SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - The Arctic Energy Alliance is advising Yellowknifers to consider all their options when it comes to heating their homes in the wake of DNX Drilling's bold claim it can reduce people's heating bills to roughly $100 a month through geothermal technology.

Nick Bevington, left, and Andrew Cunningham, founders of NAAS Enterprises, display the wood pellets that fuel the boilers they are touting as a cheap, green heating alternative to burning fossil fuels. - Guy Quenneville/NNSL photo

"You can't heat a doghouse for that," said Andrew Robinson, the alliance's community energy plan co-ordinator.

"We've done studies on the cost of geothermal heating using heat pumps, and we've found that it does produce a lot of savings, but it's probably not ... on the order of your heating bill going down to $100 a month."

The alliance estimated the monthly cost of energy needed to run a heat pump - for a house that requires $1,000 worth of oil a month - would be $465.

At that rate, it would cost $2,790 to heat a home that size with a heat pump from November through April.

By comparison, the year-round fuel costs to operate an oil furnace running at 70 per cent efficiency for a 1,200 square foot house - "a typical Yellowknife house" - is $4,150, or $3,060 at 95 per cent efficiency, according to a study released by the alliance in May.

Robinson also said the cost of a pump - which he pegged at $40,000, including installation - will actually deter most people from making the jump to geothermal heat.

"They are the cheapest way to heat your house - if you can afford one," said Robinson.

The most affordable alternative to a heat pump, in Robinson's mind, is a wood pellet boiler, a system that he said costs $10,000 to install and comes with $2,000 in yearly fuel costs, according to the study.

"(People) should look at all their options," said Robinson.

Rick Miller, general manager of DNX Drilling, said geothermal heating may not be as cheap as a wood boiler, but is more environmentally responsible.

"(The boiler) is an interesting concept, but that doesn't constitute green energy," said Miller. "We want to use renewable resources - something clean. Wood, no matter how you burn it, creates pollution. Some trees have to die to create those pellets."

Miller conceded that a heat pump would not be a cheap solution, but that it still fared better when compared to purchasing fuel oil.

"I can spend $40,000 up here in less than four years just in oil," he said.

Miller added that his earlier monthly cost projection for a pump was just that, an estimation, and that DNX's feasibility study will give the company more concrete numbers to work with.

"It's just a matter of us getting the technology to a point of getting the cost ... where it's agreeable to everybody. I don't know what those costs are (right now), but we'll figure out how to do it cheaply."

Nick Bevington and Andrew Cunningham, who together founded junior company NAAS Enterprises, say they currently have plans to supply three Yellowknife clients with pellet boilers, courtesy of manufacturer Pinnacle Stove Sales in Quesnel, B.C. They hope to extend their client list to 12 by the end of the fall.

Bevington and Cunningham believe in practicing what they preach. Their families share opposite sides of a 6,000-square-foot duplex on Niven Drive, which is heated exclusively by a wood pellet boiler.

They say it took two-and-a-half years for the savings produced by the system to pay for the cost of the $7,500 boiler.

"When we told people that we were putting a wood pellet boiler in our place, they thought we were crazy," said Bevington. "That was when fuel oil was only about 60 cents a litre."

The price for NWT fuel oil now stands at $1.36, according to Cunningham.

"The savings are pretty substantial, especially the more you burn," said Cunningham.

If the system has one downside, it's the amount of upkeep it requires.

"On a regular basis, you need to clean the ash box. But that's not that difficult a job. There's an ash pan you pull out and re-empty. You can reuse that ash in your garden. It's great fertilizer."

While Bevington and Cunningham say they're motivated by a desire to reduce their environmental imprint, it's not a mission shared by most of their customers.

"It hasn't really been the feel-good factor (that's drawn people)," said Cunningham. "People say they want to go green, but really they want 'green,' as in the money."