Thank you for the opportunity. I've been here for three weeks now, waiting for this. I'm only joking.
Thank you very much.
I run Global Resource Efficiency Services. We're a strategic energy management group. We operate across Canada. We're integrators and planners and we help clients implement energy efficiency measures.
We're now in Alberta where we have the highest electricity rates in Canada, thanks to deregulation. Lots of people don't like 22¢ a kilowatt hour. We like it because it's creating a lot of opportunities. We work on welding shops, high-rises, schools, Indian reserves, and on and on, because there's a lot of angst in the system right now about the high cost of electricity. Gas is still really cheap. Water is at times very expensive; it depends where you go. Waste is an issue as well.
For you, in getting right to the point of dealing with this topic, I see the federal government and the way it operates with its buildings operating in two different worlds, one where you lease a lot of space and the other where you own your space. I think more and more you are starting to lease more and more floor space. So how do you deal with owners who really don't care what your operating costs are and are passing on those operational costs to you? You pay them. You pay the electricity, the gas, the water and so forth. Really, I have only two thoughts on how you deal with that.
We deal with a lot of owners and tenants and leasing issues and so forth. The key to what the federal government should do on a policy level is to set standards of performance that you expect the owners of the buildings you are leasing space from to deliver to you. Do you want to move into a space that's got really high gas and electricity costs, or do you want standards of performance that set basic requirements for what you want to be able to pay for?
Do you want energy-efficient lighting in the buildings you lease? Do you want water efficiency and so forth? I think you have a lot of power there to demand that you deal with owners of buildings who will give you really reasonable operating costs.
The other thing you can do with leased buildings in general is make big improvements in terms of the building code. Provincial and federal governments continually run away from improving building code standards when they should be dealing with that, because you can solve a lot of problems.
When you phased out the T12 fluorescent tube in Canada everyone moved to the T8 and the T5 lamp, so a legislative tool like that has created a lot of changes in our system.
When you own buildings we really believe in utilizing something called AIM, audit, implement and monitor, where we deal with your buildings in a strategic way versus a tactical way. Tactical solutions to attacking buildings would be “I want to fix my lights.” That's a tactical decision and away you go and make the changes to the lighting, but you're really not thinking about what other impacts that change would have in your building.
When you remove old lighting you are really removing a lot of heating that's being generated from that lighting, so how are you going to deal with the heating and cooling issues because of that change in lighting? We therefore really believe in doing strategic planning in terms of how you're going to attack your building.
In the AIM process the first thing you do is get a strategic plan done. When you do a strategic plan you're looking at the capital renewal costs over a 25-year horizon, such as when you need to replace your roofs, windows, doors, the lighting and so forth. You have an analysis done on that and you see you have a lot of money to spend on building renewal. Well, energy efficiency measures can attack some of that problem. So if you have a plan that lays out and provides you with an analysis, you can then start to implement sound, really efficient decisions on how to move forward on retrofits for your facilities.
You tie capital asset planning together with energy efficiency measures. That is something that I think the bureaucracy within the federal government should be doing. That's a policy decision.
When you deal with the AIM process, you do the audits and all the planning, and then you move into implementation, that's where you attack the hard measures that confront you, i.e., the need to improve lighting, the need to do all of these different measures, and renewables and so forth. How do you that? As the previous speakers have talked about, if you don't have very good building managers and facility people in your system, you're going to have a hard time doing that. Training those people and resourcing them with tools and the money to do those changes is critical.
By the way, the money to make those changes is in the system. We really believe there's over 50% waste in our system, in our buildings. Give me a building and I'll find 50% savings. That's our philosophy and approach. One of the things I've been hearing about in terms of this committee is how you make these changes with internal staff if you don't have them.
Some people have been talking about energy performance contracts and utilizing ESCOs, energy service companies. That's an option, but when you choose that option, you have to know that you're going to be paying 20% to 40% more for those retrofit costs if you go that way. Those companies are going to be insuring the risk they're putting into the project. They're guaranteeing savings, and guess what? You're going to pay a premium for that kind of work.
Our belief is that you get the people in your system, have them available, and let them do the work. You bring in resources, consultants or whatever, to help them make those changes, but the best way is to have your own people make those changes, because they run them long term.
On the soft side of measures, and I like what I've heard already from the BOMA folks, is training of your building operators and providing them with the tools and resources on how to operate your facilities effectively. It can easily generate 10% savings.
ASHRAE has done peer review work on this type of work, and for sure, easily 10% savings can be generated in terms of how you manage your facilities. Involving the occupants, creating awareness programs for your occupants, and creating incentives and shared savings programs with them will also help.
I'm going to stop there. I prefer dialogue and discussion.
On a high level, do strategic planning; try not to do it tactically; do it yourself and you'll save a fortune; change the building code. Deregulate so that we have really high electricity rates all over Canada—I'm joking.