The Government of Canada’s next steps towards improved energy efficiency in Canadian homes and buildings was announced in mid-July.
The $800 million dollar Canada Greener Homes Affordability Program (CGHAP) targets low-to-median-income home owners and tenants wishing to upgrade their homes to save on their energy bills and cut pollution.
The CGHAP is part of the federal government’s overall Green Building Strategy, and will sit alongside the Oil to Heat Pump Affordability program and the Canada Greener Homes Loans.
Together, according to the government, these can save households up to $4,500 per year in energy costs while reducing their carbon emissions. The government intends to go even further, committing to the introduction of “a regulatory framework to phase out the installation of expensive and polluting oil heating systems in new construction as early as 2028.”
“This new program will replace the Canada Greener Homes Grant (CGHG) with more comprehensive support for the installation of retrofits, at no charge to participating households,” the announcement said.
Third party, “direct install” management models will be overseen with recommendations from “experienced energy efficiency professionals,” delivering up to four times the support than previously available under the CGHG.
However, no details were provided as to how a third party process will work, how much money will be available to each applicant, or when the program will begin to accept applications.
Energy efficiency organizations in Canada expressed mixed reactions to the announcements, noting the lack of detail.
In fact, five weeks prior to the federal government announcement, nearly 100 energy and educational organizations signed a joint letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. They advocated the use of the performance tiers of the NBC model building code as the standard for federal funding across several housing programs.
Going further, they suggested provinces “receiving funds from the Housing Infrastructure Fund progressively adopt higher tiers of the 2020 and 2025 building codes, leading towards adopting the top tiers for energy efficiency and operational GHG emissions in 2030.”
Passive House Canada made recommendations and provided feedback on the draft Green Building Strategy, but expressed disappointment. While pointing to the government’s “solid record of programmatic solutions,” it felt the final version of the strategy “fails to push federal ambition forward.”
“The federal government has, perhaps in the face of uninterested/opposed provinces, high-costs or other political calculations, opted to not pay for this transition, or mandate others to act through legislation.”
Efficiency Canada (EC), an Ottawa-based energy efficiency policy analysis group, acknowledged that CGHAP “helps clear the way for concrete policy implementation.”
However, several shortcomings in the federal announcement would likely, “create some reflection within the green building and energy efficiency community.”
For example, in its more detailed reaction to the Green Building Strategy announcement, EC says the GCHAP “needs to include new public investments or clear regulatory pathways in order to deliver on the promising future suggested.”
Originally mandated in 2022, the Green Building Strategy “was to provide a path to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, including a ‘massive retrofit of the existing building stock’ and ‘regulatory standards and an incentive framework to support the transition off fossil fuels for heating systems.’ The published Strategy does not meet these benchmarks.”
EC notes several specific shortcomings, including the restriction of heat pumps to new homes and “certain retrofits scenarios.” They suggest this reflects a failure to define a wider approach to “a clear net-zero end state.”
In fact, while the phasing out of oil heating in new construction by 2028 sounds good on paper, EC points out those new buildings aren’t likely to choose oil anyway, given the choices available today. Better to use this policy mechanism “to phase out other polluting and inefficient fuels,” it says.
The lack of clarity concerning the proposed “national approach” to home energy labelling using “common standards, tools and guidelines” also lacks detail.
Perhaps with attention to feedback from energy efficiency experts, important details now missing in the federal government’s announcements will be outlined.
John Bleasby is a freelance writer. Send comments and Climate and Construction column ideas to editor@dailycommercialnews.com.
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