Appendices
Appendix I
Framework Methodology
The Community Energy Implementation Framework has been developed as part of the Community Energy Planning: Getting to Implementation in Canada initiative. It has been informed by:
- An in-depth review of 50 CEPs across Canada
- Interviews with 33 representatives from the communities of the 50 CEPs reviewed
- Input from over 800 stakeholders through workshops and focus groups in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Québec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut79
- Desk-top research on community energy planning including topics such as the value proposition as well as the role of provincial, territorial and federal government
- Testing the Framework Strategies in three GTI Pilot Communities: Campbell River, British Columbia, Calgary, Alberta and the Region of Waterloo, Ontario
- Input from the GTI Advisory Committee and other expert advisors
Appendix II
Resources to Get Started with CEP
The following resources are available to help communities get started with their CEP.
Appendix III
Case Study Reference Guide
The following case studies offer best practices for operationalizing the strategies identified in the Community Energy Implementation Framework. Click here for a printable PDF version of the Case Study Reference Guide.
Case Study 1
CEP Renewal in the City of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories
The City of Yellowknife adopted a CEP in 2006. With a target year of 2014, Yellowknife aimed to reduce its corporate GHG emissions by 20 per cent and its community GHG emissions 6 per cent, based on 2004 levels. It budgeted $500,000 annually for energy efficiency, renewable energy conversions and public awareness. By February 2013, the City surpassed its target and the projects implemented now save the City an estimated $528,000 per year.76 One of the last steps initiated during the implementation of the CEP was the adoption of a renewal process for the plan. This renewal process included the development of a strategy for public and community stakeholder engagement to support the creation of a CEP for 2015-2025. Yellowknife has since embarked on a process where a new assessment of the Community’s GHG emissions will be completed and new targets will be established.
Case Study 2
Measuring the Widespread Economic Benefits in the City of London, Ontario
The City of London, Ontario has conducted an economic analysis to measure various economic impacts and potential benefits of implementing their Community Energy Action Plan (CEAP). The analyses, conducted in-house, demonstrate community-wide energy spending, the proportion of energy spending leaving the local economy and the potential to recirculate energy spending based on the implementation of their plan.
The approach undertaken and resources are available here:
- Energy spending analysis
- Video supporting energy spending analysis: Turning energy data into energy dollars
- The City of London has also produced infographics based on the analyses, available here
Case Study 3
Measuring Green Jobs in Durham Region, Ontario
The Region of Durham Community Climate Change Local Action Plan highlights the estimated environmental, economic and social impacts of implementation. The plan is available
Case Study 4
Measuring the Impacts of Sustainable Communities on Local Retail Sales New York City, New York
The New York City Department of Transportation created a methodology for measuring the economic impacts of improved streetscapes and active transportation infrastructure on retail sales. The study is available here: New York City Department of Transportation (December 2013). The Economic Benefits of Sustainable Streets. http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/dot-economic-benefits-of-sustainable-streets.pdf
Case Study 5
Framing the Value Proposition, Edmonton, Alberta
The City of Edmonton, Alberta (population 812,000) adopted Edmonton’s Community Energy Transition Strategy in April 2015 and a corresponding City Policy C585 in August 2015.78 The Strategy, which represents a renewal and upgrade of their 2001 plan, was approved unanimously by City Council. Based on extensive citizen consultation, the strategy includes twelve strategic courses of action and an eight-year action plan with more than 150 tactics.
There is a lesson to be learned in how Edmonton’s Sustainable Development Department communicated the need for the strategy. First, it was framed as a risk management strategy designed to protect Edmonton’s quality-of life from climate and energy risks. Secondly, it provided a compelling economic business case involving ten community-scale programs (for advancing energy conservation, energy efficiency and renewable energy uptake) that would deliver a net public benefit of $3.3 billion over 20 years.
Case Study 6
Establishing a Committee of Council in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories
The Community Energy Planning Committee was established by City Council on September 10, 2007, following the completion of the Community Energy Plan (CEP).79 The Committee is chaired by the Mayor and includes representatives from across the Community. The primary purpose of the Committee is to assist the City of Yellowknife in an advisory capacity to ensure the CEP is implemented and evolves in an effective manner. The scope of the Committee is to report and make recommendations to City Council through the appropriate
Case Study 7
Establishing a Governance Framework for Edmonton’s Community Energy Transition Strategy, Edmonton, Alberta
Edmonton City Council formed an Energy Transition Advisory Committee.81 Committee members serve two year terms and sets out to encourage and promote the strategy, provide advice to Council regarding the implementation of the strategy and assist Council in developing performance measures.
Case Study 8
Stakeholder Engagement in the City of Kelowna, British Columbia
In 2012, the City of Kelowna adopted a Community Climate Action Plan containing 87 actions to be implemented by 2020. Of those actions, 59 were assigned to the local government and 28 were assigned to community stakeholders, including utilities, provincial government and others. In an effort to ensure that community stakeholders understood their roles in the implementation of the plan, the City of Kelowna circulated letters to the organizations responsible for implementing actions in the plan. These letters enabled the City of Kelowna to move forward on implementing actions that are not within its jurisdiction.82
Case Study 9
Stakeholder Engagement in Markham, Ontario
In 2014, the City of Markham began to develop a Municipal Energy Plan (MEP). As part of the MEP, the City created a Stakeholder Working Group.83
The desired outcome of the Stakeholder Working Group is to provide recommendations and feedback on the development of Markham’s MEP including:
- Identifying energy opportunities and solutions to increase local energy production and conservation
- Identifying synergies between industry stakeholders to implement MEP recommendations84
Case Study 11
Public Engagement on Community Energy in London, Ontario
The City of London, Ontario has documented public engagement efforts in a document entitled Learning from People: A Background Document for the Community Energy Action Plan: https://www.london.ca/residents/Environment/Energy/Documents/Learning_from_People.pdf
As part of the development of the Community Energy Action Plan, the City of London undertook a campaign called
Case Study 12
City of Yellowknife Community Energy Plan Communications Plan, Northwest Territories
The City of Yellowknife Community Energy Plan Communications Plan describes a detailed approach for engaging with the public.86 At the core of the plan, there is a recognition that in order to reduce GHG emissions across the community, Yellowknife residents and businesses must change current energy use practices. This requires a shift in awareness, attitudes and behaviour with respect to GHG emissions. The overall communication goal of the plan is to inform Yellowknife residents of changes that the City of Yellowknife will make and to implement communication programs that encourage ongoing reductions in Yellowknife GHG emissions.
Case Study 13
Fort Providence, Northwest Territories
In 2007 and 2008 the community of Fort Providence, Northwest Territories (population 735), in partnership with the Arctic Energy Alliance, developed an energy profile.87
The objective of this exercise was to provide the community, and key decision makers, with a snapshot of energy use in the community.
The energy profile was developed to communicate a large quantity of energy data, including energy consumption, energy end use, cost of energy, and GHG emissions. Similar to any community that looks at energy use and costs per capita, the energy profile revealed significant opportunities to conserve energy and improve efficiency within the community.
Case Study 14
Halifax Vending Machine Energy Efficiency By-laws, Nova Scotia
In 2010, a series of by-laws and by-law amendments were adopted by Halifax City Council whereby a memorandum of Understanding was signed between the City and Refreshments Canada requiring the vending industry to voluntarily improve the energy efficiency of the vending machine fleet over 3 years. The estimated cost savings of the program were $500,000 per year and an annual reduction of 5,000 tons of GHG emissions. VendingMisers installed on the vending machines resulted in a 25-50 percent reduction in energy consumption per machine.88
Case Study 15
Net Zero Community in London, Ontario
West Five (www.west5.ca) is a 70 acre, mixed-use site located in London, Ontario. The site is being developed by Sifton Properties, in partnership with S2E Technologies. When completed, the neighbourhood will include 2,000 residential units, commercial and retail space, and parkland. The development will include a number of Smart Energy Community Principles,89 including energy efficient buildings (e.g. the use of enhanced insulation), the use of renewable energy resources (e.g. solar shingles) and matching land use needs and mobility options (e.g. siting services such as grocery stores at community terminals nodes). The site will include London’s first net-zero office building and net zero townhomes.
Read the Community Energy Knowledge Action Partnership case study here.
Case Study 16
Monitoring and Reporting on Implementation Progress in the City of Guelph, Ontario
CEP reporting is coordinated annually by the Community Energy division of the Business Development and Enterprise department, and presented to the Corporate Administration, Finance & Enterprise Committee (this Committee is appointed by Council and made up of Councillors). A dashboard is used to display progress within eight key activity categories, plus a description of the status for each individual activity.
See the Guelph Community Energy Plan here.
Case Study 17
Monitoring and Reporting on CEP Implementation in the City of London, Ontario
The City of London Community Energy Action Plan (CEAP) was adopted in 2014. Alongside the plan, the City of London developed a background document describing a methodology for monitoring and reporting on community energy use. The background document describes a methodology for developing annual energy and emissions inventories. The document describes how the City of London will also work with stakeholders to develop new Key Performance Indicators, including economic, transportation, and energy performance indicators. The results from energy and emissions inventories, and other Key Performance Indicators will be included in an annual progress report outlining implementation progress of the CEAP.90
Case Study 18
Efficiency One, Nova Scotia
Efficiency One in Nova Scotia, formerly Efficiency Nova Scotia, has provided on-site energy managers for organizations such as Cape Breton University, Capital District Health Authority, Dalhousie University and Nova Scotia Community College. These embedded energy managers help to identify and coordinate projects to achieve substantial energy efficiency savings. For example after first six months of the partnership between Efficiency One and Capital Health in 2012, several projects were initiated totalling savings of $118,000 per year.91
Case Study 19
Community Energy Planning Alternatives for Small Communities – Eco-Ouest
Eco-Ouest, led in partnership with CDEM, SSD, has developed a program designed to help provide expertise to smaller municipalities in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta that face resource and capacity constraints for CEP development and implementation. Eco-Ouest has partnered with rural municipalities in each of these provinces to create energy and GHG emissions inventories and Climate Change Local Action Plans such as the inventory for the Rural Municipality of St. Clements and plans for the Rural Municipality of Saint-Laurent and Rural Municipality of Taché. CDEM also incorporates a regional perspective by comparing neighbouring communities’ energy and emissions performances and sharing successful projects and case studies.92CDEM. (n.d.). Eco-West. Retrieved from CDEM Website: http://www.cdem.com/en/sectors/green-economy-1/eco-west
Case Study 20
Yukon Energy Solutions Centre
The Yukon Energy Solutions Centre is part of the Energy branch in the Government of Yukon Department of Energy, Mines and Resources.
The Energy Solutions Centre offers community-level energy services to such as:
- Providing technical information and financial incentives to encourage the use of energy efficient appliances and heating systems at the local level
- Providing comprehensive energy planning services, including energy baseline assessments and policy reviews
- Providing training courses to build local technical capacity to implement community energy plans and projects
- Participating in outreach and public education on the health, safety, economic and environmental benefits of energy efficiency and renewable energy
To learn more about the Energy Solutions Centre visit http://www.energy.gov.yk.ca/about-the-energy-branch.html
Case Study 21
Integrated Financial Planning in the City of Coquitlam, British Columbia
Coquitlam’s award-winning integrated financial planning framework is comprised of three separate but complementary planning processes. These processes result in a set of integrated plans that support the overall vision and mission of the City and align activities and resources to achieve the strategic goals and annual business plan priorities set by Council.
- Council’s Strategic Plan – aspirational, future-looking plan, updated every four years following the municipal election. It articulates the vision, mission, values and broad strategic goals.
Progress of the plan is monitored through an annual review of key performance measures and accomplishments - Business Plan – translates the
high level strategic goals into annual business plan work items and priorities, established by Council. A set of performance measures are reviewed annually to monitorsuccess of the business plan - Financial Plan – provides the resourcing strategy to support the strategic and business plans. Updated annually, it is a five-year plan that includes both operating and capital components
Evaluation of achievements informs the next cycle of planning. For example, the City’s performance is reviewed every four months with a Trimester Report to Council. It includes an update on the progress of the work items under the Business Plan priorities and a review of operating and capital budget variances, labour vacancies, economic indicators including construction and development activities, and major spending during the trimester. The intent of the report is to view the City’s activities and progress balanced with the status of the City’s financial and human resources.
In this model, it is important that staff responsible for developing and implementing the CEP ensure that its goals and actions are reflected in Council’s (strategic) plan and that these goals and actions maintain a high profile throughout the budgeting/financial plan process.
See the Strategic Plan here: City of Coquitlam (2012). 2012-2015 Strategic Plan. http://www.coquitlam.ca/docs/
Case Study 22
Parking Incentives in Hamilton, Ontario
The City of Hamilton amended its Zoning By-law to support a transit-oriented multi-residential building, reducing parking space requirements from 1 space per unit in a multi-unit residential dwellings to 0.47 parking spaced per unit due to the building being located in a transit-oriented neighborhood.93
Appendix IV
Provincial & Territorial Organizations that may have Resources to Support CEPs
One of the greatest success factors to CEP implementation is engaging with other communities and with organizations that have the tools needed to accelerate implementation. The following organizations and communities of practice may have information available to help find the tools needed to implement particular aspects of your CEP.
National
- Natural Resources Canada – https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/energy/efficiency/communities-infrastructure
- Canadian Energy Research Institute (CERI) – http://www.ceri.ca/
- Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) – www.fcm.ca/home.htm
- The Natural Step – http://www.naturalstep.ca/
- Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) – https://www.sdtc.ca/en
- Sustainable Cities – http://sustainablecities.net/
British Columbia
- Community Energy Association (CEA) – communityenergy.bc.ca
- QUEST BC Caucus – https://www.questcanada.org/caucus/bc
- BC Mayor’s Climate Leadership Council – http://communityenergy.bc.ca/bcmclc/
- Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) – http://www.ubcm.ca/
- Planning Institute of British Columbia (PIBC) – https://www.pibc.bc.ca/
- BC Climate Action Toolkit – http://www.toolkit.bc.ca/
Alberta
- QUEST Alberta Caucus – https://www.questcanada.org/caucus/ab
- Alberta Energy Efficiency Alliance (AEEA) – http://www.aeea.ca/
- Alberta Professional Planners Institute (APPI) – http://www.albertaplanners.com/
- Alberta Council for Environmental Education (ACEE) – http://www.abcee.org/
- Alberta Urban Municipalities Association (AUMA) – http://www.auma.ca/
- Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties (AAMDC) – http://www.aamdc.com/
- Alberta Innovates – http://www.ai-ees.ca/
- Municipal Climate Change Action Centre (MCCAC) – www.mccac.ca
Saskatchewan
- Eco-Ouest – http://eco-ouest.com/en/
- Conseil de la Coopération de la Saskatchewan (CCS) – http://ccs-sk.ca/
- Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) – http://www.src.sk.ca/industries/energy/pages/default.aspx
- Saskatchewan Professional Planners Institute (SPPI) – http://sppi.ca/
- Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA) – http://www.suma.org/
- Saskatchewan Economic Development Association (SEDA) – http://www.seda.sk.ca/index.cfm
- First Nations Power Authority of Saskatchewan (FNPA) – http://www.fnpa.ca/
Manitoba
- Conseil de développement économique des municipalities billingues du Manitoba (CDEM) Eco-West – http://eco-ouest.com/en/
- Manitoba Professional Planners Institute – http://www.mppi.mb.ca/
Ontario
- QUEST Ontario Caucus – www.questcanada.org/caucus/on
- Ontario Professional Planners Institute – http://ontarioplanners.ca/
- Association of Municipalities of Ontario – www.amo.on.ca/
- Clean Air Partnership – http://www.cleanairpartnership.org/
Québec
- Agence de l’efficacité énergétique – https://mern.gouv.qc.ca/en/
- Association Québécoise pour la maîtrise de l’energie (AQME) – https://mern.gouv.qc.ca/en/
- Énergir chaleur et climatisation urbaines – https://www.energir.com/fr/a-propos/medias/nouvelles/eccu-devient-le-partenaire-energetique-de-ets/
- Conseil Patronal de l’Environnement du Québec (CPEQ) – http://www.cpeq.org/fr
- Fédération Québécoise des Municipalités – http://fqm.ca/
- L’Ordre des Urbanistes du Québec – http://www.ouq.qc.ca/
- QUEST Caucus du Québec – https://www.questcanada.org/fr/caucus/qc
- Regroupement national des conseils régionaux de l’environnement (RNCREQ) – http://www.rncreq.org/
- Hydro Québec – http://www.hydroquebec.com/promoteurs/developpementurbaindurable/
Atlantic Provinces
- QUEST Nova Scotia Caucus – https://www.questcanada.org/caucus/ns
- Nova Scotia Federation of Municipalities (NSFM) – https://www.nsfm.ca/
- QUEST New Brunswick Caucus – https://www.questcanada.org/caucus/nb
- Association of Municipal Administrators of New Brunswick – http://www.amanb-aamnb.ca/
- Atlantic Planning Institute – http://www.atlanticplanners.org/
- Clean Foundation – clean.ns.ca
- Ecology Action Centre – https://www.ecologyaction.ca
- EOS Eco-Energy – eosecoenergy.com
Territories
- QUEST North Caucus – https://www.questcanada.org/caucus/north
- Yukon Energy Branch – http://www.energy.gov.yk.ca/publications.html
- Association of Yukon Communities – http://www.ayc-yk.ca/
- Council of Yukon First Nations – http://cyfn.ca/
- Yukon Conservation Society – http://www.yukonconservation.org/energy_climate_change.htm
- Yukon Research Centre – http://yukoncollege.yk.ca/research
- Arctic Energy Alliance – aea.nt.ca
- NWT Association of Communities (NWTAC) – http://www.nwtac.com/
- Nunavut Association of Municipalities (NAM) – http://www.nmto.ca/governance/nunavutassociation-municipalities