Government Operations Committee on April 18th, 2013

[Robert Laframboise]

I believe that's not the plan currently.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

One of the things many witnesses have talked about over the course of this study is the focus on the building envelope. That tends to be the focus when we look at buildings. It's the insulation and roof, and then also some of the big machinery, the heating and cooling systems.

Can you cite any examples of conversions to alternate sources, renewable sources, solar and wind? Have any departments done things like that for any government buildings? I suppose it would make sense in a campus kind of environment more than anything—for example, a military base or something like that.

If there are any examples, putting aside any market distortions that might be caused by feed-in tariffs, do these things make economic sense in those kinds of environments?

[John McBain]

I can speak about two from my particular experience.

When we built the Jean Canfield Building in Charlottetown, at the time it had Canada's largest photovoltaic array installed on the roof. It is also hooked up to a district energy heating system, which is part of the leadership Canada needs to pursue as a leader.

We've also installed wind turbines next to RCMP detachments in certain parts of Nova Scotia where the wind is a very green and readily available resource. That is a feed-in capacity. When the wind is generating that turbine, for a fairly small detachment—when you consider the nature of your question—we actually do diminish the metre and can actually turn it backwards, depending on the day.

Those are the kinds of examples I've seen from personal experience in terms of improving.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Are there any examples of passive solar heating systems, as opposed to selling electricity to the provincial grid, which is really getting one taxpayer to pay another taxpayer? Are there some of those systems that have been put in place?

[John McBain]

I don't know if you want to take that, Geoff.

[Geoff Munro]

There's a technology that was developed a number of years ago called a solar wall. It's part of the CANMET Materials Laboratory, the new one built down in Hamilton, but we've also got a demonstration piece here in Ottawa out at the Bells Corners facility.

Basically, it is an external wall that is built and creates a gap between the building exterior wall and this passive solar collector. It's semi-permeable and it's coloured the right colour so that it attracts as much heat as possible. You can then draw that warm air into the building without having to buy additional energy. So it's a solar wall, but for heating, not in the classical case of a solar panel that turns into electricity.

[Carol Buckley]

In fact, across Canada there are 42 installations. About a third of them are wind, and two thirds are solar. But there's also ground storage, thermal storage, photovoltaics, and a number of things that were tested. I don't have an overall assessment of the economics.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

That's 42 on federally owned—

[Carol Buckley]

Federally owned installations.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

I have one final question. This is for Mr. Munro.

You mentioned energy procurement or energy performance contracts and that you look to issue RFPs for projects up to $25 million. Typically, how many years are those contracts for? What's the general size for a contract?

[Geoff Munro]

I'm not sure there's a simple answer to that, largely because the contract itself is designed in a modular fashion.

As a contract, the first obligation they have.... We, the department—I don't mean Natural Resources for everyone, but the department calling the contract—would carry what I will call a contingency fund, so the ESCO, the energy service contractor, would go in and do the assessment of the building. They would build up a suite of adjustments or major retrofits they would undertake, and each one would be costed. The department then could say it was interested in some—say, three or five—of the adjustments, so the contracts may be very short. Or they may actually go for a number of years.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

But the total contract value is up to $25 million dollars.

[Geoff Munro]

That's the max we have—

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Is there a floor, is there some contract value below which you're simply not interested?

[Carol Buckley]

It's about a million dollars.

If you look at the end result of Geoff's process, the average would be around eight years.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

I'm afraid you're over time. Thank you very much, Bernard.

I do have a couple of questions from the analysts, who have the difficult task of summarizing what we've heard in the last six months and putting it into a report. There's still some base information they would like more detail on. If I can put it to you, and if you don't have it on hand perhaps you could get it to the committee...it's an easier source.

First of all, if you haven't told us already, what is the total number of federally owned buildings and leased buildings, respectively?

Then, what is the total floor space of federally owned buildings or leased buildings, respectively?

I believe some of that was in your opening remarks, Mr. McBain.

[John McBain]

I don't want to provide a number that isn't the most accurate. That information is held in the DFRP, the Directory of Federal Real Property, maintained by Treasury Board. I think if you look on that list you'll see 39 departments identified as custodians of real property, and they will have the list of the number of buildings that each is a custodian of.

As to leased space, I can't speak for other departments but for our own, and I can provide that specifically.

Would you like that number now, in terms of leased space? We could work with the analysts in terms of—

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Perhaps you could work with the analysts to get that more specific information to them. Also, I'm told that the data listed at the Treasury Board is from 2011. Might there be more up-to-date figures?

[John McBain]

There may be. It would require canvassing each department, because PWGSC does not maintain an inventory of other departments' holdings. The DFRP is what is most commonly used.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

We do feel that it would be useful and helpful to have that. If we're developing recommendations as to what step we think the government should take, we need to know the state of the nation as it stands.

For further detail, there's other more comprehensive information on.... For the custodian departments, can you give us a breakdown of the number of buildings and floor space managed by each of the federal building custodians, or custodian departments; and for tenant departments, a breakdown of the top ten organizations by the number of owned and/or leased buildings by occupant or tenant.

Yes, I can hardly understand this myself. Do you know what I'm talking about?

[John McBain]

I can tell you the top 10 in terms of the space we provide. I can tell you our top 10 tenants and whether they're in leased or crown-owned buildings.

But with Parks Canada, for example, while I accommodate them in offices in Gatineau, they also own buildings where they have offices for their staff. So it's a mix. It's not a simple answer, as Geoff said earlier in another response. It is a complicated environment.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

It's not an easy thing to answer, I understand. It may be the case that we have to go to Treasury Board.

[Geoff Munro]

We may be able to help, if we work together and with the analysts, because we do track office space in the various forms that John is talking to for the purposes of tracking where energy efficiency opportunities may reside.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

That's why the analysts thought it might be suitable to put that question to you. If you're already doing that kind of tracking, it may save us time and research.

[Geoff Munro]

Obviously, we're happy to supply what we have.