Thank you for inviting me today to share my perspective, opportunities, and interests regarding the Canadian High Arctic research station.
The Yukon Research Centre, located at Yukon College in Whitehorse, Yukon, is Canada's largest research and innovation facility north of 60. The YRC provides a broad array of programs and services with multi-year public and private financing. The Yukon Research Centre is a partner of CHARS now and is poised to be a key partner of CHARS well into the future.
The YRC integrates itself into all aspects of the pursuit of resources and sustainable development in the Yukon and the Arctic region. We are involved in information communication technology, mining, alternative energies, food security, cold climate housing construction, industrial applications, transportation systems, permafrost engineering, waste reduction, and synthetic fuels. ln essence, the YRC initiative can be pursued in a manner that improves the health and well-being of people who deliver northern economies.
A recent example is our resources and sustainable development for the Arctic program, or ReSDA. This program looks at the social economy of northern communities to find ways to ensure that a larger share of the benefits of resource development in the Arctic stay in the region with fewer costs to northern communities.
For the past 14 years, the YRC's Northern Climate ExChange has been a leader in the north, building the capacity of northern communities to identify risks associated with a changing climate and to help prepare for those risks. Several rural communities in the Yukon have benefited from these reports related to climate change, and the city council of Whitehorse has adapted these findings within their community development plan.
Four years ago, under my leadership, Cold Climate Innovation, CCI, was established through the financial support of the Yukon government's economic development branch. We are focused on the development, commercialization, and export of sustainable cold climate technologies and related solutions for northern regions around the world. The CCI supports the partnership among applied scientific researchers, industry, and government dedicated to addressing cold climate and technology issues affecting northerners. The mandate of the CCI is to stimulate economic development in the Yukon through cold climate innovation and technology. We focus on these two statements to build an economy in the north, by the north, and for the north.
I've come to understand that the CCI business model and the innovation sector that I represent today do not fit into the traditional or standard definition of economic development in the Yukon. In building the CCI, I've come to believe that innovation is the biggest opportunity space in the northern economies.
Over the last two years, the YRC has offered support to CHARS through four separate initiatives, including the following. Using our proven methodology to conduct a community energy audit in Yukon communities, the YRC conducted and completed a comprehensive baseline on the energy usage within Cambridge Bay. Now CHARS has a baseline of energy usage for the community that will allow comparative measurements into the future.
Other initiatives include new techniques for wind power installation in remote communities, wind and solar monitoring, and also a very important heat recovery ventilation, HRV, study that will place up to 10 HRVs from three Canadian manufacturers in various communities in Canada's north. Six of these 10 HRVs are presently installed in homes in Cambridge Bay. The project goal is to develop the specifications for the most effective and efficient HRV and challenge Canadian HRV manufacturers to build the best-of-class HRV. These HRVs will be used in the new CHARS residential facilities and sold globally.