Photo: Geoffrey Chevtchenko | Unsplash
In 2015, a group of neighbors in Montreal came up with a bold idea to slash carbon emissions and heating bills by installing a geothermal energy system in the shared alleyway behind their homes, so they could heat with electricity rather than gas or oil. This winter, for the first time, their co-operative organization, Celsius, is heating seven homes retrofitted with geothermal heat pumps. It wasn't an easy road -- the project was scaled back drastically because of a shortage of grant funding. And in the end, to reduce regulatory complexity, eight 150-meter-deep geothermal wells were dug in a backyard rather than the city-owned alleyway. While the demonstration project is the first such retrofit in Montreal and possibly in Canada, Celsius hopes to scale up and show that neighborhoods of older homes, built in the 1920s, can be converted to efficient electric heating.
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