Heat pump technology is starting to gain momentum in Canada, but Alberta’s cold winters and prohibitive costs may be a roadblock to its popularity in this province.
Electric heat pumps have been billed as a cheaper, greener way to heat and cool homes.
The units use power and refrigerant to transfer heat back and forth between outside and indoors. In cooler weather, it pulls warm air into a house; in the summer, it sucks the warm air from inside and transfers it outside.
“You’re not generating the heat, but you’re actually just concentrating it and moving it. It can be actually over 100 per cent efficient,” said Sara Hastings-Simon, an energy transition specialist and assistant professor of physics at the University of Calgary.
“You can put less energy in than the amount of heat you’re able to move.”
Installation companies say interest in heat pumps has increased tenfold in the…
