Rethinking Lifestyle

In previous articles, I described our experience with several energy-conserving and energy-generating features in our new home. I described their return on investment (ROI) and total energy saved or generated. While important for homeowners, this kind of information is also valuable for provincial and national initiatives to reduce Canada’s emissions.

The recently announced (Canada) Greener Home Grant Program is an example. The program requires pre-retrofit and post-retrofit evaluations. It requires proper interfacing of thermostat, furnace and air source heat pump. It also requires certification of installers. I certainly agree with these measures.

The term “energy-saving” is used frequently in the Greener Home program description. While this is a positive descriptor, the analytical tools are now available to also estimate ROI and the overall effect of energy savings on total house energy consumption. With demonstrated positive ROI and significant overall energy savings for some features, these identifiers should be even more powerful incentives than just “energy-saving” in persuading homeowners to retrofit their homes.

Further, with these tools and sample numbers available, provinces could create other incentive programs, to encourage homeowners to invest in features that effectively conserve or generate energy. For our house, for example (Manitoba), solar PV panels show a lot of promise, but could be even more attractive with a favourable buy-back rate. Other features or technologies with promising indicators could similarly be encouraged.

Where homeowners, for whatever reason, will not invest in these features, third party investors could be invited to invest. Examples of this exist for solar PV arrays, for which energy production is easily measured.

It should be noted that Net Zero Energy is not the same as Net Zero Emissions. There are linkages, parallels, but also differences between the two. We chose electricity for all of the house appliances, including furnace, to reduce emissions. In doing so, one energy format is applicable to all of the house energy needs, and solar PV energy fits well with that format.

In a previous article, I noted that our solar PV system is not equipped to provide energy to our house in the case of a power outage. Some additional equipment, probably including a battery, would be required to make this possible.

House and car are already linked in that household current is often used to heat cars in the winter. Plug-in hybrids use household current to recharge their batteries. Another linkage may be on the horizon. The battery in an electric vehicle might serve as an important energy source for selected uses such as emergency heating the house. Apparently, one car manufacturer is already exploring such a feature for its electric cars.

The proposed Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, introduced in Parliament on November 19, 2020, proposes to formalize Canada’s target to achieve net-zero emissions by the year 2050.

The oil and gas sector is the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in Canada, with transportation the second largest. Light-duty passenger trucks and cars are the largest component of the latter.

The Government of Canada has a stated goal of 100% of all new light duty cars and trucks to have zero or near zero emissions by 2035. Present indications are that the demand for electric vehicles (all-electric and hybrid) is very strong, well ahead of production.

Hydrogen, because it has no carbon emissions when burned, is often considered a green fuel. However, it is simply a carrier of energy, since energy is required to produce hydrogen. Hydrogen is classified as blue, gray, or green according to the energy source used in producing it. Green hydrogen, the only one showing significant reliable emissions reductions, would require the use of a renewable fuel such as hydro- or solar- electricity.

Canada has a clear goal for light duty cars and trucks. I have not seen a similar goal for new and retrofitted houses, although the Greener Homes Grant Program is a good indication of Canada’s interest in this area.

I believe that as a result of what is happening in transportation and housing sectors, electricity demand in North America will increase dramatically in the next decade. Manitoba Hydro has or will soon have considerable excess renewable energy production capacity and is already selling energy into the United States. However, demand may soon exceed supply, and with hydroelectric dam installations requiring decades of lead time, Manitoba Hydro and other utilities may be looking for other energy sources.

Both energy-conserving and energy-producing features in homes would be much more attractive in such a scenario, especially with a house battery, for peak demand periods and during power outages.

An interesting outcome of this could be a push to go beyond a net zero energy home to a net positive energy home.