Evidence of meeting #13 for Natural Resources in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was homes.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Executive Director, Canadian Solar Industries Association
The report Bruce is talking about is also very important. It gives excellent examples and deals with our climate. This is a place where this government can really show some leadership.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Alan Tonks
If you could forward that to the clerk, it would be helpful. Thank you.
Mr. Shory.
Conservative
Devinder Shory Conservative Calgary Northeast, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First of all, I'd like to thank each of the witnesses for being here.
Does anyone know which country is the leader in the renewable energy sector?
Executive Director, Canadian Solar Industries Association
It is phenomenal to go there. It is breathtaking what they've done in their commitment to renewable energy and the job creation that it produces. They've integrated it into some of the most architecturally stupendous buildings I've ever seen. It is efficient, it's driving economic activity, and it has created some beautiful buildings.
Representative, Manager, Energy Conservation, Hydro Ottawa Limited, Net-Zero Energy Home Coalition
Germany started this process about 1990, just to give you a perspective on how long it took to get from where they started to where they are today. It took about 20 years.
Conservative
Devinder Shory Conservative Calgary Northeast, AB
Do they apply this system to individual homes as well?
Executive Director, Canadian Solar Industries Association
Yes, they do. They're particularly known for what they do in photovoltaics and solar. But they are also leaders in solar thermal, which is important to the use of natural gas. They're developing this energy source for reasons of energy security, perhaps because of some of the problems they've had with Russia, and they are converting 95,000 households a year to solar thermal technology.
Conservative
Devinder Shory Conservative Calgary Northeast, AB
Wow!
Ms. McDonald, in your opening remarks I heard a comment that Canada is behind some other countries and we need to do more. Recently, our government announced a home renovation program that gives homeowners tax credits for renovating homes, and this includes renovations to make the homes more energy efficient. Do you think this policy will encourage consumers to adopt energy efficient practices? Will it promote the renewable energy sector?
Executive Director, Canadian Solar Industries Association
First of all, it is absolutely outstanding that new moneys have been made available. In addition to that, the Minister of Natural Resources just announced, I think earlier this week, money for solar thermal retrofit. Taken together with some of the provinces matching it, I think solar thermal technology will be something you'll see in many of the provinces across the country within two years. But it's a very fast turn and there are a lot of issues that have to be addressed. That's why I talk about an umbrella framework policy, because it has to take into consideration educating people.
Before I took this job, I didn't even know you could heat water with solar energy. There are a lot of things Canadians don't know, and we did work in Ontario on that. We spent a lot of time informing consumers. It's what they don't know. So we will move forward in the next two years, but we don't have that framework to keep it going. We don't want to create something that's up here and then have the various industries, not just solar, fall off the edge.
Also, because it has happened so suddenly with this economic downturn, we have capacity issues to address. We'd already started working with Natural Resources Canada, which is very generously underwriting the creation of curriculum for solar thermal and solar photovoltaic installers for community colleges. But by the time these programs come and go, I hope we don't find ourselves with programs that aren't taken up to the degree they should be because of the short time constraints.
That said, I understand why we're doing it.
The really important thing to remember as you look forward is that for any of us here, while we think it's important, the market is my sons, my 22- and 28-year-old sons. That's what they want; that's what they're going to be looking for.
Can we drive down the price? I think we can. Can we work with the building industry? On the Ontario solar task force, one of the things we learned in working with the building community was absolutely the issue of what happens when people come to buy a house. How well educated are the real estate people? How well educated are the people selling in new communities?
You can have the homes ready, you can have a lot of programs ready, but perhaps there isn't the education there. So you need a framework. We need to bring everybody to the table. That's a role for the federal government. We need to have a smart grid. That's a role for the federal government to play. We also absolutely need to start seeing more federal buildings consistently adopting renewable energy as part of how they move forward.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Alan Tonks
I'm sorry, but we're out of time.
Thank you, Ms. McDonald.
Mr. McColeman, you have five minutes.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brant, ON
I'm going to switch gears here, because we're talking a lot about residential housing. What about commercial industrial construction? I'd like the reaction of pretty much all of you to the LEED standards and the fact that they are being promoted in the building of federal buildings and infrastructure dollars going out. Are LEED standards in commercial construction useful?
Executive Director, Pollution Probe
What I find interesting about the LEED standards is that they're not regulated. No one is being forced to comply with LEED standards.
It's a voluntary standard. It's kind of like Energy Star. When people buy a refrigerator, they are buying into something that they want to feel proud of.
Buildings are using it as part of their branding, frankly. They want to be known in the community as a LEED standard. So it incorporates all kinds of motivations beyond just whatever cost savings over the lifetime of the building might be accrued.
Executive Director, Canadian Solar Industries Association
I think it's a combination of the standards, and you're right, it is part of branding. If that makes people adopt LEED platinum, gold, or silver, then that, from our perspective, is good, but the other part is cost.
I think you're going to see some of that with feed-in tariffs being introduced in Ontario, for example. I'm think you're going to see solar on buildings—“big box solar”, as we call it. You're going to see more of that. So it's not just the building standard; it's also an incentive.
The established energy sources have their incentives embedded in them, so everybody has forgotten that they've been there for 100 years. I think the combination of the standard and support programs then will, in the case of solar, lead to the holy grail of grid parity. I'm here to talk about it on behalf of our industry, but I think you will see that with other technologies as well. It's going to need the same kind of push that the traditional energy sources had before as well.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brant, ON
Would any of you prefer to see that regulated and enforced as a policy standard?
Chair, Olds College School of Innovation, Centre for Agricultural Renewable Energy and Sustainability (CARES)
At our college, we have a new initiative with the Community Learning Campus, which is a big one. From my personal experience there, I would not say that LEED should be something we are going to enforce. Various things are so ambiguous in that LEED certification, everything from the type of water you use to other things. I would suggest that maybe we should get people in the industry together, whether builders, suppliers, or even some government people. Let's set our own standard and go with that.
Liberal
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Oliver, did you get a chance to talk about those gas pressure drops? I think you're anxious to do so, so here's your chance.
Executive Director, Pollution Probe
I'm surprised no one has been asking about this. This is a great thing. Big, fat gas pipes bring natural gas to the edge of the community. It's high pressure. Then it gets stepped down to low pressure so it doesn't blow the caps off the pipes in people's homes. In the process of taking it from high pressure down to low pressure, the second law of thermodynamics requires that the energy internal in the fluid has to be maintained, so it goes up in temperature as the pressure comes down. That's a consequence of that law.
It draws energy, heat, from the dirt surrounding the pipe. It freezes the earth, cracks the pipe, and causes all kinds of damage, so what they do is burn natural gas to preheat it before it goes through a pressure drop. It's waste upon waste. This is an example of a technology that would be represented in an integrated urban energy system. Enbridge is proposing to put a turbine in the gas flow. Rather than have it draw energy from the surrounding earth as it goes down in pressure, it converts the energy in the pressure into electricity.
You step down the pressure in the pipe by running that high-pressure gas through a turbine so it comes down to the proper level of pressure that's needed to feed the residential community. Then that electricity that's generated by the spinning turbine, just like in a power plant, can be used to power industrial processes, the grid, or the homes directly. It's just identifying an opportunity in the standard ways of doing things. Business as usual is an obstacle to doing things that are innovative and logical.