Get back to using energy as efficiently as possible

Ontario was an early leader in developing programs that helped businesses and residents use power more efficiently with everything from super-efficient LED lighting and smarter motors to better insulation in homes.

Energy efficiency is the key to unlocking a renewable future

Tell the Ford Government to help people do the right thing by installing highly efficient heat pumps in their homes.

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These efforts cost just pennies per kilowatt hour and were much more cost effective than paying for power from generating plants or spending billions on rebuilding old reactors. They also saved businesses and residents money on their power bills, making them a huge win-win.

Now technology is opening up all sorts of new ways to save energy, particularly through smart controls that do everything from dimming lighting when no one is in a room to adjusting the output of motors depending on the job to be done. A particularly exciting technology is air source heat pumps. These function like big air conditioners that can operate in two directions: delivering heat in winter and cooling in summer. They are much more efficient than conventional resistance style (e.g., baseboard) electric heating and are quickly becoming an attractive alternative to gas furnaces and air conditioners.

The other great thing about efficiency is that it is a huge job creator that can boost employment everywhere in Ontario. Services to retrofit homes and businesses and make them more efficient are going to be in high demand as we seek to lower our emissions. Developing skills and technology around these services is a global economic opportunity.

Ontario has dropped the ball on efficiency

Despite the Ford government’s promise to lower electricity bills, it has ignored one of the most effective ways of doing this: deepening our energy efficiency efforts. Efficiency Canada notes the province is “losing leadership” on efficiency in part because of the revenue lost for driving efficiency efforts when the Ford government cancelled the carbon cap and trade program.

Efficiency Canada also notes that the province has withdrawn requirements to include EV charging infrastructure in new buildings and a program to expand EV charging infrastructure. EVs could also play a significant role in using power generation more efficiently and cutting the need to use gas plants to provide peak power through fast evolving Vehicle-to-Grid systems.

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Getting smart about energy use

There has never been a better time to invest in innovation in energy efficiency. Whether it is developing new technologies or ways to scale up and cost effectively finance things like building retrofits, there is a huge opportunity to both reduce costs, reduce emissions and create new economic opportunities and jobs.

There is no faster and lower cost way to reduce climate damaging emissions than by using energy more efficiently. Every “nega-watt” we create by using energy more efficiently is a unit of power that doesn’t have to be produced by burning fossil fuels and frees up a unit of clean energy to be used to replace power currently supplied by fossil fuels.

Other countries understand the opportunity that efficiency represents. The United States, for example, is currently considering a bill that would allocate $350 million to efficiency efforts across the American economy. It is predicted that this spending could lead to 3.2 million jobs, reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 4.5 billion tons and save energy consumers close to $300 billion.

Already, the energy efficiency sector employs more people in Canada than the oil and gas sector and we could see massive growth in employment if we embrace the need for deep building retrofits and other measures to combat climate change. In fact, one study found that if we aggressively ramp up energy efficiency efforts across the country, we could create 118,000 to 175,000 new jobs, on an average annual basis, between now and 2030.