New Apartments Heat with Electricity, Cut Climate Impact

Democrats and Republicans rarely agree on anything these days, but both parties are united on one thing: America needs more housing. What neither side is talking about is the surprising environmental benefit hiding in those new apartment buildings.

According to a new report from the Sightline Institute, new apartments are "an almost automatic form of building decarbonization." Three-quarters of these buildings use electric heating instead of natural gas, meaning they can run on solar power or clean energy grids.

The reason is simple economics, not environmentalism. Wiring up electric heaters costs less than installing gas pipes throughout a building. Apartment developers have chosen electricity for decades simply because it saves them money upfront.

"If I am building something with the intention of renting it, I really want to minimize my upfront costs," explained Amanda D. Smith, a senior scientist at Project Drawdown. Electric systems just make better business sense.

Apartments are naturally more efficient than single-family homes for another reason. Residents share walls, floors, and ceilings with neighbors, creating excellent insulation. Units also tend to be smaller, so there's less space to heat or cool.

The result? The typical downtown high-rise resident produces one-third as much greenhouse gas as someone living in a suburban detached house. If you live in an apartment today, you're 60 percent more likely to have an all-electric home than your neighbor in a house.

The technology keeps getting better too. Modern heat pumps can pull warmth from even freezing outdoor air, making them three times more efficient than traditional space heaters. Maine installed 100,000 heat pumps two years ahead of schedule, and Norway now has them in almost two-thirds of households.

New heat pump designs make apartment installation easier than ever. One company called Gradient created a unit that fits over a window sill like an old-school air conditioner and plugs into a regular outlet. Installation takes less than 30 minutes.

Heat pumps do double duty by reversing in summer to provide cooling. As temperatures rise across America and heat kills more people than all other extreme weather combined, this cooling capability becomes lifesaving.

The Ripple Effect

When buildings go fully electric for heating, they often skip gas hookups entirely. That means new apartments naturally adopt induction stoves instead of gas ranges, cutting emissions even further.

States like deep-red Montana are passing bills to speed up apartment construction, focused on creating affordable housing and boosting local economies. They're not thinking about climate benefits, but they're getting them anyway.

Even as some politicians try to roll back climate policies, the housing push continues driving progress through pure economics and common sense.