ImpactAlpha, March 7 — Brewer, Maine-based Nyle Systems has raised $6 million to manufacture commercial-sized heat pump water heaters and create roughly 200 green jobs in Bangor. Nyle’s water heaters work like regular heat pumps that use electricity to move heat from one place to another. The units will be sold to customers to “provide reliable hot water at lower cost,” said Nyle’s Ton Mathissen.
Maine is one of the coldest U.S. states, and one of the most oil-dependent, spending $5 billion on average per year on heating oil. Maine had been making progress towards its net-zero and climate goals, even before Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act last August.
Clean energy transition
More than 28,000 heat pumps were installed in Maine in 2021, made possible by legislation signed by Gov. Janet Mills in 2019 to incentivize homeowners to transition to cleaner energy sources and to boost local jobs. Maine aims to install 100,000 new heat pumps by 2025 and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45% by 2030 and at least 80% by 2050.
Brooklyn-based BlocPower raised $154 million last week for citywide heat pump installations in buildings in low-income neighborhoods.