News · Colorado

Xcel Energy’s Colorado heat pump bonus drops by about a third on October 1

By Ionel Glogoveanu, editor. Every figure on this page was checked against the official source on the date shown.

Published September 29, 2026. Facts read on the official source on September 25, 2026.

Xcel’s gas-heating heat pump bonus in Colorado falls from 3× to 2× the standard rebate on October 1, 2026. Installs invoiced by September 30 keep the higher amount.

Xcel Energy’s Colorado residential heat pump page, read on September 25, 2026, states that the bonus paid when a heat pump replaces gas heating changes on October 1, 2026: the multiplier drops from three times the standard rebate to two times. A project installed and invoiced by September 30 is paid at the current rate.

The per-ton figures and the October 15 application cutoff for those September installs are not on Xcel’s static page; they come from Xcel’s August 2026 notice to participating contractors, as those contractors have published it. We show them with that attribution and treat them as something to confirm in writing with the contractor before signing.

The federal 25C credit no longer applies to 2026 installations, and Colorado’s single-family HEAR rebate is closed statewide, so for most Denver-area households the Xcel rebate and the state heat pump tax credit are the money that remains this year.

What this means for you

If your contractor can install and invoice before October 1, the bonus is worth roughly a third more than it will be from October. If not, do not rush a bad install for it: the standard rebate, the state credit and Power Ahead remain after the change. We will re-check Xcel’s page on October 2 and update the Colorado page and this feed.