Comment by eldaisfish
22 days ago
Methane has lots of value in colder climates, especially much of Canada. Methane is cheap and does not lose heating capacity as temperature falls. Across most of Canada, the median construction year for a typical house is in the 1980. Half were built before that, meaning insulation standards were lower.
The #1 problem with heat pumps in Canada is low temperature performance. The heat output drops but the rate of heat loss from the house also increases. This is the precise situation where even backup resistive heat cannot keep up. Methane is excellent at filling this gap, especially now when winter temperatures swing more than earlier.
Toronto/Vancouver areas are both well within the temp range for heat pumps (e.g. ~50% of Canada's population). The further norther areas are a bit cold for air source heat pumps, but are still well within ground based heat pump temp ranges.
Toronto and Vancouver have completely different climates.
Toronto regularly has ten days per year where the high temperature is below -15 C.
Even cold climate heat pumps struggle at those temperatures. I would know, i have one.