RC124 MayJun 2026 - Magazine - Page 21
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“Thermal networks are capable of supplying heat (and cooling)
to as much as 70 per cent of residences in Ontario.”
19 per cent of GHG emissions, and up to 50 per cent in
densely populated communities like Toronto.
The IEA’s advocacy did not sit well with controversial
U.S. energy guru, Amory Lovins, who made headlines
in 1976 when he declared that relying on fossil fuels to
generate electricity for domestic space heating, hot water
or cooling needs was like “using a chainsaw to cut butter.”
Lovins’ chainsaw metaphor clearly failed to impress
Ontario’s policy makers when they set out to write the
province’s 昀椀rst Climate Change Action Plan, which
recommended a switch to electricity as the way to achieve
its ambitious goal to “reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80
per cent below 1990 levels by 2050.”
The plan focused on a three-part strategy:
1. It assumed there would be massive environmental gains
from new ‘net zero’ construction.
2. The plan estimated that energy demand would be
reduced by up to 75 per cent through extensive building
retro昀椀ts.
3. The government proposed to heavily subsidize investments in a variety of “building technologies” such as heat
pumps, paid for primarily from revenues derived from a
cap-and-trade system.
Fast forward to 2026. Many of the marquee features of
the 2016 plan such as the proposed ‘cap and trade system’
have fallen by the wayside and anticipated gains from new
construction and retro昀椀ts haven’t materialized. A notable
exception is the commitment to heat pump technology,
one of the vaunted building technologies mentioned
in the original plan. Heat pumps were also central to a
subsequent climate action plan published by the current
government in 2022.
Like their transportation cousins, electric vehicles, heat
pumps are widely perceived as a benign, green alternative
to fossil fuels. Nevertheless, although heat pumps don’t
generate emissions on their own, they consume lots of
electricity—the 昀氀aw in Ontario’s policies that most concerns
the Boltzmann Institute. “Wholesale electri昀椀cation of space
heating would triple peak demand on Ontario’s grid,” state
the authors.
The provincial plan assumes that most installations would
be air source heat pumps (ASHPs). These are less expensive
and easier to install than ground source heat pumps
(GSHPs), which, although they o昀昀er environmental bene昀椀ts,
require the drilling of boreholes, hard-to-昀椀nd installation
expertise and other technical challenges. Re昀氀ecting pushback
from the fossil fuel sector, the province’s updated plan
indicates that the majority of heat pumps will be “paired”
with natural gas boilers to provide back up when the
weather is too cold for ASHPs.
Two pathways
The Boltzmann Institute, an NGO dedicated to “helping eliminate harmful emissions from energy use through research and
education,” worked with the McMaster Institute for Energy
Studies and FVB Energy, a leading district energy consultancy,
over a two-year period to produce its report. Funded by Environment and Climate Change Canada on behalf of the Net Zero
Advisory Body, the study investigated ‘two pathways,’ one
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