Heat pump lifetime cost calculator
Compare what a heat pump water heater actually costs to run over its life against electric storage and gas, then add more models to compare them side by side. Every heat pump line comes from an annual AS/NZS 4234 simulation of that product's own calibrated model, at your climate zone and household size.
100 products modelled for Australia, 7 for New Zealand.
Climate zone 4, VIC metro. Certificates are calculated for this postcode.
Heat pumps
1/6AGM Energy · Integral all-in-one · 270 L
No published price found, so this product has no purchase cost on the chart. Enter a quote to include it.
One or more model inputs were filled from this product's own deck or a documented default.
Energy rates
Replacing a failed heater?
Add what a new electric or gas system would cost to compare all three as purchases.
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Assumptions and limits
Purchase prices are publicly advertised figures, read from a retailer or manufacturer listing on the date shown, not quotes. Australian listings are usually fully installed and usually already have the federal certificate discount applied, and a real installation depends on your site. Products with no public listing show no purchase cost until you enter your own: an unknown price is left unknown rather than guessed. Running costs and emissions are simulated per product and do not depend on the price at all.
Electric and gas systems start at $0 because the usual comparison is against a heater you already own. If yours has failed and you are choosing between replacing like for like and switching, enter what each replacement would cost to see the comparison that actually faces you.
Rates are editable starting points, not a quote. The Australian electricity figure is a rough national average rather than a regulated per-state rate. The Australian gas figure is the least certain number here: it comes from retailer plan reporting rather than a regulated or government-published rate, because no Australian body publishes a residential gas price per unit of energy. New Zealand rates are annual averages from MBIE’s own price series.
The daily gas supply charge is excluded by default (set to $0) because most gas households keep gas for cooking or space heating, so the supply charge does not disappear when only the water heater changes. If gas hot water is the only gas appliance, add the charge (about 88c/day in Australia) to see the full saving.
Electricity emissions are scope 2 plus scope 3 (generation plus grid losses) from the Australian National Greenhouse Accounts Factors 2025, resolved to your state, and from the Ministry for the Environment catalogue for New Zealand. Gas emissions are scope 1 combustion plus scope 3: that state’s figure in Australia, and pipeline transmission and distribution losses in New Zealand. Tasmania and the Northern Territory publish no gas scope 3 figure, so gas there is combustion only.
Standard electric and reference gas figures are gross engineering estimates, not AS/NZS 4234 scheme-derived figures: both assume the same occupant-scaled thermal hot-water load as the heat pump bars (household-size and climate-zone aware). Electric assumes a resistive storage tank (COP 1.0) plus 10% standing heat loss; gas assumes an instantaneous (continuous-flow) unit at 78.8% thermal efficiency with no standing loss.
Heat pump running costs come from an annual AS/NZS 4234 simulation of each product's own calibrated model, at your climate zone and household size. Certificate counts come from the public CER, VEU and ESS registers for your postcode; certificate prices are live market figures and are editable.
These are informational estimates for comparison, not a quote, and not financial advice. No financing or loan cost is modelled.
Where these numbers come from
Running cost is the part most comparisons get wrong. Rather than scaling a nameplate COP, each product here was simulated for a full year under AS/NZS 4234:2021 using the calibrated model EnergyAE built for that unit, across every Australian climate zone and both New Zealand zones, at household sizes from one to ten people. The chart reads those simulated annual consumption figures and applies your own tariffs to them.
Certificate values come from the public CER, VEU and ESS registers for the postcode you enter, using the same formulas as the individual scheme calculators on this site. New Zealand has no certificate scheme, so purchase cost there is shown gross.
Coverage is narrower than the full product database on purpose. A product appears here only when there is a calibrated model behind it that the simulation engine can run, which is a much stronger basis than an estimate and a much smaller set than the catalogue.