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Article featured in Chronicle Herald on October 27, 2015  

Geothermal heating systems aren’t very popular, mainly because of the cost of installation, but a recent study suggests Nova Scotia might be one place where they could make sense.

Researchers at the Universite du Quebec and Dalhousie University calculated the cost of installing a geothermal heating system in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, and how long it would take to recover the expense.

The cost of home heating using oil or other fuels is typically higher in Halifax than in the other cities studied.

Therefore, it was determined that installing a geothermal system provided a greater opportunity to recover costs in Halifax than in the other cities.

In Toronto and Vancouver, for example, most home heating is with low-priced natural gas. In Montreal, almost all the heating is from low-cost hydroelectricity.

Dominic Groulx, associate professor at Dalhousie University’s mechanical engineering department and director of Dal’s Laboratory of Applied Multiphase Thermal Engineering, says his colleagues in Quebec took his initial study into the economics of installing geothermal systems in Halifax, conducted in 2008 and released in 2010, and used it as a basis for further analysis of the financial feasibility of installing similar systems in other cities.

At Dalhousie, Groulx and MBA student David Oliver compared different energy technologies — ground-source heat pumps, wind turbines, photovoltaic panels and solar thermal water heaters — that could provide renewable energy to one or more homes.

In their 2010 paper, Groulx and Oliver concluded that owners of single-detached homes heating with fuel oil and/or electricity may expect to save between $1,000 and $1,800 per year by switching to a ground-source heat pump system.

That finding sparked the attention of the researchers in Quebec, who wondered how geothermal heating could be financially viable in Halifax and barely so in Montreal.

After completing their study, it was determined geothermal was viable in Halifax primarily because of the cost associated with other modes of heating.

Although the data used in the Nova Scotia study is about six years old, compared with the 2014 data used by the Quebec researchers, Groulx told me Tuesday that the cost of home heating in Halifax today is not all that different from what it was in 2008.

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