Thank you very much. We really appreciate that.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to present on what QUEST—Quality Urban Energy Systems of Tomorrow—is doing to advance energy and innovation.
My name is Brent Gilmour. I am the executive director. I am joined here today by Mike Cleland, who is a member of the board of directors for QUEST.
We understand there is an immediate need to keep Canada competitive in a global economy in terms of energy costs, ensuring our communities are resilient and adaptable, and minimizing environmental impacts in a meaningful way. In the face of these challenges, integrated community energy solutions offer real value for improving efficiency, capturing lost energy, using all forms of waste as an energy source, and drawing on all types of local alternative energy sources.
QUEST was started by government, industry, academia, and environmental organizations to advance an integrated energy approach versus traditional silo thinking to energy issues in communities. As a national non-profit organization, we're working to make Canada a leader in the design, development, and implementation of integrated community energy solutions. For us, integrated community energy solutions are all about creating smart energy communities by linking energy to land use, buildings, transportation, waste, water, and related infrastructure. We are focused on mobilizing a national network of stakeholders to create and apply integrated community energy solutions. Our focus is on the importance of reducing energy waste, a central approach in the federal government's efforts to advance energy efficiency and innovation.
The solutions provided by ICES are wide-ranging. For some communities, this might mean capturing methane from landfills and using it to generate electricity. For other communities, it might mean taking advantage of solar or geoexchange systems for their space and water heating. The solutions are different for each community. At the end, they are all integrated community energy solutions.
ICES are happening, thanks in part to the continued and directed policy, technical, and innovative support of the federal government. Most recently, ICES was accredited in the report “Moving Forward on Energy Efficiency in Canada”, released at the energy and mines ministers' conference in Charlottetown, P.E.I. It concluded with the importance of ICES to advancing energy efficiency across multiple sectors and to a collaborative approach for energy innovation. This report and other studies by the federal government document the importance of ICES. More importantly, those involved with ICES are growing across Canada quickly, from industries such as manufacturers of solutions, such as GE and Siemens, to utilities doing new models of energy delivery, to academia who are training the next generation of professionals on integrated energy.
My colleague Mike Cleland is going to continue on with some more detailed examples and understandings of ICES.