Five to ten years ago, all 33 of the communities in the NWT had Community Energy Plans completed as part of the Integrated Community Sustainability Planning process that was undertaken & wrapped up by ~2010. In order for communities to receive their gas tax credit, they were required to create a CEP, either through a more involved/engaged process or a more straight forward template-based process.
A few of these CEP’s are quite detailed and were thoughtfully crafted. The community of Whati (2004) and the City of Yellowknife (2006) are the two most notable CEP’s for the NWT. Unfortunately, many of the CEP’s completed for the remainder of the NWT were done by way of a template, with the assistance of a consultant for 2/3 of the communities or Arctic Energy Alliance for the remaining 1/3.
As a result, the CEP’s resulting from the less involved/engaged process are not readily being drawn upon for many of the communities’ planning processes. The relatively high turnover in Senior Administrative Officers (SAO’s) and Band Managers also contributes to the disconnect with these past planning processes, if current Staff are not familiar with these details. The most active community connecting back with its’ CEP commitments is the capital city, Yellowknife, while a few smaller communities are taking various energy conserving actions, without directly connecting these to recommendations in their previously completed CEP’s.
You can see Yk’s CEP: http://aea.nt.ca/communities/yellowknife I don’t see any direct mention of local economic development opportunities in Yk’s CEP but I am aware of a variety of opportunities that have come about wrt these efforts such as the start-up of a whole wood pellet boiler/stove installation and supply industry and increases in Solar PV installations pushing for greater business opportunities to arise for local contractors, to mention just a few.
