New buildings | Gas heating and cooking soon to be banned in Montreal

(Montreal) The City of Montreal will ban gas-powered appliances, such as heating systems and stoves, in new buildings, a measure welcomed by various observers which aims to “stop adding new sources of gas emissions to greenhouse effect “.

The ban will apply to any building of three floors or less and a maximum of 600 square meters built from 1^er October 2024, then to the largest buildings constructed from October 1^er April 2025, the Plante administration will announce this Wednesday.

“This is really the first milestone of the Roadmap [vers des bâtiments zéro émission dès 2040] “, declared to The Press the person responsible for ecological transition and the environment on the executive committee of the City of Montreal, Marie-Andrée Mauger.

The measure concerns buildings in the residential, commercial and institutional sectors; the industrial sector is excluded, in particular because it is already subject to the carbon market, explains M^me Mauger.

Buildings of more than three floors will, however, be entitled to a major exception: the installation of gas appliances will be authorized provided that they only use gas from “renewable sources”.

However, the gas distributed by Énergir currently contains only 1% renewable natural gas (RNG), methane produced from organic matter, which therefore means that most of the gas that will be used will still come from fossil sources.

“Today, it’s 1%, but in the long term, it will be 100%,” explains Marie-Andrée Mauger, referring to Énergir’s commitment to distribute only RNG in 2050.

Hydro-Québec’s “concerns” about winter peak periods led the Plante administration to include this exception in its draft regulation.

Other exceptions are also planned: restaurants will be able to use gas cooking appliances and temporary solutions such as the use of a generator in the event of an outage or heating appliances for a construction site will be authorized.

Criticisms… towards Hydro-Québec

This draft regulation should be applauded, believes Normand Mousseau, scientific director of the Trottier Energy Institute and professor of physics at the University of Montreal, who however deplores “the systematic opposition of Hydro-Québec” to this kind of measures.

The state-owned company “has not made the necessary investments to ensure enough electricity for Montreal,” he is indignant, stressing that the decarbonization of buildings is essential to achieve Quebec’s climate targets – and the easiest measurement.

Hydro-Québec “hides behind peak management issues [qui surviennent] around a hundred hours per year” to hide the fact that it underestimated the needs necessary for the decarbonization of buildings, adds the head of Greenpeace Canada’s Climate-Energy campaign, Patrick Bonin, also welcoming the “ excellent initiative” from the City of Montreal.

The Montreal draft regulation should also serve as an example for the Legault government, underlines Andréanne Brazeau, climate policy analyst at Équiterre.

“We hope that the government will take note of the fact that it is being significantly outpaced by the cities and that it should consider adopting a provincial regulation [similaire] », he who has already banned fuel oil, she said.

The tip of the iceberg

Greenhouse gases (GHG) emitted by new buildings are only “the tip of the iceberg”, recognizes Marie-Andrée Mauger, specifying that “97% of the buildings which will constitute the real estate stock in 2040 are already built” .

“That’s the big part,” she says, immediately specifying that the decarbonization of existing buildings follows a “gradual and predictable approach”, set in motion in 2021 with the mandatory declaration of heating appliances using a fuel – oil appliances are already subject to a separate ban for 2030.

“Performance thresholds” will then be gradually imposed for large buildings.

“We would have liked to have indications on the City’s plan concerning existing buildings, because that is where GHGs are concentrated at the moment,” declared Andréanne Brazeau, recalling that half of the community’s emissions Montrealers in 2021 came from buildings, as reported The Press Monday.

All of the measures that will result from the Roadmap towards zero-emission buildings from 2040 will make it possible to approach the Quebec target of reducing GHG emissions from the heating of buildings by 50% by 2030, indicates Marie- Andrée Mauger.

“We may not be at 50% in 2030,” she says. [mais] we know that we will be at zero in 2040.”

The draft by-law must be ratified on Wednesday by the executive committee of the City of Montreal, then will be presented in November to the municipal council, with a view to adoption in December.