Tux Turkel is a former staff writer for the Portland Press Herald who covered energy and utility issues.

Is it possible that heat pumps are part of a global conspiracy? That’s what a commenter implied recently in a Facebook group chat for people who hate Central Maine Power, the state’s largest electric utility and subsidiary of Spanish energy giant Iberdrola.

“‘I love my heat pump!'” he wrote. “Words spoken by the short-sighted and narrow-minded that make me cringe every time I hear them. People don’t understand that Maine’s heat pump program was designed to help Central Spain Power recover the huge portion of Maine’s residential heating market that was lost in the ’80s and ’90s when they increased rates so much that homeowners could no longer afford to use their electric baseboard …”

Wow. So that’s what’s happening.

And as people cranked up the AC this month to cope with our first summer heat wave, two trends are worth noting. First, heat pump sales keep growing in the United States and last year nearly tied conventional air conditioning, according to a recent story in Canary Media. Second, Maine utility regulators recently held hearings for CMP’s latest rate hike request, in a state with some of the country’s highest power rates.

Could it all be connected? Is there a hidden, global web of influence linking Augusta (state government), Bilbao (Spanish headquarters) and maybe even Japan (dominant heat pump maker)?

First, a primer. Heat pumps don’t use fuel to make heat. They extract heat energy present in the ground or outside air (even in winter) and use a refrigerant cycle to transfer it. They’re technically air conditioners, so maybe we should call them cool pumps. In cold weather, though, the cycle can work in reverse. And because heat pumps don’t use electricity to generate heat — unlike an electric resistance baseboard — they’re highly efficient.

As the CMP hater observed, Mainers love their heat pumps. They helped the state beat its goal of 100,000 installations two years ago and reach 143,000 units in 2025. Now the target is 175,000 by 2027.

Put another way, with 570,000 or so households in Maine, heat pumps already are in one of every four homes. Want proof? Conduct a windshield survey. You’ll find them hanging from seaside mansions and next to suburban capes. Even at stereotypical, rural Maine housing — a trailer in the woods with a gutted truck on jack stands and a barking dog — chances are you’ll see a heat pump. And those are just the units you can spot from the road.

Drive by the Blaine House in Augusta, where Maine’s governor lives. It’s heated and cooled by 22 heat pumps, installed way back in 2014, during the tenure of former Gov. Paul LePage. Republicans disdain wind turbines, solar farms and efficiency in general, but heat pumps may be one energy strategy that bridges the partisan gap. (But no, don’t look for heat pumps in President Trump’s planned ballroom, unless they run on clean, beautiful coal.)

Why do Mainers love heat pumps? Because Maine is the most heating-oil dependent state in the country. And when prices shoot up, they get hosed. Maine has been trying to kick its petroleum addiction since the 1974 Middle East oil embargo. Heat pumps are just the latest tool.

A little history.

Crude oil price surges in the late 1970s found desperate Mainers searching for alternatives. Living in a state that’s 90% forested, residents rediscovered home-grown heat and installed a new generation of air-tight wood stoves. They burned an estimated 731,000 cords of firewood in 1980, according to AgEcon Research.

By then, half of all Maine homes used wood for some of their heating needs. But lugging 731,000 cords of wood was tough on the back.

Thankfully, a new technology appeared from Japan, the direct-vent kerosene space heater. By the 1980s, Maine was the country’s largest market for Monitor brand heaters, according to the Portland Press Herald, with 75,000 installed.

These actions solidified a trend in Maine: supplemental heating. Rather than rely 100% on one form of space heat — oil furnaces or electric baseboards — Mainers became adept at energy arbitrage. Like day traders, they studied global energy markets and sought to exploit price differences in real time. Oil prices skyrocketing due to unrest in the Middle East? No worries, just burn more wood. Oil prices easing? Great. Set the thermostat higher and be comfortable.

That supplemental heating mentality endures today, in the age of the heat pump. But today, it’s more complicated. Energy price comparisons, calculated by Efficiency Maine, show why. Heating today with a ductless, air-to-air heat pump (sometimes called a mini-split) would cost $1,884 a year, with electricity at 26 cents/kWh. By comparison, an oil boiler would cost $3,480, if oil is $5.05 a gallon. That’s nearly twice the cost of heat pump warmth.

But hold on. That $5.05 oil price was a peak, after Trump first launched his war with Iran. No one heats with oil in summer, but prices in Greater Portland had fallen last month to below $4 a gallon. At that price, the seasonal cost dropped to $2,756. Last January, a month before the war, the statewide average for heating oil was $3.46, which translates into $2,384 for the seasonal cost.

In mid-July, after a fragile peace plan collapsed, heating oil prices began climbing again.

It’s easy to get lost in the numbers. But the point is that heat pumps, for all their efficiency, are most cost-effective if oil prices stay high and electricity rates stay low. That’s not the trend, however. Electric rates have been rising. CMP’s latest request could make them higher still, if regulators allow it.

Against this backdrop, Efficiency Maine is trying to coax homeowners — by offering rebates worth thousands of dollars — to shut down their fossil fuel burners and warm their entire homes with heat pumps. Maine can’t meet its aggressive climate goals, the thinking goes, if folks keep toggling back and forth between oil boilers and heat pumps as energy prices rise and fall.

This contradicts our energy arbitrage instincts, however. And it feeds the conspiracy narrative. The state gets us hooked on heat pumps, with no alternatives. Regulators keep letting the electric utilities jack up rates, increasing profits. Mitsubishi, Panasonic and the others create a captive market, then raise prices.

And now, the state’s pushing a new con — heat pump water heaters. These appliances use a similar technology to replace electric and gas tank water heaters and boiler-fired water heaters. Efficiency Maine is offering stunning enticements that include $1,150 mail-in rebates. They’re partnering with big home improvement stores to slash the final price of a heat pump water heater to $349. Heck, you can barely heat water over a campfire for that price.

Someone’s making out like a bandit here. But who? Yep, maybe the CMP hater on Facebook is on to something. Or maybe he’s just been out in the hot sun too long.