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In the 1970s, three quarters of Swedish homes were heated with oil boilers. Today, electric heat pumps have all but replaced the oil in single-family homes (most multi-family homes rely on district heating). That has caused greenhouse gas emissions from building oil heating to drop 95 percent since 1990, according to the Swedish Energy Agency, said Martin Forsén, a veteran of the Swedish heating industry and president of the European Heat Pump Association.
So how did that happen? And are there lessons for Canada’s transition from fossil heating?
Forsén shared his personal account of the transition last week at the Heat Pump Symposium in Mississauga, Ontario, organized by the Canadian Institute of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning.
“It’s been a huge success for us,” he told the sold-out crowd of the Canadian HVAC industry.
Canada’s federal government aims to reduce building emissions to 37 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. half of Canadian households that is heated with fossil fuels and 78 percent of building emissions come from space and water heatingElectrifying homes that burn fossil fuels is key to achieving emission reductions.
Heat pumps are an energy-efficient form of electric heating that the Canadian government says will make home heating more affordable while fighting climate change. But in 2021, heat pumps are represented only 6 percent of Canadian home heating (although now higher due to new incentives).
In the beginning, ‘It’s all about the money’
Forsén said that Canada is in the first phase of the transition to this technology – the introduction, which for Sweden, was about 1994 to 2000.
He said that, the media tend to describe the technology as “interesting technology” in the Sunday papers. He said, “There is no HVAC [heating] the industry is convinced that it is better to move in that direction” and it can reduce the number of customers who want to install heat pumps.
At that stage, “it’s all about money,” says Forsén — the price of new technology compared to the old.
In the case of Sweden, it has introduced a carbon tax in 1990 which has resulted in heating oil prices.
“It’s a pain for the consumer,” he said. “So they really have to think, ‘Can we do something?'”
Meanwhile, Sweden has an electricity surplus that makes electricity cheap, nudging homeowners to heat pumps.
Canada introduce its own carbon tax in 2019 and will remain increasing every year until 2030which may cause the price of fossil fuels to increase compared to electricity.
When Building codes can force new construction to incorporate new technologies, Retrofits of old houses should often be encouraged with subsidies. Forsén said there are two reasons for this: To overcome the higher initial costs, and to encourage people to plan for installation, instead of waiting until the furnace breaks down in the middle of winter, at the point of installing new technology more difficult.
Canada has started to subsidize heat pumps with a program like that Oil for Heat Pumps Grant Affordability with Greener Homes grant and loan program.
Going mainstream with peer pressure
Forsén said the market began to grow in Sweden beyond the early adopters after 2000. At that time, people who have heat pumps installed were sharing with friends and family how pleased they were, saying the device saved money faster than expected and provided more. comfortable heat. These testimonials, along with other subsidies, have since made heat pumps very popular.
Forsén has its own heat pump installed in 2002. In Sweden, most heat pumps are ground source heat pumps, which require a hole to be drilled in the yard (since cold climate air source heat pump, currently popular in Canada, not yet available). In the summer, he said, “there’s a drilling rig in the neighborhood pretty much every single week” and neighbors would talk in their yards about what’s going on. “It’s… so, like, it’s kind of [social] pressure from everyone. Suddenly, he realized: you have to switch.
By the mid-2000s, Forsén said, Sweden had reached a tipping point – everyone was familiar with the technology, and no longer needed financial incentives to try it.
Today, he says, even though the price of heating oil has fallen dramatically, no one in Sweden considers oil boilers: “It’s obsolete.”
And heat pumps are everywhere now, says Forsén, who recently found a passage in a popular Swedish novel that casually describes how the main character returns to his home with an underground heat pump.
What are you going to do in Canada?
So what about Canada?
Moe Kabbara is the vice-president of the Transition Accelerator, a focus group on how Canada can meet its 2050 climate goals. He participated in the Forsén discussion, and agreed that Canada is still in the heat pump introduction phase.
He noted that Sweden can overcome many of the same challenges, such as lean new industries, and make a quick transition.
“They can do it,” he told CBC News in an interview Tuesday. “And it really works in cold climates.”
Of course, he said, Canada’s situation is a bit different. Sweden is transitioning from oil, while Canada is generally heated by gas, which has been cheaper until recently. On the other hand, thanks to technological advances, we now have access to cold climate air source heat pumps – an option that Sweden does not have.
Regardless, he said, the most important lesson from Sweden is that this kind of transition does not “just happen,” and requires incentives and policies, “carrots” and “sticks.”
“Deliberate action is needed not only by the government [but] from the industry, from various stakeholders,” he said.
The Transition Accelerator aims to bring these groups together through a new initiative called the Building Decarbonization Alliance.
Forsén agrees that policies and incentives are needed to make the transition in Canada.
When asked in an interview if the current carbon tax and heat pump subsidies in Canada are enough to get us through the introduction phase, Forsén said, “No, I think you need more.”
He noted that Europe is now introducing minimum energy performance standards for existing buildings that must be met when they are sold or rented to new people. “I think it’s pretty good,” he said, noting that renovations and retrofits usually happen when buildings change hands.
The federal government has proposed developing that “model retrofit code” in 2024.
Forsén also suggests that because testimonials and social pressure play a role, change can happen more quickly if a small geographic area is targeted at the same time.
He told CBC News regardless. he thinks Canada will transition to heat pumps.
“I don’t think it’s a question of ‘if.’ It’s just a question of when.”
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