Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for this opportunity to present before the committee.
It's a pleasure being here today on behalf of the Net-Zero Energy Home Coalition. My name is Gordon Shields and I'm the executive director of the coalition.
Joining me, as you pointed out, is Bruce Bibby, the manager of energy conservation at Hydro Ottawa. He has been a great supporter of the coalition. I would be remiss if I didn't note that Elizabeth McDonald, through the Canadian Solar Industries Association, continues to be an active member in the coalition as well, and with her leadership, it was one of the founding members of the coalition a while back. CanSIA was really in at the beginning with the coalition. There has been a lot of progress with our activities and our coalition, but CanSIA has been an excellent partner in that regard, and so has Hydro Ottawa.
The coalition was formed in 2004 and has been working with various levels of government in an effort to raise awareness of, and encourage support for, the development and deployment of net-zero-energy homes in Canada. We represent a cross-section of stakeholders who are primarily involved in the new residential construction sector. Our organization has become the leading voice on the advancement of net-zero-energy homes across the country. We've held multiple workshops and forums domestically and internationally. This process has culminated in a proposed blueprint framework strategy for deployment of net-zero-energy homes.
That was probably shared with you in advance. I did give that to the clerk.
When we initially began our efforts, the question was, "What is a net-zero-energy home, and why should we support this style of home instead of just promoting our existing efforts behind recognized energy efficiency labels such as R-2000, Novoclimat, or Energy Star, etc?”
The most important aspect of a net-zero-energy home is the ability to produce, at minimum, an annual output of renewable energy that is equal to the total amount of its annual energy consumed and purchased from utilities. On the green building continuum, it is a transformative step forward that is happening in many countries and is slowly gaining root here in Canada.
I should point out that there are some PowerPoint slides that you might try to follow. They don't totally correspond to my remarks, but they will help give you a glimpse of the context that I'm talking about.
Most importantly, ladies and gentlemen, a net-zero-energy home is grid-tied. This allows for the home, and ultimately the consumer, to integrate and become part of the energy mix solution, enabling both a culture of conservation and a transformation in the way homes are built and the way they interact with our energy systems across Canada today. Indeed, the net-zero-energy home represents the potential for a paradigm shift in the design of energy policy and its interrelationship with Canadian homeowners: it's not just homeowners as consumers of energy, but homeowners as producers of energy.
While this step forward is taking time to take root in Canada, progress has started, and now is the time for governments and the private sector to begin accelerating larger partnerships on initiatives that enable cost-effective programming, capacity-building, and development of market-driven solutions.
The builder market in Canada is quickly recognizing that energy efficient housing alone is no longer sufficient as a means of diversifying one's products. Builders are looking beyond EnerGuide 80, once thought to be costly and difficult to reach, and are looking at the integration of on-site renewable energy options as part of the overall housing design. Equally, consumers are acutely sensitive to energy and operating costs in the home and are looking at alternative means for lowering these expenses.
I think we can all agree that governments across the country are grappling with the challenge of implementing effective policies that lower greenhouse gases and increase cleaner sources of energy production in the country. For too long, however, governments have directed most of their policy and regulatory attention toward industry and its large final emitters. This is only half the problem. The other half is the built environment: our residential sector represents 16% of our greenhouse gases and 17% of secondary energy use in Canada. If we are truly to find a balanced and holistic approach to these challenges of environment energy, more attention must be directed to the net-zero-energy home concept.
Net-zero-energy homes can address several issues when considering integrative approaches to community generation, including dual role of power plant and effective demand-side management; reduced dependence on expensive and imported peak electricity; reduced need for transmission and distribution infrastructure; an integrated approach to deploying available renewable energy technologies into the marketplace; and integrating sustainable living and community development.
As mentioned earlier, we're beginning to make progress. In our dialogue with governments we were pleased to see the federal government support a demonstration of 15 net-zero-energy homes, led by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and in partnership with Natural Resources Canada, Environment Canada, and Industry Canada.
Natural Resources Canada has been building international attention to its Super E net-zero-energy home label. Furthermore, Industry Canada is helping to facilitate a technology road map on sustainable housing aimed at addressing barriers and opportunities for improving the design and integration of net-zero-energy home principles and other issues such as waste, water conservation, affordability, and others.
Finally, through Canada's participation in the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development in Climate, we started working with the government on establishing Canada as an emerging leader in this area and leveraging the work of our coalition in an effort to build wider public and private participation toward innovation, technology exchange, and, most importantly, larger demonstrations.
Ladies and gentlemen, in this brief summary I've outlined some positive developments happening in Canada on deployment of net-zero-energy homes. However, the fact remains that a significant policy gap remains in the way we deliver programming for the residential sector. In particular, there is no program for new residential construction that helps transform our industry toward this next generation of housing. Such a program is important, as well as the need to support visible community-scale demonstrations that help address economies of scale and the learning curve associated with design integration at the builder and developer levels.
In conclusion, governments are doing good work on improving the energy efficiency of our current building stock; however, if we don't start turning more attention to new construction and developing a pathway to the principles of net-zero-energy housing, then we'll be continuously trying to correct the mistakes of the past.
The glass is not half empty, but surely there is more to do. I look forward to answering your questions today and hope this helps move us further in the coming weeks and months ahead.
Thank you.