I always wonder what the point of these articles are. If we're going through the effort of electrifying hundreds of thousands of homes we're obviously going to upgrade our power grids as well. A switch to renewable energy is going to require almost all of our infrastructure to be replaced.

That comes at a huge cost but the alternative is societal collapse once non-renewable energy runs out. Everyone agrees the switch will need to happen eventually, but lots of people seem to want to pass that responsibility on to the next generation. How long can we do that for?

On the home heating aspect, our building standards have been wholly inadequate for the climate we live in (coming from SK). Minimal insulation, inefficient layouts, no consideration for passive solar heating obviously leads to more heating demand and the solution historically has been just a bigger furnace.

The typical assumption is a 10-15% increase in build cost can get a new house to net-zero ready, or about 50% better than code. An R32 wall is just as easy to build as an R16 wall, its just more material. For existing homes, yes, heat pumps can be much more efficient than other existing heating methods, but the focus should instead be on reducing heating demand in the first place.

I'm currently working with some indigenous communities on minor energy retrofits while also providing energy efficient new homes. The total retrofit cost is similar to the increase in cost for the energy efficient home versus one to base code, yet they only get 30-50% of the energy savings. It's obvious we need to build it right the first time.

Of course, this doesn't mix well with a housing supply crisis, but what is it going to look like when natural gas is no longer an option?

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Reports from the International Energy Agency and the Canadian Climate Institute in 2022 found Canada would need to double or triple its electrical grid capacity by 2050 to reach its net-zero goal.

For example, Mario Chiarelli, a Toronto-based energy efficiency consultant, estimated that converting Toronto's 650,000 natural gas-heated homes to best-in-class heat pumps would double the city's electricity demand, an increase of about 5,000 megawatts.

"If you're getting paid a fee or feeding some of your electrical energy that you're storing in your battery back into the grid at those high peak times, [that] could actually result in a net customer savings."

However, its newer report notes that costs may be unevenly distributed across the country, and may be higher for Canadians who live in regions that currently rely heavily on fossil fuel generation.

DeMarco said planning in Canada's electricity system generally only looks a few years into the future, without considering the long-term impact of growing extreme weather and the global energy transition.

They're backed by a commitment of more than $40 billion over the next decade, outlined in the 2023 federal budget, to support Canada's clean electricity sector through tax measures, public financing and grant contributions.

I'm a bot and I'm open source!

All the other commenters seem quite optimistic, although I still have reservations

in my province (PEI) our government is doing a great job handing out heat pumps to pretty much anyone who asks. However I don't see a sufficient investment in the supply side of this equation. Pretty much everyone I know who got a free heat pump is switching over from oil, meaning that the energy we were importing as oil is now being demanded from New Brunswick's electrical grid. We do have solar incentives, (I think there's a rebate + an interest free loan for sure), but maybe 1 in 8 of the people I know who installed heat pumps also installed solar.

I know it can be done, but I'm concerned that PEI doesn't have a cohesive plan to address the demand we're inducing.

The car charging argument is so stupid... Cars typically charge at night, when demand is usually lowest. If you need to charge when demand is high, you'll simply pay a higher price for power -- which will still be a fraction of what gas costs.

When car-to-home smart grid solutions roll out, there will be even less of an issue -- the grid will feed into your car overnight to charge it up to 80-90%, then 'borrow' back 10-15% when it's most needed (5am-6am in the winters when it's coldest, 5pm-6pm in the summer when it's warmest). Add in solar roofs and in-home battery storage, and it smooths out the demand.

The good news is that many people, including the authors of the report, think it's achievable.

"Making electricity systems bigger, cleaner and smarter is technically and economically feasible," the report said.

CBC readers are probably less qualified than the International Energy Agency to answer that question.

Edit: got the NGO name wrong.