Gas used to heat your home in B.C. is set to take a price cut, dropping bills up to $125 a year after the province’s largest gas utility received regulatory approval to adjust its cost.
The BC Utilities Commission (BCUC) approved FortisBC’s quarterly rate change to more accurately reflect market prices for natural gas — a largely methane fossil fuel used in furnaces in many B.C. homes.
Across B.C.’s Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island, where the average residential customer consumes 90 gigajoule (GJ) of gas per year, prices are expected to drop 7.73 per cent, or roughly $90 per year.
In Fort Nelson, meanwhile, residential customers consume an average of 125 GJ annually, and are expected to see an annual savings of 9.87 per cent, or $125.
The BCUC reviews Fortis’s gas costs every financial quarter to ensure the utility doesn’t earn a profit or mark up costs with swings in commodity prices.
The price changes will take effect starting July 1 and reflect an approved 25 per cent drop in commodity pricing from $4.159 per gigajoule to $3.159 per GJ.
Prices will once again be reviewed to reflect market rates in the fall. Supply and demand, global economic conditions and weather all play a factor in what customers end up paying.
Rate drop comes amid battle between utilities
FortisBC is currently looking to maintain and increase the number of gas hookups in B.C. homes. The company faces stiff competition from BC Hydro as many consumers choose to switch their home heating to electric heating units such as heat pumps.
Fortis, meanwhile, says it will increasingly offer options to receive “renewable gas” as a way to contribute to decarbonizing B.C.’s energy sector — a province where, alongside transportation, emissions from buildings often make up the largest share of a municipality's carbon pollution.
In 2022, the company filed an application with the BC Utilities Commission so every newly built home that wants a gas hookup would automatically receive renewable gas — a catch-all term which can include a combination of hydrogen; gas pulled from the gasification of coal, plants or wood; or methane emissions siphoned off manure, landfills, or wastewater plants that, once processed, are largely indistinguishable from fossil natural gas.
Some environmental groups have described renewable gas as a “false solution” that draws attention away from electric heating, what they say is a more sustainable, and over the long-term, a cheaper way to heat your home.
A city councillor from Vancouver recently proposed phasing out gas hookups in favour of electrification. That motion faced opposition from councillors of the ruling ABC party, which took power in the fall of 2022. An amended version of the motion cited “cultural considerations,” pushed off a gas ban in new builds and directed staff to explore other options.
FortisBC says making gas a key part of B.C.’s energy future would avoid expensive retrofits. In 2021, the company commissioned a report that claimed a mixed gas-electric future will still meet B.C.'s climate emission reduction targets and will save $100 billion.
Gas a bridge fuel or more carbon pollution?
Often described by advocates as a “bridge fuel” to wean the world off coal and oil, liquefied natural gas (LNG) produces about half the carbon emissions at the point of combustion than coal. Opponents, however, challenge that narrative, noting that the entire life cycle of gas needs to be considered for any fair accounting of how it contributes to global warming.
Unlike gasoline or oil, however, extracting and transporting gas risks venting it into the surrounding environment without combusting, resulting in “fugitive emissions.” When it leaks into the atmosphere, the methane-heavy gas produces a greenhouse effect more than 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period, according to the United Nations.
Methane emissions have steadily risen across the planet since 2007. By 2020, nearly 7.5 per cent of Canada’s greenhouse gas output came from fugitive methane emissions in the oil and gas sector, according to a national inventory.
But those numbers could be way off. One recent report found errors in the way fugitive methane emissions are being tracked and suggests current estimates are under-reported and should be over 90 per cent higher. Even renewable natural gas could prove "climate intensive,” one 2020 study suggests.
Indoors, a growing body of research suggests cooking with a gas stove is much more dangerous than once thought. A study released last week looking at 87 homes across California and Colorado found cooking with a single gas stove burner can release cancer-causing benzene particles to reach concentrations above that of second-hand tobacco smoke. Australian research has found cooking with gas is comparable to living with a smoker when it comes to the chance of a child developing asthma.
Meanwhile in Canada, a recent study across Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Toronto found an association between increased asthma rates and gas stove use, though one researcher described the results as still "murky."
Gas stove pollution bad for indoor air quality, studies suggest
Critics also point to a growing body of evidence that combusting natural gas in enclosed indoor settings can contribute to dangerous health outcomes. Since the 1930s, when the gas industry coined the term “cooking with gas,” the fuel has been touted as a more efficient way to cook. More recently, gas companies have even paid social media influencers to promote the fuel.
Citing industry group documents, some have claimed it's all part of a global “disinformation” playbook to maintain gas’s place in a world increasingly set to decarbonize.
The duelling visions have even prompted utilities to directly attack one another. In a 2021 social media feud with BC Hydro, Fortis claimed a renewable gas furnace would be cheaper to power than a heat pump.
“Did you know that heating your home with natural gas contributes to climate change?" BC Hydro tweeted in response.
"Did YOU know that by using 100% Renewable Natural Gas your home furnace could be carbon-neutral and still about $140 dollars cheaper a year than using an electric heat pump?" responded FortisBC.
That's when BC Hydro pulled out the Spiderman meme.
Correction: A previous version of this story made reference to a change in price for liquefied natural gas. The price change, in fact, applies to conventional gas.
