HomeOne hydrogen-heated home opens in Sherwood Park

From the outside, a new home east of Edmonton in Sherwood Park looks like any other house in a Canadian suburb.

But inside, the home’s modern furnace runs not on Alberta’s natural gas gas, but on pure hydrogen, making it the first of its kind in Canada.

Built as a demonstration and open to the public for tours, HomeOne aims to show that hydrogen gas can be safely and efficiently used to heat buildings and be part of the transition to clean energy.

The home is a joint project between electric and natural gas utility Atco and residential developer Qualico, who say their ultimate goal is to heat all 37,000 homes in Qualico’s proposed future Sherwood Park community in Bremner with clean hydrogen.

“We’re hearing from our builders that there is a lot of (public) interest in low-carbon living,” said Brad Armstrong, Qualico’s vice president of community development.

“Nobody is interested in polluting the environment, so I think it has broad appeal.”

Lightweight, storable and energy-rich, hydrogen has attracted a lot of interest around the world in recent years because it produces no direct greenhouse gas emissions.

In Canada, hydrogen development is particularly attractive in Alberta due to the province’s vast natural gas reserves.

Although hydrogen fuel can be produced through a number of industrial processes, including using renewable electricity, the vast majority of the world’s current hydrogen production is produced using fossil fuels, particularly natural gas.

Much of the excitement around hydrogen’s potential has centered on its usefulness in the transportation or industrial sectors.

When it comes to decarbonizing home heating, the focus in North America is on electrification and heat pump installations rather than hydrogen.

But Greg Caldwell, Atco’s director of hydrogen strategy and decarbonization, said hydrogen makes more sense in some jurisdictions.

In Alberta, for example, the province’s electricity grid is already under strain due to the rapid phase-out of coal-fired generation.

While the province has seen a corresponding boom in wind and solar energy production, the intermittent nature of these renewable electricity sources means that during periods of extreme demand, the grid can experience dangerous power shortages.

Forecasts show the province’s electricity demand will only continue to rise as more people switch to electric vehicles and the rise of artificial intelligence drives demand for energy-hungry data centers.

To avoid power outages during cold snaps and other periods of peak demand, Caldwell says it makes sense to look at hydrogen as a home heating solution rather than investing in a massive grid expansion.

Although this would require changes in legislation, hydrogen could be transported through the same pipelines that already supply natural gas to the population. And it would be much cheaper to do so than to build wind and solar farms large enough to handle those few days a year when extreme cold causes demand for home heating to spike.

“When you look at the scale of the challenge of creating an affordable yet low-carbon heating system, hydrogen is the winner in this jurisdiction,” Caldwell said.

Hydrogen home heating has been trialled in several other jurisdictions around the world, such as the Netherlands, with mixed results. Some people have expressed concerns about the risk of explosions or leaks in pipelines, although Caldwell said that if done correctly, hydrogen heating is as safe as natural gas.

He said the biggest disadvantage currently is cost. The cost of hydrogen fuel today is about double the cost of natural gas, Caldwell said, although he added that homeowners won’t see their utility bills double because the cost of the fuel itself is only a small portion of the utility bill.

He added that the dual hydrogen-fueled gradient furnace and water heater installed in HomeOne are also more efficient than a traditional furnace.

“I do think we’ll see fuel costs come down through competition and new projects being built,” Caldwell said, adding that several new hydrogen production facilities are currently under construction in Alberta, including one from Air Products and one from Dow. Chemicals.

Meanwhile, Caldwell said he hopes the Sherwood Park show home will help show people that hydrogen home heating is viable.

“Hydrogen development is just beginning,” he said.

“It may look a little scary from an economic point of view or even from a technical point of view, but we are telling you that we can do it. We can build this today.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 21, 2024.