from households like more efficient windows, better insulating walls, better insulating attics, will help reduce energy bills as well as reducing carbon emissions from your home,” Armstrong said.

A few companies were showing off heat pumps at CES, including this model from Mitsubishi. Jon Reed/CNET

An extra incentive to get a heat pump

Heat pumps aren’t cheap. Basic ductless models from Bosch can run you a few thousand dollars, and that doesn’t include installation. The IDS Ultra connects to your existing ductwork, and it’ll cost a bit more than other air-source systems when it comes to market, likely in late 2024, Lopes said.

But a big part of the cost of a heat pump — likely the majority of the cost — is in the installation. And that doesn’t change. This model installs just like any other air-source model.

There is some help available with that: Federal tax credits and rebates can offset some of that cost.

The federal Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit offers a tax credit of 30% of the cost of an air-source heat pump, up to $2,000. (Geothermal heat pumps are covered under the Residential Clean Energy Credit, which is also 30% but with no cap.)

There are also rebates available, if your income is below a certain level, that will cover up to 100% of the cost of a heat pump.

Bosch’s cold-climate heat pump is just one bit of home energy tech we’ve seen at CES. Check out some of this other new stuff, like a home battery that can go on the road and a giant steel cube that can harvest water from the air.