Community Energy Planning:

Transcription

1 Community Energy Planning: A Guide to Reducing Environmental Impacts in your Community Your Community Your Environment Your Energy Plan

2 Reducing energy starts with the leadership of Municipal Council and staff. Without the support of the community and municipality, the early adopters who bike to work, install solar panels and grow their own vegetables will not be able to make a significant difference. Only when those energy reducing measures are accepted, encouraged and emulated, can a community s environmental impact be notably reduced. When the entire community is involved with reducing energy consumption, everyone feels a part of the process. If every resident has a stake in helping a community meet its energy reduction targets, the odds of achieving them grow. Creating a Community Energy Plan (CEP) is the first step in the reducing energy consumption. Setting goals and involving the entire community is vital. Use this guide to help you in the process of creating a unique community energy plan tailored to your municipality s need. By taking the initiative, you are helping to ensure that our future will be a little bit greener. 2 Community Energy Planning

3 What is a Community Energy Plan? With the challenges of scarce energy resources, many municipalities are taking it upon themselves to wean their communities off of the dependence of fossil fuels both as a means to combat climate change and in preparation for a higher energy cost future. A CEP is the roadmap that drives the route toward more responsible energy use within a community based on its individual situations, needs, and objectives. The CEP could compliment a municipality s Official and Secondary Plans, or it may be a component of a broader Environmental Plan. A solid CEP should be built around the principle of meeting a community s needs without a perceived decrease in quality of living. In fact, a CEP should reduce the economic burden of meeting energy resource requirements so more of the community s economic resources can be reinvested locally. Benefits of a CEP Having a written plan helps to focus planners and helps to engage the community. By having a plan that citizens engage with and participate in its creation, everyone has a vested interest in meeting reduction targets. Development and implementation of a CEP would benefit a municipality from economic, energy security and environmental perspectives. The basic principles of a CEP are not new. In the early 1970 s the OPEC oil embargo prompted European countries such as Denmark to take similar action. Every municipality was required by law to develop a Heat Plan. That in turn led to extensive deployment of efficient energy systems with the outcome that Denmark has become one of the most energy efficient countries in the world, has met its greenhouse gas reduction targets and is a leading exporter of equipment such as wind turbines and pre insulated pipes for district heating. Community Energy Planning 3

4 Preparing for a CEP Community Energy Plans do not just happen. They take work and the most successful ones involve a significant amount of preparation before a single target is set. Before creating a CEP, the municipality should carefully do its research and homework. Preparation done ahead of time will save costs down the road. Basic questions that must be answered are: Who can do the work? Know who has the capacity and ability to carry out the plan. Municipalities must decide whether they will do it internally or have external consultants oversee the work. Who should be involved? Choose a steering committee wisely. Make sure that residents, businesses, and community groups are all engaged. All the major sectors of the community should have representation on the steering committee. How long will this take? There is no set time frame for how long a CEP will take. The planning process could take from 6 months to 2 years. Implementation of the CEP should take much longer although the best CEPs are an ongoing concern. What will it cost? Other than the staff budget for creating the CEP, the best advice is for cities to avoid paying for everything themselves. Involve the community, businesses, and residents. No municipality can afford all the initiatives alone. 4 Community Energy Planning

5 Steps to creating a CEP 1. Determine the Baseline The first and perhaps most important step to creating a CEP is to establish a baseline for the energy consumption patterns of the community. Identifying where the community uses the most energy, and what changes will have the highest impact, will ensure that any CEP put in place will have high efficacy. Questions that must be answered are: Where is most energy being used? Where is energy being wasted (lost)? What forms of energy are being used? Without a good understanding of what the baseline energy consumption is, communities cannot set up targets for reduction. FVB can help you form a baseline usage profile. 2. Engage the Stakeholders Forming a consortium of relevant stakeholders is important in the CEP process. All segments of the community should be represented including the government, academia, business sector, gas and electric utilities, and community groups. Members of the community are best equipped to let decision makers know what problems they are experiencing, where they are most willing to make changes, and what they would like for their community in the future. This step is vitally important since successful CEPs require citizen participation. Engaging the community early in the process of creating the plan (as opposed to giving them a plan they are expected to follow) will achieve higher community acceptance and buy in. Community Energy Planning 5

6 3. Develop the Vision Vision statements should ideally be inspired by the community and how they would like to see themselves in the future. It can include statements about innovation, prosperity, efficiency and social cohesion. For example, Winnipeg s Centre Plan lists the city s Vision for Community Belonging which details its strategy on personal safety, neighbourhood planning, self reliance, and includes everything from city building to immigration targets. The more detailed the vision, the less the opportunity for confusion as vague statements mean different things to different people. However, communities need to be careful of what they wish for and be mindful of the consequences of their vision statements. For example, Whistler BC had a vision to be recognized as a world class ski resort. There is now hardly anyone in Canada, or around the world who has not heard of Whistler. Their campaign was a stunning example of what communities can achieve when they create a vision and stick to it. However, as a result of this success, homes in the area became priced out of reach of first time homebuyers. Traffic has become difficult to manage. Communities should select their vision statements carefully and evaluate the consequences to attaining their goals. 4. Define the Time Horizon Most energy projects should look at a long time horizon since energy infrastructure would be expected to last nearly a century. Planning for only up to years out would not sufficiently address the long term needs of the community. 6 Community Energy Planning

7 5. Quantify the Vision It is important to quantify the vision into measurable goals. For example, it is great to want to be a sustainable community but what exactly might that mean? It could mean reduce reliance on fossil fuels by 50% or it could imply a community run entirely on biomass as a source of energy. Depending on which resources are available to different communities, similar vision statements could have vastly different forms of execution. Each community should decide on the goals that they want to meet while a firm like FVB can help you quantify those metrics. 6. Identify Programs, Projects, and Policies Programs Creating programs is essential to achieving the set goals. For example, municipalities may choose to create incentive programs for buildings to achieve LEED status or even just furnish municipal employees with transit passes. The programs must meet the needs of the community and be easy to carry out by residents. The program participants should also have an idea of their overall contribution to the municipality s goals. Projects Projects are generally more onerous to undertake than programs. Projects may include construction of district energy systems or increasing public transportation infrastructure. What projects to undertake should involve some level of public consultation and be derived from the plan s stated targets. Policies Policy modifications can be effective drivers for behavioural change. Yellowknife used changes to local policy as a means of GHG reduction. Where possible, they used incentives to encourage certain behaviours, disincentives for others, and, where necessary, regulations to ensure compliance. A leading example of energy reduction policy can be found in Toronto where green roofs are now mandatory for large buildings. Community Energy Planning 7

8 7. Take Action! Some of the actions that may follow from the CEP could include programs to raise public awareness and encourage energy conservation, promotion of energy efficient products, policies that encourage investment in efficient and sustainable local energy systems such as district energy, distributed generation and fuel substitution and projects undertaken by the private sector and government that would flow from those policies. The most important step of a CEP is to implement the plan once it is in place. This step is the most difficult of all and communities look to the leadership of the Municipal Council and staff. 8 Community Energy Planning

9 8. Monitor Your Progress Projects need to be scheduled and implemented according to the constraints that the municipalities may have. Constraints may be budgets, time, minimizing disruptions, etc. After an implementation plan is put in place, it is equally important to have an evaluation mechanism. Projects are not islands. It will be helpful to the community and for other communities following in its footsteps to know whether or not the projects and programs met the stated goals. Metrics for evaluation need to be devised before the project is implemented. FVB can help you set these metrics and define success indicators 9. Tell Others how You Did Keep track of your successes, challenges, and experience for others to follow in your footsteps! As the pioneers, what you do will lead the way for others to follow. Tell us how you did so we can help others as well. Special thanks to NRCan for their leadership in developing CEPs in Canada. For more information about CEPs, visit the NRCan website. Community Energy Planning 9

10 How District Energy can help What is District Energy? Bruce Ander, CEO District Energy Systems (DES) are thermal grids Markham District Energy that distribute heating and cooling by transporting hot and cold water to various buildings in a community. Buildings on DES have no boilers, chillers or cooling towers. All of their heating and cooling is provided by the DES. Benefits DES heat and cool buildings using less energy sources than conventional boilers and chillers. The energy savings come from higher overall efficiency, utilization of waste heat, and taking advantage of renewable energy (such as biomass or solar thermal). Having a thermal grid in a community allows it to easily adopt renewable energy sources that would be difficult to implement in individual buildings. In addition is makes it possible to begin utilizing local energy sources and keep valuable energy dollars inside the community. For the building owner, eliminating complicated heating and cooling equipment helps save on upfront capital costs and makes the building easier to operate and manage in the future. In addition by connecting to a DES the building is seen as committing to environmental sustainability. FVB Energy Inc. specializes in District Energy. Take advantage of our expertise. If your community doesn t have a District Energy System, it hasn t met the sustainability test. 10 Community Energy Planning Source: NRG Thermal

11 How FVB can help Energy is our business, district heating and cooling and combined heat and power systems are the focus. With decades of district energy experience, FVB brings specialized international expertise in this technology to North America. While energy system owners want an efficient system, they also want to reduce their carbon footprint. FVB understands sustainability and often integrates the following technologies into our projects: Thermal energy storage (chilled water or ice) Bio energy, including direct combustion, gasification and landfill gas Gas engine, gas turbine and steam cycle CHP Deep lake or sea water cooling Geothermal energy FVB provides legislative and regulatory policy analysis and recommendations. Greenhouse gas and air pollution regulation and trading programs Tax policies and incentives Financing programs Appropriations FVB understands district energy customers; we can help target sales and marketing efforts. Market characterization, assessment and research Customer service program development Energy service agreement development and negotiation Energy service rate design and cost allocation Marketing, communications and sales planning, consulting and support FVB is committed to bringing together engineering, economics and the environment with every project. The result: exponential energy solutions for our clients around the world. We welcome the opportunity to bring our experience and integrated perspective to your energy decision making. Community Energy Planning 11

12 Environmental Stewardship through Energy Conservation We look at energy from every angle 3901 Highway 7, Suite 300, Vaughan, Ontario, L4L 8L St. Albert Trail, NW Suite 350, Edmonton, Alberta, T5L 4W Beatty Street, Suite 306, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6B 2M