Research
HVAC demand by state
Where the country’s heating and cooling load sits, and how it has shifted, from federal weather and household data.
Written by HYRE HVAC Research Desk Primary-source research, data analysis and fact checking
The finding
HVAC demand by state is concentrated and moving. Weighting NOAA degree days by households, Texas and Florida carry 35% of the nation’s home cooling load, and five states (New York, California, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio) carry 32% of the heating load.
In the 2016-2025 decade, cooling degree days rose in all 48 states covered and heating degree days fell in all 48, against the 1991-2020 average.
How do you measure HVAC demand by state?
With degree days, multiplied by the number of homes. A heating degree day counts how far a day’s average temperature fell below 65°F; a cooling degree day counts how far it rose above.
Summed over a year, they measure how much heating or cooling a typical building needs. NOAA publishes them for every state, every month, back to 1895.
Degree days alone describe the weather, not the demand. Wyoming is cold but has few homes.
So we multiply each state’s degree days by its households (from EIA’s 2020 home energy survey) and take each state’s share of the national total.
That is a measure of where the heating and cooling load sits, not of energy use or sales.
To see degree days for your own area, use our degree day lookup.
Which states have the most cooling demand?
Texas and Florida, almost equally: 17.3% and 17.3% of the national load. California is third at 7.7%, then Arizona and Georgia. Together the top five hold 51%.
Florida is the extreme. 88% of its degree days are cooling degree days, the highest share of any state. In Maine, Vermont and Montana it is under 5%. Our cooling divide study shows that need and ownership do not always line up.
Which states have the most heating demand?
The big northern states with many homes. New York (8.5%), California (7.1%), Illinois (5.7%), Pennsylvania (5.5%), Ohio (5.1%) lead. California makes the list on households, not cold.
HyreHVAC analysis: heating load is spread much more evenly than cooling load. The top five heating states hold 32%; the top two cooling states alone hold 35%.
Cooling load is far more concentrated in the Sun Belt than heating load is in the North. For which of these states suit heat pumps, see the Heat Pump Readiness Index.
Is HVAC demand shifting from heating to cooling?
Yes, in every state we can measure. Comparing the 2016-2025 average with the 1991-2020 average, cooling degree days rose in all 48 states and heating degree days fell in all 48. For the contiguous US, cooling degree days rose 11.0% and heating degree days fell 6.0%.
The biggest rises in cooling are in places that used to need little of it: Oregon (+34.8%), Washington (+33.5%), Vermont (+28.4%), New Hampshire (+27.0%), Maine (+25.2%). A large percentage rise on a small base still means fewer cooling days than the South.
But central air is uncommon there: RECS 2020 puts it at under 10% of homes in Maine and Vermont, against about two-thirds nationally. The biggest falls in heating are in the South: Florida (-19.2%), Louisiana (-13.3%), Mississippi (-11.9%).
What does the long record show?
A slow, noisy drift. Year to year, degree days swing with the weather: 2025 had 4,062 heating and 1,502 cooling degree days for the contiguous US. The trend only shows over decades, which is why we compare ten-year averages rather than single years.
What is the heating and cooling load in every state?
| State | HDD 2016-2025 | HDD change | CDD 2016-2025 | CDD change | Share of US households | Share of heating load | Share of cooling load |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | 1,624 | -10.7% | 3,092 | +10.1% | 8.37% | 3.35% | 17.31% |
| Florida | 522 | -19.2% | 3,926 | +9.7% | 6.58% | 0.85% | 17.28% |
| California | 2,664 | -5.3% | 1,075 | +15.8% | 10.76% | 7.05% | 7.74% |
| Arizona | 1,807 | -5.9% | 3,267 | +6.7% | 2.18% | 0.97% | 4.77% |
| Georgia | 2,496 | -11.1% | 1,872 | +8.5% | 3.17% | 1.95% | 3.97% |
| North Carolina | 3,081 | -8.3% | 1,591 | +8.1% | 3.28% | 2.48% | 3.49% |
| New York | 5,653 | -5.8% | 723 | +17.0% | 6.14% | 8.54% | 2.97% |
| Louisiana | 1,434 | -13.3% | 2,941 | +9.1% | 1.41% | 0.50% | 2.77% |
| Illinois | 5,802 | -5.0% | 985 | +10.8% | 4.00% | 5.71% | 2.64% |
| Ohio | 5,316 | -6.6% | 905 | +14.2% | 3.87% | 5.06% | 2.34% |
| Pennsylvania | 5,376 | -5.7% | 810 | +14.7% | 4.19% | 5.54% | 2.27% |
| Tennessee | 3,457 | -7.9% | 1,535 | +8.4% | 2.17% | 1.85% | 2.23% |
| South Carolina | 2,334 | -9.8% | 2,067 | +6.2% | 1.61% | 0.92% | 2.22% |
| Virginia | 3,956 | -7.1% | 1,251 | +10.8% | 2.65% | 2.58% | 2.21% |
| Alabama | 2,378 | -10.9% | 2,109 | +8.3% | 1.55% | 0.91% | 2.19% |
| Missouri | 4,694 | -5.7% | 1,384 | +9.4% | 1.98% | 2.29% | 1.84% |
| New Jersey | 4,850 | -6.2% | 991 | +15.4% | 2.77% | 3.31% | 1.84% |
| Oklahoma | 3,304 | -6.5% | 2,056 | +7.1% | 1.22% | 0.99% | 1.68% |
| Maryland | 4,253 | -6.8% | 1,259 | +10.5% | 1.86% | 1.95% | 1.57% |
| Nevada | 3,331 | -3.5% | 2,343 | +8.2% | 0.93% | 0.76% | 1.46% |
| Michigan | 6,332 | -6.1% | 679 | +17.2% | 3.20% | 4.98% | 1.45% |
| Indiana | 5,308 | -5.7% | 997 | +9.4% | 2.12% | 2.77% | 1.42% |
| Mississippi | 2,105 | -11.9% | 2,398 | +9.9% | 0.89% | 0.46% | 1.42% |
| Kentucky | 4,086 | -7.1% | 1,338 | +9.0% | 1.42% | 1.43% | 1.27% |
| Arkansas | 3,148 | -7.2% | 1,882 | +6.7% | 0.93% | 0.72% | 1.18% |
| Kansas | 4,636 | -4.9% | 1,559 | +6.9% | 0.92% | 1.05% | 0.96% |
| Massachusetts | 5,737 | -6.4% | 633 | +22.8% | 2.22% | 3.13% | 0.94% |
| Wisconsin | 7,192 | -4.5% | 580 | +12.8% | 1.95% | 3.45% | 0.76% |
| Iowa | 6,533 | -4.2% | 910 | +12.5% | 1.05% | 1.68% | 0.64% |
| Minnesota | 8,251 | -3.3% | 524 | +14.8% | 1.82% | 3.70% | 0.64% |
| Connecticut | 5,488 | -6.2% | 717 | +18.2% | 1.13% | 1.52% | 0.54% |
| New Mexico | 4,214 | -5.6% | 1,169 | +16.5% | 0.64% | 0.67% | 0.50% |
| Colorado | 6,865 | -2.7% | 384 | +16.9% | 1.85% | 3.12% | 0.47% |
| Nebraska | 6,038 | -3.9% | 1,107 | +11.2% | 0.62% | 0.93% | 0.46% |
| Washington | 5,469 | -2.5% | 244 | +33.5% | 2.40% | 3.23% | 0.39% |
| Utah | 6,754 | -3.2% | 644 | +19.7% | 0.85% | 1.41% | 0.37% |
| West Virginia | 4,755 | -6.2% | 905 | +12.8% | 0.57% | 0.66% | 0.34% |
| Oregon | 5,122 | -2.8% | 313 | +34.8% | 1.35% | 1.70% | 0.28% |
| Delaware | 4,216 | -6.0% | 1,255 | +10.0% | 0.31% | 0.32% | 0.26% |
| Idaho | 6,720 | -2.2% | 582 | +19.1% | 0.54% | 0.89% | 0.21% |
| Rhode Island | 5,407 | -6.1% | 666 | +18.4% | 0.34% | 0.45% | 0.15% |
| South Dakota | 7,455 | -2.3% | 774 | +12.4% | 0.28% | 0.52% | 0.15% |
| New Hampshire | 7,042 | -5.5% | 380 | +27.0% | 0.44% | 0.76% | 0.11% |
| Maine | 7,351 | -5.2% | 298 | +25.2% | 0.46% | 0.83% | 0.09% |
| North Dakota | 8,975 | -2.3% | 520 | +17.1% | 0.26% | 0.57% | 0.09% |
| Montana | 8,392 | -1.8% | 236 | +19.9% | 0.35% | 0.73% | 0.06% |
| Vermont | 7,649 | -5.1% | 287 | +28.4% | 0.21% | 0.40% | 0.04% |
| Wyoming | 8,053 | -2.1% | 324 | +16.6% | 0.18% | 0.37% | 0.04% |
Annual degree days (base 65°F), 2016-2025 average, and the change against the 1991-2020 average. Sorted by share of cooling load.
Shares are of the 48 contiguous states. Households from EIA RECS 2020.
How did we calculate these figures?
NOAA NCEI nClimDiv state files climdiv-hddcst and climdiv-cddcst, version 1.0.0-20261006, downloaded October 26, 2026. Monthly values summed to calendar years. Only complete years are used, so the latest year is 2025. NCEI’s readme says the degree-day series are population-weighted with 2010 Census data.
Recent: the ten years 2016-2025. Baseline: 1991-2020, the current 30-year climate normal period.
Occupied homes by state from the EIA RECS 2020 public use file, weighted. We use them as fixed weights so the shift reflects weather only.
For each state, degree days × households, divided by the sum over the 48 contiguous states. This is a relative index of need, not a forecast of energy use.
The 48 contiguous states. NOAA’s file has no Hawaii or DC series, and its Alaska cooling degree-day series carries missing-value codes in the years we use, so Alaska is left out rather than measured on a different basis.
What does this measure leave out?
Degree days assume a 65°F balance point. Insulation, thermostat settings and home size all change real demand.
Population shifts since 2020 are not reflected. We hold households fixed so the change shown is weather alone.
This is load, not sales or spending. We do not publish market-size dollar figures.
How should you cite this study?
Please cite as: HyreHVAC Research Desk, “HVAC demand by state,” hyrehvac.com/research/demand-by-state/, from NOAA NCEI degree days and EIA RECS 2020, retrieved October 26, 2026. Charts may be reused with credit and a link. The CSV below has every state.
Questions
Which state uses the most air conditioning?
Which state needs the most heating?
Are summers getting hotter for HVAC?
What is a heating degree day?
Why are Hawaii and Alaska missing?
Written and audited by
HYRE HVAC Research Desk
Primary-source research, data analysis and fact checking
We are a research desk, not a sales floor. We read the federal microdata file, the statute or the manufacturer data sheet ourselves, and we publish the figure with the document it came from and the date we retrieved it.
Where a number cannot be traced to a primary source, we publish the shorter page and say what we could not verify.
The counts below are generated from the published pages themselves, last counted November 12, 2026, and they are what we have actually published rather than what we intend to.
- 18
- studies published
- 15
- federal sources read and cited
- 15
- studies published with their full dataset as CSV
- 51
- jurisdictions reproduced against EIA’s own tables
How this desk works
- Primary sources only. Federal data comes from the agency that collects it, in the file that agency publishes. We do not cite an article that cites a source; we download the source and compute the figure ourselves.
- We validate against the agency before we publish. First, we use each federal microdata file to reproduce the agency’s own published tables. Our cooling research reproduces EIA’s state estimates and standard errors for all 51 jurisdictions. That check caught a variance formula that was off by a factor of four.
- Every estimate carries its uncertainty. These are survey figures, not counts. Standard errors are computed from the replicate weights the federal file supplies and printed beside the estimate. An estimate too imprecise to publish is reported as such rather than printed.
- Nothing is typed by hand. Prose, tables and charts all read from one dataset built by script, so a number in a sentence and the same number in the table below it cannot disagree.
- We publish the data, not just the conclusion. 15 of our 18 studies offer the full computed table as a CSV download on the page, so you can check the analysis or disagree with it. A study without a row-level dataset gets no download link and claims none in its structured data.
- We correct in public. Where we have published a figure wrongly we fix the figure, rewrite any analysis that rested on it rather than patching the number underneath it, and leave a dated correction note on the page.
- We do not install or sell HVAC equipment, and we take no payment for placement, ranking or a favorable mention. Nobody buys a position on this site.
Data as of NOAA NCEI degree days through 2025, retrieved October 26, 2026. Authorship on this site is organizational: the analysis belongs to the desk rather than to a named individual, and we do not publish credentials we do not hold. Our editorial policy sets out how we source, date and correct what we publish.
The data behind this page
Every figure on this page is computed from one file, and that file is published here so the analysis can be checked, disagreed with, or reused.
Sources & retrieval dates
Sizing for your climate?
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