Evidence of meeting #117 for Natural Resources in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was appliances.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Vice-President and General Manager, Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers Canada
Not at this stage.
Conservative
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
Not for the consumers, anyway.
Are the testing facilities for these appliances government operated, or does your association operate them, or are they independent labs?
Vice-President and General Manager, Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers Canada
Typically in terms—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Sorry, but I will just interrupt for one second to formalize this.
Do we have consent to let Mr. Falk finish?
Vice-President and General Manager, Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers Canada
Testing these appliances is typically done against a standard, and that standard here in Canada is developed by the Canadian Standards Association. In the United States, it's done by the U.S. Department of Energy. The testing can be done by certified bodies like CSA, UL, Intertek.... There's a whole slew.
Conservative
Vice-President and General Manager, Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers Canada
These would be independent.
Conservative
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
So it's not as though we're going to be faced with a Volkswagen situation at some point, where....
Vice-President and General Manager, Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers Canada
I would hope not. Here in Canada, every appliance regulated for its energy consumption has to be tested and certified by a certification body.
Conservative
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
I appreciate that the conditions and test parameters are now being standardized. I think there's a lot of merit in doing that, and obviously, as you've indicated with your two pieces of paper, it removes a lot of uncertainty and ambiguity about actual test results.
Vice-President and General Manager, Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers Canada
Right.
November 6th, 2018 / 11:30 a.m.
Conservative
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
When you consider some of the testing that's going on, and when you're talking to some of your manufacturers when it comes to energy efficiency, are you seeing some really cool, innovative things coming or developments in that industry?
Vice-President and General Manager, Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers Canada
One of the things I mentioned—and this is a very significant undertaking—is that here in North America, we are transitioning to a new refrigerant gas. We are currently using hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs. HFCs happen to be a pretty potent greenhouse gas. Their global warming potential is thousands of times more than CO2. We are going to be transitioning to a new technology. These refrigerants will be hydrocarbons: propane, isobutane. One of the things you will see when we transition to these new refrigerants is a slight bump in energy efficiency. That just has to do with the thermodynamics of being able to compress and expand that gas.
Conservative
Vice-President and General Manager, Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers Canada
It will be a positive bump. The products will be more efficient because of the use of these new refrigerants. That also depends very much on how the product is manufactured and its capacity, but in general you will see a bump.
In terms of using these hydrocarbon gases, they have very low global warming potential, on the order of one to three times the global warming potential of CO2, so they are a significant improvement over the current HFCs.
The one thing, obviously, is that gases like propane and isobutane are flammable, so precautions will need to be taken in terms of manufacturing. However, in both Europe and Asia, they have been using these hydrocarbon gases in their refrigerators, freezers and dehumidifiers for over 10 years already.
Conservative
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
I have one more question.
When it comes to the use of electricity—like for toasters, as you mentioned—are there any innovations coming there where we could use electricity more efficiently to make toast as quickly and efficiently as is done currently and consume less energy?
Vice-President and General Manager, Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers Canada
One of the things you are starting to see is the introduction of what I call smart appliances. These appliances will be connected to the Internet, whether wirelessly or via wire.
You'll be able to start to monitor the energy consumption. On your smart phone, you'll be able to do it. You'll be able to control it.
You'll also start to get smart grids. I'm sure many of you have heard this term. You'll start to get the utilities themselves to send signals to appliances to say that you want to delay the start of the clothes dryer cycle, because you need that power. You're going to delay that function or make it at half power as opposed to full power.
We're starting to get those sorts of interactions.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Thank you, Mr. Falk.
Gentlemen, thank you very much.
Those lights flashing on the wall mean we have to return to the House of Commons and vote, so unfortunately, we have to stop.
We are very grateful for your taking time to be here, and the fact that we're cutting it short is in no way a reflection of how important your evidence is to this study.
The meeting is adjourned.