FLETCHER: Heat pumps hyped as Canada’s solution may be overcooked

Tom Fletcher has covered BC politics and business as a journalist since 1984.VICTORIA — It’s difficult to get through a day here without a sales pitch for heat pumps. Billboards, bus ads, radio spots, and TV ads featuring BC Hydro’s cheery pitch-persons invite me to conserve electricity.It’s one of the contradictions of the NDP government’s “CleanBC” program, where we aggressively push liquefied natural gas for export to Asia and even distant Europe, while discouraging its use at home. Our government also promotes and subsidizes electric vehicle charging stations, at a time when BC is importing gas-fired and even coal-fired electricity to keep up with demand.The heat pump pitch may make sense if you have a house heated by an oil or natural gas furnace, although gas is generally quite cheap and efficient if you have it available. If you experience a real Canadian winter, you’ll likely need a backup heat source.Prime Minister Mark Carney was typically emphatic about the subject in a speech to the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade in May.“We need almost two million Canadians to transition from expensive propane, oil, electric baseboard heating to more affordable electric heat pumps,” Carney said. “And with the right investment, seven in 10 Canadians will pay less for their energy by 2050. That’s more than $15 billion back into their pockets.”If this sounds like a utopian climate policy dressed up as an economic incentive, that’s because it is. The year 2050 is the same original target as “net zero” and 100% electric vehicles, neither of which is likely to happen in Canada or anywhere outside Norway, which pays for its domestic electric conversion by selling millions of tonnes of offshore oil..In Carney’s Canada and David Eby’s BC, these plans and many others run on borrowed money. I live in an electrically heated condo with baseboard heaters. It’s zero-emission, low-maintenance, and in a well-constructed building with a mild climate, it’s inexpensive too. Efficiency is nearly 100%. It’s difficult to see how my place is a priority, yet somehow I am part of the target group encouraged to join the heat pump parade.BC Hydro offers subsidies of up to $4,000 to switch from electric baseboard heat to a heat pump system, which requires installation of fan-driven coolant circulation running through the house. BC Hydro insists that heat pumps are “up to” 300% efficient, using electricity to move heat from outside to inside in winter and reversing the flow in summer.The sales pitches suggest that this is being marketed as a lifestyle choice, a “luxury belief” that if we in Canada can be clean and pure enough, those new coal-fired power plants China is opening every week can somehow be overcome.One local heat pump installer promises to plant trees and even kelp beds along with every new system. You can guess who will ultimately pay for that.The baseboard concept was accidentally put to the test here in Victoria when an installer made a mistake. A townhouse owner wanted her baseboard heaters replaced with a heat pump and solar panels on the roof to boot. The cost: $32,000..Unfortunately, the contractor hooked up the new system to the neighbour’s power meter. When the owner’s energy costs didn’t change, she eventually discovered the problem. BC Hydro calculated that over 12 years, she should have saved $4,200 with the new heat pump and solar panels, instead of paying for her neighbour’s baseboard heat.At that rate, the new system would pay for itself in only 54 years, if only this senior would live long enough to see it.There are other issues. Heat pump installers also pitch annual maintenance for their systems, something that has not been required with my baseboards in 50 years. Heat pumps typically have to be replaced every 15 to 20 years. A new school expansion in Greater Victoria used heat pump technology. It didn’t work very well, forcing classrooms to open windows and bring in fans as temperatures rose to 30 degrees..In Richmond, a south-facing condo owner talked the strata council into allowing a heat pump to cool the sun-exposed area. Now they’re dealing with water damage to the unit below from condensation.Carney’s “values” on this subject are grand, and as usual, vague.“In a rapidly changing world, Canada must become the source of affordable, clean, and reliable power,” he told the Vancouver business audience. “Because when we master energy, we master our destiny.”This is the vision that has led Carney to promote “decarbonized” oil, with untested large-scale carbon capture, and now “decarbonized” steel as well. Like heat pumps for all, it’s a product no one asked for.Tom Fletcher has covered BC politics and business as a journalist since 1984.tomfletcherbc@gmail.comX: @tomfletcherbc

FLETCHER: Heat pumps hyped as Canada’s solution may be overcooked

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