Plans to ban the installation of new natural gas-powered appliances and mechanical systems across North America have stalled.

Last October, gas and building associations attempted to overturn a proposed ban on gas stoves and ovens in new buildings in New York State, arguing that the law violated federal rules regulating gas appliances. The ban was set to take effect in 2026 for new buildings seven stories or less and in 2029 for larger buildings.

In California, the city of Berkeley’s gas ban was lifted despite the city’s appeal, Ashli ​​Tagoai, general counsel for the Building Industry Association of Washington, rejoiced.

Regarding his state’s planned move away from natural gas, Tagoai said, “Washington’s de facto ban on natural gas as an option for heating and water is not only illegal. It’s bad policy, and it’s bad for Washington families. We’re fighting to ensure that homebuilders and the families they serve have choices about what energy sources they use to cook and heat their homes.”

Gas bans are also being questioned in Canada.

Vancouver voted last month to lift a ban on natural gas heating and cooling in most new homes, set to take effect in 2022. Affordability and choice were touted as being of utmost importance.

“We all love the environment, but we need a balance. We also have an affordability crisis,” said Mayor Ken Sim.

Will this stop the momentum of electrification? Not necessarily, says Daniel Carpenter-Gold, a climate justice attorney at the Public Health Law Center at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law in Minnesota.

Building performance standards that require existing buildings to reduce their energy use or greenhouse gas emissions over time are overridden by a federal energy law, Carpenter-Gold said in a July Institute for Market Transformation webinar, so they’re likely safe from lawsuits.

While the protests about housing affordability and choice are compelling, achieving Canada’s net-zero emissions target for 2050 will require a move away from fossil fuels in buildings of all sizes.

In addition, owners of larger buildings considering energy retrofitting face other realities, many of which are related to the expected duration of ownership.

An opinion piece by Smith Mordak, chief executive of the UK Green Building Council, looks at the ownership period of homes compared to buildings.

“At the household level, obstacles range from financial payback periods that extend beyond the time many people can imagine living in their current home to homeowners who cannot bear to clear out the attic to make room for insulation.”

However, owners and operators of existing commercial, institutional and municipal buildings who are considering energy retrofitting typically think over a period of 50 years or more.

For example, owners of Class B and Class C buildings that have been empty since the COVID years are faced with the decision of whether to demolish them, convert them into apartments, or undertake major renovations in the hope that tenants will return. And if they do renovations, will they electrify them or not?

In a panel discussion hosted by Transition Accelerator, Matt Poirier, Policy Director of the Building Decarbonization Alliance, said: “Electrifying buildings makes a lot of financial sense because the savings essentially start from day one.”

Delaying the natural gas transition will simply postpone the retrofitting problems, Mordak said. Complicating matters further is the fact that many regional power grids may not be prepared for the demand that will result from reducing fossil fuel use.

For example, New York State is expected to see a 50 to 90 percent increase in electricity demand by 2040. This increase is due to the housing and transportation sectors as well as numerous energy-intensive economic development projects, such as the City of New York’s requirement that parking lot and garage owners install electric vehicle charging stations.

In the short term, we can “lovingly wrap our buildings in insulation,” Mordak says. But in the long term, we need to “consider the nuances of things like the time it will take to upgrade the grid to meet the additional electricity demand,” he believes.

John Bleasby is a freelance writer. Send comments and ideas for the Climate and Construction column to [email protected].