The city of Montreal wants to phase out oil heating, first throughout municipally-owned buildings, and then in private structures throughout the municipality.
It's all part of a plan to reduce greenhouse gases and make the city carbon-neutral as quickly as possible.
Mayor Valerie Plante confirmed Monday the city of Montreal will force every oil furnace in the city to be shut down by 2030.
Oil furnaces will also be banned in newly-constructed buildings throughout Montreal by that date.
"Since our ambition to decarbonize Montreal's real estate stock is important, a collective effort is required," said Plante. “As a result, we will encourage all Montrealers to make the transition to a heating system other than oil.”
Plante said the city of Montreal will spend $4 million to replace all oil furnaces in municipally-owned buildings in the next two years, by 2021.
Industrial and commercial owners will have until 2025 to follow suit, followed by residential owners by 2030.
The replacements could be natural gas systems, but the city of Montreal wants to ban those by 2050.
“To better support homeowners, in this transition we might even be able to compensate differently in the near future, but we're looking at all these options. But there are already options. Financial incentives exist,” said Plante.
The provincial government already has several programs in place to help owners switch to a cleaner source of energy.
Three decades ago, almost one in five dwellings in the city relied on heating oil, but that number has now dwindled to only six per cent.
Heating oil, though, is the source of 28 percent of greenhouse gas emissions from residences, and 14 percent of commercial and industrial buildings, within the agglomeration of Montreal.
“Heating oil is just like coal, it's on its way out,” said Karel Mayrand of the David Suzuki Foundation.
