In the 1970s, three quarters of Swedish homes were heated with oil boilers. Today, electric-powered heat pumps have all but replaced oil in single-family homes (most multi-family homes rely on district heating). That has driven greenhouse gas emissions from oil heating of buildings down 95 per cent since 1990, according to the Swedish Energy Agency, said Martin Forsén a Swedish heating industry veteran and president of the European Heat Pump Association.
So how did that happen? And are there lessons for Canada’s transition away from fossil heating?
Forsén shared his personal account of the transition last week at the Heat Pump Symposium in Mississauga, Ont., organized by the
