We have a short presentation that I thought might be of interest to committee members. It gives a sense of the frame and what we're up to. It's entitled “Energy Efficient Buildings”. You should have a copy readily available. I will go through it quickly and would be happy to answer any questions that committee members might have in the following minutes.
On the front end, just quickly in terms of the broad context, because I understand that the committee has worked really hard on this over the past months, we have the pan-Canadian framework and its four principal components. The message to convey here is that we're squarely focused on implementation.
Of course, we want to make sure that the plan is implemented and that it happens quickly enough. To this end, we are all working hard with our provincial and territorial colleagues.
Slide 3 gives you a bit of a sense of why energy efficiency is such an important element of our strategy. There are some pretty simple reasons for this. First, when you look at it from just a principle perspective, before producing a new unit of power or energy, how about using the existing energy that you have readily available in your network? That is typically the cheapest way to produce it or to use it. We've added some numbers that show you the extent of the savings that Canadians could realize by using their existing energy out there more effectively.
The second reason we're focusing on energy efficiency in the building sector is that it's a significant chunk of our energy mix and a significant chunk of our GHG emissions in the country. The number of 17% is broadly used in our country to describe the size of the opportunity that we have here in this space.
With this short document, I'll briefly describe what the strategy is all about. It's called “build smart”, with five components. I will note that Minister Carr recently announced, along with his colleague ministers over the past couple of weeks, the envelope of $182 million that is specifically geared toward the building sector. That adds to other envelopes that some of our colleagues, including from Environment, might be at liberty to briefly describe later on.
Slide 4 describes the nature of the challenge. These are things that will be familiar to you, but I thought it would be useful to get it fresh in your minds in terms of the uniqueness of our country and our building environment in Canada. First, it's important to state that we're a fairly high energy user. There's good reason for this. Our country is cold, as we're witnessing these days. It's vast. We also tend to have in our buildings, in our houses, the expectation of a relatively fair amount of space for families and people to live. That's the way of living, I guess, in North America, but we have to heat those larger surfaces. That's surely a challenge.
I spoke about the cold climate, but we also have distinct climates. We have six climate zones in Canada. They range from those living out west in B.C., who have a fairly temperate climate but humid, to a drier environment in the prairies. If you shift up north, obviously you have a cold arctic temperature and a dry setting. Each of those climatic zones requires different solutions so that you're able to have your condo, your house, and your buildings well serviced.
We're also dealing with a great variety of energy sources from hydro, natural gas, nuclear, and other renewable energy sources, which are now taking a bigger share of our energy mix. Each of those adds some degree of complexity.
Last but not least, we're dealing with a vast variety of building types. We have single detached, multi-unit residential units like condos or rentals, office towers, and warehouses. We have the old and the new. You get the picture. This is a very diverse universe we're dealing with.
In the next slide we speak about some of the common themes, because it might seem, with such a disparate set, how will we be able to crack it? The good news is that there are some common challenges or common issues that come out. The first one I would emphasize is around managing heat. If you take it from a broad perspective, roughly 80% of the energy being used is to manage heat. Whether it's to do space heating, which is 65% of it, or water heating, that accounts for a significant share of our challenge.
I would look at it from two broad perspectives. The first one is producing the heat. Do you use natural gas? Do you use diesel? Do you use electricity to produce the heat? Are there more effective ways to produce the heat? Could we use renewable energy to do that same objective? All of this kind of universe gives rise to a lot of innovation and challenges and issues.
Then, how do you manage that heat? How can you make sure that the building envelope is such that you don't lose it on the outside? How do you make sure that your windows are energy efficient or at a very high level of energy efficiency? Again, how do you deal with equipment in terms of energy use inside? How can you make it more effective and more efficient? I would suggest that those two dimensions are certainly worth the time and effort.
The other big buckets, which are appliances and lighting, are the other big sources of energy usage. There are significant opportunities there for us in Canada, but also with our international partners, to adopt leading appliances and lighting technology to make sure that we're able to use less energy. As I'll describe in a minute, we have been able to make good progress there for a range of equipment and appliances in Canada.
Slide 6 describes the plans that I've introduced you to briefly, where we have committed that $182 million. Allow me to describe this succinctly. Our colleagues from the NRC will be able to speak in more detail on the first two measures, which are to make sure that we tap into those energy codes, both the energy codes for new buildings and the energy codes for existing buildings.
Again, from the big-picture perspective, if we look at the prospects for 2030, we see that roughly 25% of that building stock will be new. It would be smart from a Canadian perspective to make sure that those new buildings being erected are adopting the leading technologies in terms of energy efficiency. The remaining 75% is what you see today. If you walk the streets of Canada, urban and rural, you can see all the buildings that are there. Well, guess what? They're still going to be around in 2030 and probably for many years to come. How can we make sure that the building codes for those existing buildings will be, again, ambitious yet cost effective? We want to make sure that we develop codes that are both implementable and achievable for Canadians to afford—and for firms as well.
Again, my colleague Richard Tremblay will describe these more fully in his remarks.
The third measure is around awareness. We're lucky to have very knowledgeable and well-educated Canadians, but they need to have the basic information and facts to make informed decisions, so having the proper labelling and disclosure there is really important. There, we're working very closely with our provincial and territorial colleagues to make sure the information is available and easy for people to comprehend, so that when they buy a house and make that decision, they know exactly what they're getting into and what kinds of prices will follow as a result of that in terms of energy costs.
Next is equipment. I've mentioned just briefly adopting those leading standards for your typical fridge. Look at the fridge you have in your house today or that you can buy at a store, and then compare it to 20 years ago, which is not that far away. They are 60% more efficient than they were back then. They produce the same kind of performance, but they are way cheaper to operate. For dishwashers, it's the same kind of thing. They're 70% more efficient. Also, washing machines are 75% more efficient and use 70% less water.
We can see that the leap in terms of energy efficiency is quite considerable, times millions of units around the country, recognizing that those machines and that equipment tend to be replaced every 10 to 15 years or whatever. You can see that the potential in terms of energy savings for Canadians and for GHG emissions along the way is quite considerable. We certainly will pursue that going forward.
The last dimension, which must not be ignored, is the entire realm of research and development, and demonstration. We are talking about existing technology, but, of course, this area is constantly changing.
How can we make sure that Canada is at the forefront, while considering our specificities, including a northern climate and the expectations of our consumers, our clients?
The challenge is two-fold. First, it is important to develop new technologies, since this sector is prolific when it comes to developing new technologies that seek to meet various needs, and second, the costs must be reduced.
Here, cost is a critical component, obviously, to make sure that people can afford those new technologies. We're working extra hard on this.
With slides 7 and 8, Mr. Chair, mindful of time, I'll go fairly quickly. Maybe I'll just emphasize the goal we're pursuing in terms of the energy codes for both new and existing buildings. The goal there is to work very closely, as per the vision of the pan-Canadian framework, with our provincial and territorial colleagues with a view to publishing by the year 2022 a new set of building codes for both new and existing buildings, which will require extensive consultation with all of the players on the scene, with a view to having them adopted and implemented broadly by provinces and territories by the year 2030.
In terms of regs for products and equipment, it's the same kind of thing. We're working with our partners to make sure that we adopt leading standards both for products produced both domestically and also with our partners. In total for this envelope we've got $58.7 million allocated over eight years to do the job.
Slide 8 touches on labels and benchmarking, so I described the nature of the challenge here. We are looking to have those labels ready as early as next year, 2019, again working very collegially with our provincial and territorial colleagues.
There we have a few infomercials, if I can call them that, around some of the tools that are out there. Many of you will be familiar with EnerGuide, which gives you a sense of how much energy you consume in your house. You want to know that before you buy it, because you'll end up paying the bills every single month. There's also PortfolioManager: if you are a building manager and you manage shopping malls or office towers, you'll want to know how your building compares to the building next door. This kind of tool can give you a sense of that and suggests the action you can take.