Central Ohio households shopping a heat pump in 2026 deserve the incentive picture stated plainly, because the plain version changes how a smart buyer negotiates. Ohio has no coordinated state heat pump program. The state's investor-owned utilities, AEP Ohio among them, dropped their residential heat pump rebates after HB 6 repealed the state efficiency mandate, and they have not come back. The only live heat pump cash in Ohio sits with rural electric co-ops such as Midwest Electric and Mid-Ohio Energy, and for nearly every address from German Village to Dublin, that money is someone else's. This guide explains why the empty stack is not the bad news it sounds like, what the co-op record teaches even the households that cannot claim it, and what actually carries a Columbus project.
The Table, Empty by Design
| Layer | Central Ohio status in 2026 |
|---|---|
| Federal 25C/25D credits | Ended December 31, 2025; quotes citing them are stale |
| Ohio state program | None; no coordinated program exists |
| AEP Ohio | No residential heat pump rebate; program ended after HB 6 |
| Ohio co-ops (Midwest Electric, Mid-Ohio Energy) | Still pay; Midwest Electric up to $600 bill credit, members only |
Two lines deserve underlining. First, the federal credits are gone; a 2026 quote folding them into the price is out of date on its face, and staleness on the incentive line predicts staleness elsewhere in the bid. Second, the co-op line: Midwest Electric's up-to-$600 bill credit for a qualifying heat pump, split systems at 15.2 SEER2 and 7.8 HSPF2 minimum, is real money, but it belongs to that co-op's members in west-central Ohio, not to a Columbus meter. The rule that sorts every address in five minutes: incentives follow whoever sends your electric bill. Call them, ask, and the question is settled.
Why the IOU Money Left and Never Came Back
Ohio's efficiency programs were creatures of a state mandate, and when HB 6 repealed that mandate, the investor-owned utilities, AEP Ohio, Duke Energy Ohio, AES Ohio, retired their residential heat pump rebates with it. The co-ops, which answer to their member-owners rather than to the mandate, kept theirs. That split is the whole Ohio story, and it is worth understanding because it inoculates you against a specific sales move: a bidder who waves at "utility rebates" in AEP Ohio territory is selling you a program that does not exist. There is nothing to claim at an AEP Ohio address, and a contractor who says otherwise has just failed a vetting test you did not even have to design, a tell our contractor guide treats as disqualifying.
Why the Empty Stack Is Useful Anyway
A project that cannot lean on a rebate must stand on its operating math, and that discipline protects buyers. In big-rebate markets, quotes drift upward to absorb the program money. In a zero-rebate market, no bid can hide behind incentive arithmetic, which strips the conversation to the parts a buyer can verify: the room-by-room load calculation, the equipment's published cold-weather capacity, the duct findings, the panel line, the price. That makes three competing bids unusually comparable here. Hold every bidder to the same document set and the spread between them becomes information instead of noise: the high bid must justify itself with scope, the low bid must show what it left out, and the middle bid earns nothing by being in the middle.
The operating math itself is the real engine, run fuel by fuel in our oil comparison, and it is strongest for households heating with electric resistance, propane, or oil at the region's rural edges, and for the metro's stock of aging first-generation heat pumps.
The Replacement Cases That Work Without a Check
Central Ohio's housing spread makes the strong cases easy to name. The prewar brick of German Village and Victorian Village and the four-squares of Clintonville often carry additions and conversions heated with electric baseboard, the most expensive heat sold in Ohio, and retiring it pays for itself without anyone's rebate. The postwar rings of Whitehall, Reynoldsburg, and Grove City hold older heat pumps that lean on their resistance strips every cold snap; replacing one with a modern variable-speed machine, specified in our cold-weather guide, keeps the compressor carrying the load through single-digit nights. And the builder stock of Dublin, Hilliard, and Westerville converts cleanly on existing ductwork, which holds installed cost down. None of these projects needs a check to clear; all of them need honest sizing.
The Co-op Edge of the Carve
The carve's rural counties, Union, Madison, Pickaway, Licking, Fairfield, include territory served by electric cooperatives rather than AEP Ohio, and Ohio's co-ops are the one place the state's heat pump money survived. Midwest Electric's program is the documented example: up to $600 as a bill credit, qualifying split systems at 15.2 SEER2 and 7.8 HSPF2, electric or fossil-fuel backup eligible. If your bill comes from a co-op, call it before you sign anything and ask what it pays for a heat pump and what paperwork it wants; co-op programs are typically simple, member-facing, and worth the phone call. If your bill comes from AEP Ohio, skip the search; there is nothing to find, and the time is better spent on bids.
Renters and Landlords
Any claim that does exist follows the account holder and property owner, the standard rule. Central Ohio's rental stock is deep, from Short North and Italian Village walk-ups to Linden and Hilltop singles held as rentals, and many of the metro's worst heating bills, electric baseboard above all, belong to tenants who cannot swap the equipment. The pitch to an owner is short: a large operating improvement, a property that shows better with modern equipment and real cooling, and in co-op territory a small check on top. Forwarding this page costs nothing.
Collecting Cleanly Where There Is Something to Collect
The discipline is the same whether the check is $600 or zero. Confirm terms directly with whoever sends your electric bill before signing. Have the bidder state qualifying equipment by model number on the quote so eligibility is verifiable on paper. Keep the submittal sheet and paid invoice together and file promptly after commissioning. And price the project to stand without any check at all, against the full numbers in our installation cost guide, so nothing that happens to a program between quote and payment can turn a good project into a bad one.
The Short Version
No state program, federal credits expired, IOU rebates ended with HB 6, co-ops still paying up to $600 to their own members. For nearly every Columbus address the stack is empty, and the emptiness is clarifying: Central Ohio projects win on operating math, and any quote leaning on rebate talk here is telling you where its weight is not.
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