Vancouver, BC — British Columbia is taking another step towards transitioning its buildings to high-efficiency electric systems for space and water heating.
The Building to Electrification Coalition has released its 2026 BC Building Electrification Roadmap, which outlines steps to take over the next five years.
The coalition comprises 260 organizations, including major property owners, green builders, lenders, local governments, and other groups. The roadmap was created through the engagement of 200 stakeholders.
Key steps and actions from the roadmap include improving building energy efficiency by replacing conventional systems with heat pumps, reducing reliance on volatile international energy markets, stabilizing utility rates for users, achieving deep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by shifting from fossil fuels to clean electricity, shifting to systems that provide both heating and cooling, and growing the number of local jobs.
“B.C. could cut carbon emissions associated with buildings by roughly 75 per cent (from 9.7 to 2.6 megatonnes per year) by 2050,” as stated by the roadmap.
Last year, the province earned a “B” grade for its efforts to shift new and existing buildings from fossil fuels to clean power. This included municipalities adopting the Zero Carbon Step Code and introducing multiple retrofit accelerator programs. Additionally, the province reduced utility connection timelines and costs thanks to policy and process improvements.
Barriers remain among the four main building sub-sectors: existing commercial and institutional buildings, existing apartment-style buildings, existing ground-oriented residential buildings, and new construction.
As a result, the roadmap is calling for a province-wide transition to an all-electric building sector. Additionally, the roadmap acknowledges affordability concerns in B.C. by outlining ways to reduce the costs of electrification projects and their impacts on the electricity grid.
The roadmap also notes that dual-fuel systems that switch from heat pumps to renewable gas at below-zero temperatures can play an important role in mitigating strain on the province’s electricity grid during peak-load events.