As Heating Oil Prices Surge, So Does Conversion to Wood Heat

The cost of oil dependence is rising again this year for households that heat with heating oil and propane. Heating oil costs are forecast to be the highest on record this winter, and propane costs are going up, too. Increasing numbers of households are shifting to heating with wood.

In its “Short Term Energy and Winter Fuels Outlook” , the Energy Information Agency is forecasting that the average household expenditure for heating oil this winter will increase by eight percent ($193) over last year, “higher than in any previous winter.” The cost of heating with propane is forecast to rise by seven percent. Approximately six percent of households in the U.S., mainly in the Northeast, use heating oil, and five percent use propane for heat.
The prices of heating oil and propane have been highly volatile, hitting record peaks in recent years. Economic hardship has also been increasing. Perhaps this explains in part the rapid increase in the number of households that report using wood as their primary source of heat. The Alliance for Green Heat reports :

“Recently released U.S. Census figures show the number of households heating with wood grew 34 percent between 2000 and 2010, faster than any other heating fuel. Electricity showed the second fastest growth, with a 24 percent increase over the past decade. In two states, households using wood as a primary heat source more than doubled—Michigan (135 percent) and Connecticut (122 percent). And in six other states, wood heating grew by more than 90 percent—New Hampshire (99 percent), Massachusetts (99 percent), Maine (96 percent), Rhode Island (96 percent), Ohio (95 percent) and Nevada (91 percent). Census data also shows that low- and middle-income households are much more likely to use wood as a primary heating fuel, making low- and middle-income families growth leaders of the residential renewable energy movement. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, residential wood heat accounts for 80 percent of residential renewable energy, solar 15 percent and geothermal 5 percent.”

A key question is how many households are shifting to much cleaner, more efficient advanced wood and pellet heating systems, and how many instead are reverting to highly inefficient and unhealthy forms of wood heat. Low-income households could use more help converting to the cleanest wood heating systems.

For more information on biomass thermal energy, click here to see EESI’s briefing “Heating and Cooling with Sustainable Biomass Energy.”