VANCOUVER — Evan Pivnick, clean energy program manager at Clean Energy Canada, made the following statement in response to the City of Vancouver’s decision to restore the option for new home construction to use natural gas for heating and hot water:
“Today’s announcement spells bad news for Vancouverites’ energy bills and the city’s climate goals.
“When factoring in both equipment and operating costs, a household in Vancouver can save as much $1,000 a month by adopting a few common clean energy solutions, including EVs and heat pumps. Specifically, opting for a heat pump will not only provide cooling as well as heating (a real plus in Vancouver’s increasingly hot summers), it will cut $77 a month off your heating and cooling bill.
“In a 6-5 vote, the council made the decision to essentially punt costs down the road for Vancouverites, who will have to retrofit their homes off fossil fuels at a later date.
“The councillor who proposed the amendment cited concerns about affordability and extreme weather as a motivation for rolling back the regulations. But we won’t address climate change by continuing to build new fossil fuel infrastructure. And definitely we won’t solve affordability concerns by locking households into a technology that we know is more expensive.”
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Report | A Clean Bill
