2012 Census Shows Wood Heating Continues Growth Streak

Alliance for Green Heat, Sept. 25, 2013 - According to recently released U.S. Census statistics, 63,566 more families used wood or pellets as a primary heating fuel in 2012 compared to 2011, which amounts to an increase of 2.6%, making wood again the fastest growing heating fuel in America.

From 2000 to 2010, wood and pellet home heating grew by 34%, faster than any of the other heating fuels, including solar and natural gas. Oil and propane use declined between 2000 and 2010, and the decline continued in 2012.

Today, 2.1% of Americans use wood or pellets as their primary heating fuel, up from 1.6% in 2000. An additional 7.7 % of U.S. households use wood as a secondary heating fuel, according to the 2009 EIA Renewable Energy Consumption Survey.

Nearly 2.5 million households use wood as a primary heating fuel, making it, by far, the dominant residential source of renewable energy in the United States. In comparison, only about 500,000 of U.S. homes have solar panels and less than 50,000 use solar thermal heating. Solar thermal heating dropped by 2% in 2012 from 2011, according to the new Census numbers.

The states with the biggest growth in wood heat from 2011 - 2012 are Delaware (35.1%), Rhode Island (29.6%), Nebraska (24.6%), New Hampshire (18.5%) and New Jersey (17.7%). However, other states experienced declines. Among the important wood heating states of Washington, Oregon and California, the decline was very small, but there were more significant declines in Illinois (5.2%), Idaho (5%) and Colorado (4.8%). Over a 12-year period, the prevalence of wood heating has increased, often very significantly, in every state except Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida and Hawaii.

Since the U.S. Census Bureau started tracking heating data in 1950, wood heating has had wide swings. Starting at 10% of the population in 1950, it dropped to 1.3% of the population in 1970, an all-time low. By 1990, wood had climbed back to 3.9%, only to drop back to 1.6% in 2000. The biggest growth story in heating fuel is electricity, which went from under 1% in 1950 to 36% today.

The environmental costs of using electricity for heating is high in most states, where the majority of electricity is still made with coal. The environmental cost of drilling and transporting other fossil fuels like oil and gas can also be high. Wood heating has an environmental cost from the particulate matter in the smoke, particularly from older stoves in more densely inhabited areas, and, in some states, from growing numbers of outdoor wood boilers. The EPA has proposed stricter emission standards for wood and pellet stoves and boilers and the Office of Management and Budget is reviewing them now.

Some of the growth in wood heating can be attributed to households that already had stoves, but now use them as primary heaters, instead of a secondary ones. Other households may have bought and installed stoves they found on the second hand market, which is legal in all states except Washington and Oregon.

The trend towards greater use of wood and pellets is mainly due to the lower operating costs compared to oil, propane and electricity. Three states – New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Maine – have provided generous rebates for pellet boilers to help residents replace costly oil heating systems and keep their heating dollars local. Maryland recently established a rebate for the cleanest wood and pellet stoves for rural homes that do not have access to natural gas.

For more info on 2012 U.S. Census data and on trends from 2000 - 2010, and more details about wood heat in the 2000 – 2010 Census.

2011 Census Shows Wood Heat Continues to Rise in U.S.

The number of American households using wood as a primary source of heat increased 1.72% this year, continuing a decade long growth spurt for the renewable heating fuel, according to the U.S. Census 2011 American Community Survey (ACS). The survey estimates that 2.11% of U.S. homes use wood-derived fuel as their primary heating source, compared to 2.08% in 2010.

While the growth spurt is continuing, it is also showing signs of slowing down. In the last six years, wood heat showed its greatest uptick in 2005-2006, growing 8.5% in one year. On average from 2000 to 2010, wood grew 4.5% each year, so a 1.7% increase last year may indicate a softening of the market. (Click here for update from 2012 census.)

The US Census does annual surveys based on sample populations which are then extrapolated to estimate trends in the entire country. The margin of error is higher during these annual surveys than during the decennial surveys where the Census tries to contact all households. The slower rate of rise in wood heat in 2010 may not be connected to the warm winter of 2011-2012 as that winter occurred mostly in 2012.

The ACS does not track secondary heat use, but it is likely that more Americans are using wood to supplement their main fuel as well. According to the 2009 EIA Renewable Energy Consumption Survey, 7.7% of American homes used wood as a supplemental source of heat and wood was the second most common secondary home heating fuel behind electricity. When more homes use wood or pellets as primary heat, the number of homes using it as a secondary heat source grows as well, as far as we know.

Wood heat changes at the state level 

During the past decade, several states in the northeast as well as Michigan, Ohio and Nevada saw the number of homes mainly heating with wood or pellets increase by more than 90%.[1] But of these eight states, only Massachusetts and Maine continued the upward trend in 2011. Instead, Hawaii (52.5%), Florida (30.5%), Delaware (23.2%), Wyoming (21.6%), and Idaho (19.8%) had the greatest gains.

The top five states for wood heating as a percentage of households are Vermont (16%), Maine (12.2%), Montana (8.8%), Idaho (8.3%) and New Hampshire (7.3%). The states with the greatest total number of households heating with wood are California, New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Washington.

Residential fossil fuel use declines while solar thermal experiences greatest growth 

In 2000, only 1.68% of U.S. households heated mainly with wood or pellets, but between 2000 and 2010, wood experienced the greatest growth of any fuel with the number of primary wood heat households increasing an average of 4.5% per year since 2005. Rising fuel prices and a federal tax credit offered during the latter years of the decade may account for wood heat’s dramatic upswing. The economic downtown may have also contributed to more people making the switch from oil or propane to wood or pellets, two of the most inexpensive fuels available in America.

While the residential use of wood rises, the use of natural gas, the most common primary heating fuel in America, has been declining since 2006. Once the main source of heat for over 50% of U.S. homes, it fell nearly one percent last year and is now at 49%. Other less common fossil fuels such as propane, oil and coal also experienced declines this past year, continuing a multi-year trend.

Other than wood, household fuels that grew during the year were electricity with a 2.5% increase over 2010, and solar thermal with an 18% increase, the highest of any heating fuel. While overall solar residential numbers are still tiny and there has been in overall decrease in solar heated homes since 2000, the renewable has shown the highest growth rate of any heating fuel since 2007. More than half of the approximately 50,000 U.S. homes heated primarily by solar are concentrated in California, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii.

                                  
[1] These numbers reflect the absolute per capita change in the number of homes heating with wood or pellets. They are not adjusted for population growth. See: http://www.forgreenheat.org/resources/press.pdf