If your electric bill says Con Edison and your address says White Plains, Scarsdale, Harrison, Mamaroneck, or New Rochelle, you are standing in front of one of the stronger heat pump incentive setups in the country. You just need to know whose money it is, how the caps work, and the one rule that determines whether you ever see a dollar of it.
This guide covers all three.
Whose Money It Is: Con Edison as Administrator
The headline program is NYS Clean Heat, New York State's heat pump incentive. Con Edison does not invent the program; it administers it. NYS Clean Heat is delivered through six utility administrators statewide, and Con Edison is the one that matters for nearly every Westchester address.
The distinction earns two sentences of your attention because it changes where you verify things. The money is state-funded and the rules are statewide, so cleanheat.ny.gov and nyserda.ny.gov are the source of truth, and Con Edison is the channel it flows through, with the administrator's version at coned.com. This is emphatically not the dead federal HEAR program wearing a new logo; HEAR is gone, and NYS Clean Heat is New York's own funding, alive and paying in 2026.
The shape of the incentive through Con Edison:
| Feature | 2026 value |
|---|---|
| Air-source heat pump incentive | Up to $12,000 per household |
| Cost cap, standard | 70% of total project cost |
| Cost cap, enhanced | 85% in Disadvantaged Communities or Weatherized Tier |
| Disadvantaged Communities | Higher incentive amounts in designated areas |
| Income-eligible tier (EmPower+) | Up to $24,000, 85% of cost |
| Eligible buildings | 1-4 unit homes (as of 1/1/2026) |
| Equipment | ccASHP on the NYS Clean Heat / NEEP-qualified list, ducted or ductless |
| Geothermal | Separate, higher incentive |
How the Two Caps Interact
Your incentive is always the lower of two numbers: the $12,000 household cap and 70 percent of what the project actually costs. This is worth understanding before quotes arrive, because it explains why two neighbors with different projects see different discounts.
On a $15,000 project, 70 percent is $10,500, which is below the household cap, so $10,500 governs. On a $21,000 project, 70 percent is $14,700, which exceeds the cap, so $12,000 governs. In Disadvantaged Communities and the Weatherized Tier the percentage rises to 85, and Con Edison pays higher amounts in designated disadvantaged communities generally: if your address might qualify, that is worth checking before you compare bids, because it moves every number on the page.
Worked net-price scenarios across system types are in our installation cost guide; the rest of this guide covers the program mechanics that drive them.
The Rule That Decides Everything: Participating Contractors
The incentive is typically assigned to and applied by a NYS Clean Heat participating contractor as a project discount. Read that twice, because it is the entire game.
You do not file for this money yourself. You do not front the cash and chase a rebate check through the mail. And, critically, you cannot claim it at all through a contractor who is not enrolled as a NYS Clean Heat participating contractor. The participating contractor applies the discount to your invoice, files the paperwork, and the state's money shows up as a smaller number on the bottom line before you pay it.
So the first sorting question for any Westchester bidder is not price. It is: are you a NYS Clean Heat participating contractor? A no, however friendly, means the $12,000 does not exist for your project through that bidder. Our guide to choosing a White Plains HVAC contractor builds the full vetting checklist on top of this first gate.
Stacking: What Combines and What Does Not
The 2026 stacking rules are mercifully short.
EmPower+ is a tier, not a topper. Income-eligible households qualify for the enhanced tier: up to $24,000 at an 85 percent cost cap. It replaces the standard tier on the same measure; you get one or the other, and for a qualifying household the enhanced tier is dramatically better. Screen for it before you size a system, because it can change what is worth building.
Geothermal rides its own rail. Ground-source systems carry a separate, higher incentive. If you are weighing air-source against geothermal, compare complete net-price scenarios, not the incentive lines alone.
There is no federal layer. The 25C and 25D federal credits ended December 31, 2025, and DOE HEAR is dead, so nothing federal stacks on a 2026 installation. Any stack math that still includes a federal line is out of date. State money through NYS Clean Heat is the whole stack, and it is enough to move real projects, as the worked examples in our White Plains rebates guide show in dollar-by-dollar detail.
A Worked Con Edison Example
An illustrative Greenburgh single-family converting to a qualified-list cold-climate system:
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Installed price | $16,500 |
| 70% cost cap | $11,550 |
| Household cap | $12,000 |
| Incentive applied (lower of the two) | $11,550 |
| Net out-of-pocket | $4,950 |
The caps interact exactly as designed: on this illustrative project the 70 percent cost cap binds a hair before the $12,000 household cap does, so the smaller number governs the discount. A slightly larger project would flip which limit binds. Either way, the participating contractor applies the figure to the invoice and the owner pays the net.
If that same household were income-eligible under EmPower+, the project would carry 85 percent, or $14,025, and net out at $2,475.
Equipment: One Non-Negotiable
The full incentive pays only on cold-climate air-source heat pumps from the NYS Clean Heat / NEEP-qualified list, ducted or ductless. In a -3F design climate that requirement is doing you a favor: the list screens for machines that deliver real heat on the coldest nights Westchester serves up. Off-list equipment forfeits both the performance and the money. The full equipment criteria are in our cold-weather guide.
Your Five-Minute Action Plan
- Pull your electric bill and confirm Con Edison, near-certain across White Plains and the surrounding towns.
- Read the program source directly if you like: cleanheat.ny.gov, nyserda.ny.gov, and coned.com.
- Check whether your address sits in a designated Disadvantaged Community; the enhanced math changes every bid.
- Collect two or three quotes, exclusively from NYS Clean Heat participating contractors.
- Require the incentive as a line item on every quote: gross, discount, net. Screen for EmPower+ before you pick a system size.
Get Your Free Westchester Quote
Start your free quote: two minutes, free, no obligation. You will be matched with NYS Clean Heat participating contractors in Con Edison territory who quote the incentive correctly and put it on the invoice as a discount, where it belongs.