Use our climate calculator to see how much you could save from electrifying your home
Switching to an EV, heat pump, heat pump water heater and induction stove could cut your carbon emission by more than 80 per cent and save you $5,000 per year.
By Marco Chown Oved Climate Change Reporter, Cameron Tulk Lead Digital Designer, McKenna Deighton Digital Designer, Ralph Torrie Corporate Knights
As more people become concerned by the heat waves, forest fires and flooding exacerbated by climate change, they’re switching their carbon-emitting home appliances for electric, emissions-free alternatives.
The Star has partnered with Corporate Knights to analyze the co-benefits of these clean technologies, quantifying just how much Canadians in each province can save by adopting them, and what their impact will be on emissions.
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The results vary widely across the country. In provinces with cheap, carbon-free electricity, the benefit of ditching fossil fuels is the greatest — both to your pocketbook and your carbon footprint. But in provinces with carbon-intensive electricity, switching off fossil fuels has a smaller impact — and can even make your emissions rise, in some cases — but the financial benefits are still there.
If everyone in Canada adopted these technologies, the impact would be enormous. It would eliminate 92 megatonnes from Canada’s national emissions annually — more than the entire oilsands sector produces. The collective yearly savings would be more than $65 billion.
While no one would say these four pieces of green technology are a panacea for solving climate change, they’re a big start. And they will save a family hundreds, if not thousands of dollars a year.
As Canadians switch away from burning fossil fuels and electrify their lives, the cumulative power of individual action is undeniable.
Methodology: Corporate Knights’ research division cross-referenced dozens of publicly accessible databases to calculate the cost of fuel and electricity in each province as well as the carbon emissions produced by different appliances in different regions. As far as we are aware, this is the first comprehensive quantification of savings and carbon reductions from electrification in Canada.
Marco Chown Oved is a É«É«À²-based reporter covering climate change for the Star. Reach him via email: moved@thestar.ca
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Ralph Torrie is Director of Research for Corporate Knights and one of the world’s leading energy analysts. He has been working in the area of sustainable energy futures since the late 1970s and his low carbon scenario analysis for Canada was the first such study in the world. He is the inventor of strategic planning software for local government climate mitigation that was used by hundreds of cities on five continents.
Cameron Tulk is the lead digital designer at the Star, based in É«É«À². Reach him via email: ctulk@thestar.ca
McKenna Deighton is a digital designer at the Star, based in É«É«À². Reach her via email: mdeighton@torstar.ca
Marco Chown Oved is a É«É«À²-based climate change reporter for
the Star. Reach him via email: moved@thestar.ca.
Cameron Tulk is the lead digital designer at the Star, based in
É«É«À². Reach him via email: ctulk@thestar.ca.
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