Electric heat pumps are winning big on comfort and cost in Canada, but experts warn of bumps in the road ahead as the industry adapts to new refrigerants, faces a shortage of skilled technicians, and navigates uneven regulations.
At present, heat pumps outperform gas furnaces, baseboard heating, and air conditioners in cutting energy costs, reducing emissions, and handling extreme temperatures, according to a cascade of studies and experts. A small pilot to test the effectiveness of heat pumps in combination with gas furnaces in Ontario’s Peel Region provided further proof of this last winter, the Sustainable Technologies Evaluation Program reports.
In that project, heat pumps replaced air conditioners in five households, keeping them toasty warm and meeting the challenge of outdoor temperatures below -10°C. They brought the added coziness of a much lower heating bill, reducing furnace gas usage by 80% while winning praise for comfort, the quality of indoor heating they furnished, and their quiet operation. While upfront costs were considerable—from C$4,300 to $8,000, pre-tax, installed—the majority of that bill was covered by provincial and federal grants.
Climate Cost of Refrigerants
Given their performance, there is little doubt about heat pumps doing some heavy lifting for the climate. However, like air conditioners, the devices rely on refrigerants to function, often using hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) that are powerful greenhouse gases, trapping heat and contributing to climate change when they leak into the atmosphere.
All the heat pumps in the Peel pilot used R-401A, a refrigerant blend that replaced the ozone-damaging R-22 in HVAC systems after the Montreal Protocol of 1987, a landmark global agreement to protect the ozone layer. R-401A is now widely used in heat pumps because it is extremely efficient. But it, too, is a climate killer, with a global warming potential (GWP) of 2,088, meaning it is over 2,000 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide.
As a signatory to the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, Canada has joined other countries in a pledge to reduce its use of high GWP refrigerants by 85% by 2036—which means R-401A now has a best-before date, scheduled to be banned in new residential and light commercial air conditioning and heat pump systems next year, and phased out in all systems by 2036.
A Costly, ‘Mildly Flammable’ Substitute
So starting next year, air conditioners sold in Canada—but not, as yet, heat pumps—will need to use the R-454B refrigerant, a chemical with a GWP roughly one-fifth that of R-410A, according to one industry estimate. With a GWP of 465, R-454B slips well under the maximum currently allowed by many regulators, including the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
But the new refrigerant comes with a hefty price tag, with its cost surging almost 300% since the beginning of 2021. And consumers can expect to feel the pinch as the new refrigerant economy takes hold. Air conditioning units containing R-454B “will cost 10 to 20% more than their current counterparts, though there is no hard number on what the actual cost increase will be,” reported CBC News.
R-454B is also “mildly flammable”, reports [pdf] Danish engineering titan Danfoss. While the soon-to-be-phased out R-401A is a Class A1 refrigerant, meaning it has low toxicity and near-zero odds of catching fire, R-454B falls into Class A2L, meaning it has “very low flammability”, but the possibility of fire remains, Waterloo-based climate consultant Heather McDiarmid explained in a Building Decarbonization Alliance webinar this March. Plus, with a GWP of 465, R-454B is no less a climate bomb if it leaks.
Accrediting Technicians, Setting Rules
“The good news is when heat pumps are properly installed by qualified installers, they will rarely leak,” McDiarmid said.
The bad news is that Canada “doesn’t have anywhere close to the number of competent, qualified technicians that will be needed with the growth of heat pumps as a common market choice,” Martin Luymes, vice president of government and stakeholder relations for the Heating, Refrigeration, Air Conditioning Institute of Canada (HRAI), told the webinar.
“If we are going to meet the climate targets the federal government has set and see the kind of growth in heat pumps across the country that the market will need, we will need to quadruple the number of refrigeration mechanics working in the residential sector,” all within the next 10 years, Luymes added, citing a recent report by Build Force Canada.
Luymes also pointed to a “potential lack of alignment between Canada and the United States on the regulatory approach to the phasedown.” The U.S. has leap-frogged ahead on refrigerants, creating further cause for concern. He urged all provinces to make the latest editions of guidelines that regulate best practices for refrigeration mechanics (CSA B 52) “the law of the land by the end of 2024.”
