Buildings Projects

Connect with municipal staff navigating the challenges and opportunities of upgrading aging, inefficient civic facilities and buildings.

Retrofit Assist is a concierge service, delivered in partnership with local governments to supports residents with their home energy upgrades – from interest through to installation.

The Kootenay Clean Energy Transition (KCET) is a tri-regional initiative to build awareness and workforce capacity for a low carbon and clean energy transition in the Kootenays. The goals of the project are to reduce GHG emissions in the built environment and transportation, address key barriers to low carbon technology adoption, and support the low carbon and clean energy industries through workforce training. The guide was transformed into an online resource to make it more accessible to local governments making infrastructure plans that recover energy and resources from waste. Using Closing the Loop, local governments can access a multitude of information including technology, case studies and funding support. “Closing the Loop” places IRR into a broader approach we are calling “regenerative infrastructure”. The approach, and its name, is inspired by the concept of regenerative design, which mimics nature’s processes. In nature, there is no waste, as all resources cycle through closed loop systems and serve a purpose.

With a clear vision of the future, our collaboration endeavored to create a program that could help homeowners fuel-switch to an electric air source heat pump. Electricity in B.C. is >98% renewable and therefore almost zero emissions, fuel-switching will help communities achieve their 2030 and beyond GHG emission reduction targets. A Concierge service is proposed to overcome the logistical hurdles homeowners can encounter when seeking to install a heat pump, specifically identification of high-quality contractors and completing the work while maintaining eligibility for the plethora of municipal, provincial and federal rebates currently available.

We planned and facilitated a series of six focus groups for the City of Kelowna to support draft strategies for electric vehicle support and home energy retrofits.

With funding from the Real Estate Foundation of BC and BullItt Foundation, CEA is supporting local governments research and design a new business model that can transform the electric air source heat pump market. Currently, households interested in installing an ASHP system are largely left on their own to identify a qualified installer, ensure a quality unit and system design, access relevant information and resources, locate available incentives, and arrange financing. This project seeks to address the market confusion and information gaps this by prototyping a ‘One Stop Shop’ (i.e. Concierge) business model with a single interface for homeowners, offering both education and implementation services.

CEA staff managed and developed some of the early Home Energy Retrofit Campaigns in BC. The Rossland Energy Diet of 2011 was one of the province’s campaign leaders, followed by the Nelson EcoSave program in 2012. Nelson EcoSave is a long-term campaign, recently expanding into the entire Regional District of Central Kootenay as "REEP" – Regional Energy Efficiency Program. In 2019 CEA began managing the New Home component of REEP to encourage a regional approach to adopting the BC Energy Step Code.  The interior “Energy Diets” of 2013, managed by CEA staff, were Kootenay Energy Diet; Okanagan Energy Diet and the East Kootenay Energy Diet. Kootenay Energy Diet was funded by Fortis BC, Natural Resources Canada, Columbia Basin Trust and LiveSmart BC, with partnership of the participating local governments and community Credit Unions. The East Kootenay Energy Diet included partnership with BC Hydro. See Full Details for a summary of the early Home Energy Retrofit campaigns which provides some useful background information on moving forward on “deep dive” retrofit campaigns.

This report, prepared by the Community Energy Association, introduces GSHP technology, suggests options for encouraging GSHPs in the community, and illustrates possibilities for City involvement in the ownership and operation of GSHP systems. The report does not address the financial cost-effectiveness or technical considerations of installing ground-source heat pumps.