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2. The Opportunity
A large proportion of our existing buildings are built to low efficiency standards. Historically, with cheap electricity and fossil fuel prices, governments, people and the building industry have given low priority to up-front investments that would reduce energy consumption over time. But long-term energy prices are rising as fuel supplies become less certain and as increasing costs and restrictions are being applied to carbon-based fuels. Even our very low electricity prices are rising as we face demands for new generation and old facilities face high maintenance costs.
For the past several years the government has championed and supported energy efficiency. The 2007 BC Energy Plan set ambitious electricity conservation targets. The 2008 Utilities Commission Amendment Act mandated that BC Hydro should implement conservation as a preferred resource before acquiring new generation resources. Meanwhile BC Hydro rolled out a renewed and ambitious Power Smart program for its customers, and Terasen Gas brought forward a substantial new conservation program. Government, through the LiveSmart program, provided significant incentives to homeowners and coordinated the delivery of federal efficiency incentives. These programs are steps in the right direction, but a host of opportunities remain untapped.
The August 2009 Throne Speech affirms support for “new jobs ... in clean energy and energy conservation [and] green building technologies.” A vibrant program of building energy upgrades would make a significant contribution toward improving prosperity, creating jobs and improving government tax revenues. According to the Apollo Alliance in the US, every one hundred thousand dollars invested in energy efficiency creates 2.2 job-years of employment. Those jobs are in addition to the greenhouse gas reductions and energy savings that go to the home or building owner. If BC were to retrofit 100,000 homes per year, the resulting one to two billion dollars in largely private investment per year would keep between 14,000 and 30,000 people employed.
The LiveSmart program was fully subscribed (at 40,000 homes) in fifteen months rather than the expected three years, proving that British Columbians are keen to rise to the challenge of greater energy efficiency. The appropriate next steps would be to renew and enhance LiveSmart, specifically to:
(a) expand the reach to approximately 100,000 buildings per year over twenty years;
(b) cover all buildings, public and private, residential, commercial and institutional; and
(c) upgrade the efficiency targets to the highest achievable.
Financing is a critical element. Making this renewal and expansion a reality is beyond the practical range of government incentives, and the current economic situation seriously constrains government spending. Therefore, it is necessary for government to enable creative mechanisms that will attract additional investment from a variety of public and private sources.