ThinkEnergy

Every two weeks we’ll speak with game-changing experts to bring you the latest on the fast-changing energy landscape, innovative technologies, eco-conscious efforts, and more. Join Hydro Ottawa’s Trevor Freeman as he demystifies and dives deep into some of the most prominent topics in the energy industry. Have feedback? We'd love to hear from you! Send your thoughts to [email protected]

Empowering power: how AI impacts energy systems 04/28/2025

Reimagining heating and cooling with district energy systems 03/24/2025

Reimagining heating and cooling with district energy systems Scott Demark, President and CEO of Zibi Community Utility, joins thinkenergy to discuss how our relationship with energy is changing. With two decades of expertise in clean energy and sustainable development, Scott suggests reimagining traditional energy applications for heating and cooling. He shares how strategic energy distribution can transform urban environments, specifically how district energy systems optimize energy flow between buildings for a greener future. Listen in. Related links Scott Demark on LinkedIn: Zibi Community Utility: Markham District Energy Inc: One Planet Living: Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: Hydro Ottawa: To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: To subscribe using Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7wFz7rdR8Gq3f2WOafjxpl To subscribe on Libsyn: --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: Follow along on Instagram: Stay in the know on Facebook: Transcript: Trevor Freeman 00:07 Welcome to thinkenergy, a podcast that dives into the fast, changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators and people on the front lines of the energy transition. Join me, Trevor Freeman, as I explore the traditional, unconventional and up and coming facets of the energy industry. If you have any thoughts, feedback or ideas for topics we should cover, please reach out to us at [email protected] Speaker 1 00:29 Hi everyone. Welcome back. One of the overarching aspects of the energy transition that we have talked about several times on this show is the need to change our relationship with energy, to rethink the standard way of doing things when it comes to heating and cooling and transportation, etc. This change is being driven by our need to decarbonize and by the ongoing evolution and improvement of technology. More things are becoming available to us as technology improves on the decarbonization front, we know that electrification, which is switching from fossil fuel combustions to electricity for things like space and water heating vehicles, etc, is one of the most effective strategies. But in order to switch out all the end uses to an electric option, so swapping out furnaces and boilers for heat pumps or electric boilers, switching all gas cars to EVs, etc. In order to do that in a way that is affordable and efficient and can be supported by our electricity grid, we need to think about multi strategy approaches, so we can't just continue to have this one way power grid where every home, every business, every warehouse or office tower satisfies all of its energy needs all the time directly from the grid with no adaptability. That isn't the best approach. It's not going to be affordable or efficient. We're not going to be able to do it fast enough. The multi strategy approach takes into account things like distributed energy resources, so solar and storage, etc, which we've talked about many times on this show, but it also includes approaches like district energy. So, district energy is rethinking how energy flows between adjacent buildings, looking for opportunities to capture excess energy or heat from one source and use that to support another. And that is the focus of today's conversation. To help us dive into this topic, I'm really happy to welcome Scott Demark to the show. Scott has been a champion of sustainability, clean energy solutions and energy efficiency in the Ottawa real estate and development industry for over 20 years now, he has overseen many high-performance development projects and was one of the driving forces behind the Zibi development in downtown Ottawa, and most applicable for today's conversation the renewable district energy system that provides heating and cooling to the Zibi site. Scott is the president and CEO of the Zibi community utility, as well as a partner at Thea partners. Scott Demark, welcome to the show. Scott Demark 03:15 Thanks. Nice to see you. Trevor, Trevor Freeman 03:17 So, Scott, why don't we start with definitions are always a good place to start. So, when we talk about a district energy system, give us a high-level overview of what exactly that means. Scott Demark 03:27 Sure, a district energy system is, is simply the connection, or interconnection of thermal energy sources, thermal energy sinks. And so really, in practical terms. It means, instead of buildings having their own furnace and cooling system, buildings connect to a hydronic loop. A hydronic loop is just pipes filled with water, and then the heat or the cooling is made somewhere else, and that heat or lack of heat cooling is in a pipe. They push the pipe to the building, and then the pipe extracts the heat or rejects the heat to that loop. And so it's simply an interconnection of us as sources and sinks for federal energy. Trevor Freeman 04:14 And I guess one of the important concepts here is that buildings often create heat, not just through a furnace or not just through the things that are meant to create heat, but, you know, server racks, computer server racks, generate a lot of heat, and that heat has to go somewhere. So oftentimes we're cooling buildings to remove heat that's being created in those buildings, and then other buildings nearby need to be heated in order to make that space comfortable. Is that fair to say? Scott Demark 04:42 Yeah, absolutely. Trevor, so, an office building in the city of Ottawa, big old government office building, you'll see a pretty big plume on the roof in the winter time. That's not just kind of the flue gas from a boiler, but rather it is actually chillers are. running inside to make cooling, and they're just selling that heat to the atmosphere, even on the coldest day of the year. So, it's people, you know, people are thermal load. Computers are thermal load, and so is solar gain. You know, January is pretty dark period for us, meaning low angle sun. But by this time in a year, you know, or at the end of February, there's a lot of heat in that sun. So, a glass building absorbs a lot of sun. An office building will need cooling on the sunny side of that building a lot of the time, even in the dead of winter. Trevor Freeman 05:31 Yeah. So, a district system, then, is taking advantage of the fact that heat exists, and we don't necessarily need to either burn fossil fuels or even if it's a, you know, a clean system, we don't have to expend energy to create heat, or create as much heat if we could move that heat around from where it's kind of naturally occurring to where we need it. Scott Demark 05:54 That's right at the very core of a district energy system. You're going to move heat from a place that it's not wanted to a place that it is wanted. And so in our example of the office building, you know, on the February day with the sun shining in and the computers all running, that building's getting rid of heat. But right next door, say there's a 20-story condo. Well, that 20 story condo needs heating and it also needs domestic hot water. So, year-round, domestic hot water represents 30, 35% of the heating load of any residential building, so at all times. So, a district energy system allows you to take that heat away from the office building and give it to the residential building, instead of making the heat and dissipating that heat to the atmosphere in the office building. So, yeah, it's, it's really a way to move, you know, from sources to sinks. That's, that's what a district energy system does well. Trevor Freeman 06:48 So we've kind of touched on this a little bit, but let's dive right into, you know, we talk a lot on the show about the energy transition. This, this push to, one, move away from fossil fuel combustion to meet our energy needs. And two, shifting from a kind of static, centralized energy system like we have right now, big generators, large transmission lines, etc., to more of a two-way flow, distributed energy system. What is the role of district energy systems within that transition. How do they help us get closer to that sort of reality that we talk about? Scott Demark 07:27 I think the biggest way that they help is economies of scale. Okay, so by that, I'll explain that. Imagine there's a lot of technology that's been around a long time that is very scalable to the building level, but most of them are fossil fire. Okay, so the cheapest way to heat a building in Ottawa is to put a gas fired boiler in. That's the cheapest capital cost, first cost, and it's also the cheapest operating cost, is to put a gas boiler in. That industry is well established. There's lots of trades who could do it. There's lots of producers who make the boilers. When you start to try and think about the energy transition and think about what you may do to be different, to be lower carbon, or to be zero carbon, those industries are just starting right. Those industries don't exist. They don't have the same depth, and so they don't have the same cost structure, and often times they don't scale well down to the building. And therefore, a district energy system aggregates a bunch of load, and so you can provide a thermal energy so at scale that becomes affordable. And that is, you know, a very good example of that would be where, you know, you might want to go and recover heat from some process, and we'll talk about Zibi as the example. But if he wanted to go recover heat from some process and bring it in, it doesn't make sense to run a pipeline to a source to heat one building. You can't make financial sense of it, but if you're heating 20 buildings, that pipeline, all of a sudden, makes sense to take waste heat from somewhere, to move it somewhere else. The other advantage is that truly district energy systems are agnostic to their inputs and outputs for heat. So, once you've established that hydronic loop, that interconnection of water pipes between buildings, what the source and what the sources, doesn't matter. So, you may have at one point built a district energy system, and Markham District Energy System is a great example of this market District Energy System was built on the concept of using a co-generation facility. So they burned natural gas to make electricity, they sold electricity to the grid, and they captured all the waste heat from that generation, and they fed it into a district energy system. Well, here we are, 20 plus years later, and, they're going to replace that system, that fossil fired system Augment, not fully replaced, but mostly replace that system with a sewer coupled energy recovery and drive those heat recovery chillers to a sewer system. So, they're putting a very green solution in place of a former fossil solution. They don't have to rip up the pipes, they don't have to change anything in the buildings. They only have to change that central concept. Now, again, Markham could never do that at a one building scale. They're only that at the community scale. Trevor Freeman 10:21 So, you mentioned, I want to pick on something you said there. You talked about a sewer heat energy system. They're pulling heat from the sewer. Just help our listeners understand high level kind of, why is there heat there for us to pull? Like, what's the what's the source there? Scott Demark 10:38 Yeah. So, when we shower, when we flush toilets, all of that is introducing heat into a sewer system. So, we're collecting heat from everybody's house into the sewer system. The sewer system also sits below the frost line. So, call it Earth coupled. You know it's the earth in Ottawa below the frost line sits around eight, eight and a half c and so at that temperature and the temperature of flushing toilets, we essentially get a sewer temperature in the on the coldest day of the year, that's around 10 10, and a half degree Celsius. And obviously, for lots of the year, it's much warmer than that. And so I think, you know, a lot of people are kind of familiar with the concept of geo exchange energy, or that. Lot of people call it geothermal, but you exchange where you might drill down into the earth, and you're taking advantage of that eight, eight and a half degrees, I'll see. So, you're exchanging heat, you can reject heat to the earth, or you can absorb heat from the earth. Well, this is the same idea, but you accept or reject from the sewer. But because the sewer is relatively shallow, it is cheaper to access that energy, and because it's warm, and on the coldest day, a couple of degrees make a big difference, Trevor, and most of the year so much warmer, you're really in a very good position to extract that heat, and that's all it is. You are just accepting or rejecting heat. You don't use the sewage itself. It doesn't come into your building. You have a heat exchanger in between. But that's, that's what you do. Trevor Freeman 12:10 Yeah, great. And I, we've talked before on the show about the idea that, you know, for a air source, heat pump, for example, you don't need a lot of heat energy to extract energy from the air. It can be cold outside, and there is still heat energy in the air that you can pull and use that to heat a building, heat water, whatever. So same concept, except you've got a much warmer source of energy, I guess. Scott Demark 12:34 Yeah, exactly. And you know, Trevor, when you look at the efficiency curves of those air source heat pumps, you know, they kind of drop off a cliff at minus 20. Minus 22 in fact. You know, five or six years ago, they that that was dropping off at minus 10. So, we've come a long way in air source heat pumps. But imagine on that coldest, coldest day of the year, you're still your source is well above zero, and therefore your efficiency. So, the amount of electricity you need to put into the heat pump to get out the heat that you need is much lower, so it's a way more efficient heat exchange. Trevor Freeman 13:07 Great. Thanks for that, Scott. I know that's a bit of a tangent here, but always cool to talk about different ways that we're coming up with to heat our buildings. So back to district energy. We've talked through some of the benefits of the system. If I'm a building owner and I'm have the decision to connect to a system that's there, or have my own standalone, you know, traditional boiler, whatever the case may be, or even in a clean energy one, a heat pump, whatever. What are the benefits of being on a district system versus having my own standalone system for just my building. Scott Demark 13:42 Yeah, so when you're wearing the developer’s hat, you know they're really looking at it financially. If they have other goals around sustainability, great, that will factor into it. But most of them are making decisions around this financially. So, it needs to compete with that. That first cost that we talked about the easiest ways, is boilers, gas fired boilers is the cheapest way. And so, they're going to look to see it at how. How does this compare to that? And so, I think that's the best way to frame it for you. And so, the difference here is that you need to install in your building a cooling system and a heating system. In Ottawa, that cooling system is only used for a few months a year, and it's very expensive. It takes up space, whether you're using a chiller and a cooling tower on the roof or using a dry cooler, it takes up roof space, and it also takes up interior space. If you do have a cooling tower, you have a lot of maintenance for that. You need to turn it on and turn it off in the spring, on and fall, etc., just to make sure all that happens and you need to carry the life cycle of that boiler plant. You need to bring gas infrastructure into your building. You generally need to put that gas boiler plant high in your building. So up near the top, and that's for purposes of venting that properly. Now that's taking real estate, right? And it's taking real estate on the area that's kind of most advantageous, worth the most money. So you might lose a penthouse to have a boiler and chiller room up there. And you also, of course, lose roof space. And today, we really do try to take advantage of those rooftop, patios and things, amenities are pretty important in buildings. And so, when I compare that to district energy at the p1 level, p2 level in your building, you're going to have a small room, and I really do mean small where the energy transfer takes place, you'll have some heat exchangers. And small, you might have a space, you know, 10 or 12 feet by 15 to 18 feet would be big enough for a 30-story tower, so a small room where you do the heat exchange and then Trevor, you don't have anything in your building for plants that you would normally look after. So, when you look at the pro forma for owning your building over the lifetime of it. You don't have to maintain boilers. You don't have to have boiler insurance. You don't have to maintain your chillers. You don't have to have life cycle replacement on any of these products. You don't need anybody operating those checking in on the pressure vessels. None of that has to happen. All of that happens on the district energy system. So, you're really taking something you own and operate, and replacing that with a service. So, district energy is a service, and what, what we promised to deliver is the heating you need and the cooling you need. 24/7. The second thing you get is more resilience, and I'll explain that a little bit. Is that in a in a normal building, if you if the engineers looked at it and said, you need two boilers to keep your building warm, then you're probably going to install three. And that is kind of this, and plus one sort of idea, so that if one boiler goes down, you have a spare. And you need to maintain those. You need to pay for that. You need to maintain those, etc. But in district energy system, all that redundancy is done in the background. It's done by us, and we have significantly more redundancy than just n plus one in this example. But overall, you know, if you have 10 buildings on your district energy system, each of those would have had n plus one. We don't have n plus 10 in the plant. And so overall, the cost is lower, I would say, if you look at it globally, except the advantages you do have better than N plus one in the plant. So, we have higher resiliency at a lower cost. Trevor Freeman 17:39 So, we know there's no such thing as a miracle solution that works in all cases. What are the best use cases for district energy system? Where does it make a lot of sense? Scott Demark 17:50 Yeah, in terms some, in some ways the easiest things, Pretty work. Doesn't make sense. So, so it doesn't make sense in sprawling low rise development. So, the cost of that hydronic loop those water pipes is high. They have to fit in the roadway. It's civil work, etc. And so, you do need density. That doesn't mean it has to be high rise density. You know, if you look at Paris, France, six stories district energy, no problem. There's, there's lots and lots of customers for that scale of building. It doesn't have to be all high rise, but it does, District Energy does not lend itself well to our sprawling style of development. It's much more suited to a downtown setting. It also kind of thrives where there's mixed use. You know, I think the first example we were talking about is office building shedding heat, residential building needing heat. You know, couple that with an industrial building shedding heat. You know, these various uses, a variety of uses on a district energy system, is the best, because its biggest advantage is sharing energy, not making energy. And so, a disparity of uses is the best place to use that. I think the other, the other thing to... /episode/index/show/thinkenergy/id/35808765

thinkenergy shorts: the on and offs of trading electricity 03/10/2025

thinkenergy shorts: the on and offs of trading electricity Will U.S. tariffs disrupt Canada’s energy sector? What is the current state of cross-border electricity trade? How can we strengthen interprovincial connections to secure a sustainable energy future in our country? Host Trevor Freeman summarizes the on and offs of Canada’s electricity trade. Tune in to learn about the complexities and challenges of evolving energy policies, infrastructure, and regulatory landscapes governed by both federal and provincial authorities. Related links ● Canadian Energy Regulator: ● The Transition Accelerator: ● Electrifying Canada: ● Canada Electricity Advisory Council: ● thinkenergy episode 143 with Quest Canada: ● Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: Hydro Ottawa: To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: To subscribe using Spotify: To subscribe on Libsyn: Subscribe so you don't miss a video: Follow along on Instagram: Stay in the know on Facebook: Keep up with the posts on X: Transcript: Trevor Freeman 00:07 Welcome to a think energy short hosted by me, Trevor Freeman, this is a bite sized episode designed to be a quick summary of a specific topic or idea related to the world of energy. This is meant to round out our collective understanding of the energy sector, and we'll compliment our normal guest interview episodes. Thanks for joining and happy listening. Hi everyone. Welcome back to another thinkenergy short. I'm your host, Trevor Freeman, today we're going to take a look at Canada's electricity trade. You may recall that in my first episode of 2025 we did a look ahead at the year in energy, and we did briefly touch on potential upcoming tariffs, and I highlighted that there is a fair amount of trade and electricity across the border. So, given that we are still on the potential cusp of these tariffs being implemented, I'm recording this on march 3, and March 4 is the date that new tariffs are set to be implemented by the US on Canada, we thought it was probably a good idea to take a look at trade through the lens of electricity, to give you a sense of how this might impact electricity and what the future might hold. So we'll look at the current landscape, the challenges posed by some of these recent policies, and the potential for strengthening interprovincial connections to ensure a resilient and sustainable energy future. So, let's start by establishing the current state of Canada's electricity trade. In short, Canada's electricity grids were designed to serve local demand, rather than looking at a large scale, integrated national grid, for all. We'll get more into this shortly, but it's the main reason why you'll see the majority of Canada's electricity grids at the provincial level are kind of oriented north to south when it comes to interconnections, rather than east to west. They are a stronger trade relationship to meet the higher demand of the United States, rather than between provinces and territories. Canada's electricity trade has long been a cornerstone of the North American energy framework that's governed by both federal and provincial authorities. These cross-border interconnections have facilitated a robust exchange with Canada, exporting around $3.2 billion worth of electricity to the United States in 2023 alone. And yes, that was billion with a B. So, let's talk about cross border trade. The Canadian energy regulator, or CER, oversees electricity exports to the United States, ensuring compliance with market regulations, fair access and impact assessment on our domestic supply. It should be noted that the CER does not regulate electricity imports into Canada. That is the role of provincial Crown corporations or private market participants who decide on the volume of electricity being traded here in Ontario, as we've talked about many times on the show, the IESO, or Independent Electricity System Operator decides on the amount of electricity that is needed in coming in terms of infrastructure, the CER regulates 86 different international power lines that connect Canada's provinces to the US electricity grid in different locations. So, to help you visualize this, you know, imagine a map of North America, starting west to east. We've got British Columbia, which is linked to the US Pacific Northwest grid. Manitoba and parts of Ontario are both connected to the US midcontinent grid. The other part of Ontario and Quebec are connected to the US Eastern grids. And finally, New Brunswick is connected to the US New England grid. So, there are a lot of different connection points across the map. So that gives you a picture of our current trade relationship, so, now let's look at how some of the recent policy shifts may affect that. Canadians will be well aware that the dynamics of international trade are being tested by the recent shift in the US approach to trade policies, and that includes the electricity trade. As I said at the beginning, I'm recording this on march 3, the day before broad, sweeping tariffs are set to be imposed by the United States on Canada, and that will impact electricity potentially, as well. The Trump administration's imposition of tariffs on Canadian imports has introduced a whole layer of uncertainty and tension. In response, Canadian officials have contemplated numerous different measures, including restricting electricity exports to the United States, states like Michigan and in New York or Minnesota who receive a lot of electricity from us. In Ontario, our recently reelected premier Doug Ford has highlighted the significance of these exports and has noted that Canada's electricity has powered 1.5 million American homes just last year, as recently as last month, Premier Ford raised the possibility of charging Americans more for electricity that Ontario sends to the US, and has also announced plans to cut off energy exports to the United States if the Trump administration moves ahead with tariff threats. These developments create a climate of uncertainty, and such trade disputes underscore the vulnerability inherent in our current trade dependent system. That vulnerability has raised calls for Canada to look and invest inward, which brings us to interprovincial connectivity. Let's examine the case for strengthening interprovincial connectivity in Canada, as I said at the top, we don't have a national grid. In fact, Canada's electricity infrastructure, which we've talked about many times, consists of multiple provincial or territorial grids, each governed and regulated by its respective province or territory. They also vary in systems and resources for producing electricity, with some regions having ample access to water resources, hydroelectricity, for example, others relying heavily on nuclear energy, and still, others looking more to fossil fuels, like oil or gas for electricity generation, a more cohesive pan Canadian electricity grid has long been a topic of conversation, even before this current threat of tariffs from the United States. A few years ago, there was renewed interest in the idea of interprovincial connectivity to achieve a 100% net zero electricity system by 2035 and eliminate harmful emissions countrywide by 2050. Basically, utilizing the electricity grid to support decarbonization at the individual customer level. Of course, the federal government has recently relaxed its goal for a net zero electricity system by 2035 mostly due to feasibility concerns, but the goal is still there to achieve Net Zero electricity generation across the entire country, and work has already been done towards that. So, working closely with Natural Resources Canada, the transition accelerator, which is a nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the transition to low carbon economy and advancing Canada's 2050 climate target, created an initiative called Electrifying Canada, which was focused on widespread electrification throughout the economy. That initiative brought together a diverse group of stakeholders, including government, indigenous peoples, industry, labor and civil society, to develop a roadmap for the electrification of Canada. This roadmap runs in parallel with the federal government's Electricity Advisory Council, and outlines recommendations to create a pan Canadian electricity grid, including identifying the infrastructure needed, the regulatory and policy changes that are required and the necessary investments needed to make it happen. Given the challenges presented by the United States and the growing discourse around bolstering interprovincial electricity connections, enhancing our domestic grid could offer several different benefits. These could include energy security. So, by reducing reliance on external markets, we can ensure a more stable and self-sufficient energy supply. There's also economic resilience, strengthened interprovincial trade can mitigate the economic impacts of international trade disputes and tariffs. And finally, there are environmental goals, so a cohesive national grid can facilitate the integration of renewable energy sources, aiding in the achievement of our net zero emissions targets. The CERs Canada's energy future 2023 report projects a 27% increase in interprovincial transmission capacity by 2035 under a global net zero scenario. So, we need this interprovincial connectivity in order to meet our net zero targets. It's something that kind of has to happen anyway, or is one of the key strategies in order to make that happen. This expansion would enable more efficient electricity transfers between provinces, allowing us to optimize resource utilization and enhance grid reliability. All the things that we talk about on this show about how to make our grid more efficient and more effective can be enhanced by looking not just at our provincial grids, but at more of a pan Canadian grid. While a National Grid offers many benefits, there are significant challenges to overcome, surprise. Surprise. We talk about this all the time on the show, so let's explore some of these challenges and considerations in order to make interprovincial connections a reality. To start with, the existing infrastructure was primarily designed for localized needs and aligning the diverse regulatory frameworks of each province or territory presents a complex challenge. Additionally, significant investment would be required to develop the necessary transmission lines and related infrastructure. So, it's both a regulatory challenge as well as a physical infrastructure challenge. We just don't have all the transmission lines and interconnections that are required. Here, according to the CER Market Snapshot webpage, electricity transmission lines in the Yukon and Northwest Territories do not actually connect to the larger North American grids or even to each other. And Nunavut doesn't have any transmission lines connecting its communities at all, but rather, each community independently generates and distributes its own electricity. I'll draw your attention back to an episode that I did last October with Gemma Pinchin from Quest Canada. And in that conversation, she highlighted that almost 200,000 Canadians in more than 280 remote communities don't connect to their local electricity grid or natural gas system, and it's not feasible at the moment for them to do so, given how remote they are. So, that presents some challenges as well. At a more macro level, looking at interprovincial framework, in August 2023 Ontario and Quebec announced a 600-megawatt electricity trade agreement, exemplifying the potential for greater interprovincial collaboration. Such initiatives could serve as blueprints for broader efforts to enhance our national grid. Despite these challenges, there is progress being made by investing in our domestic infrastructure and fostering provincial collaborations, Canada can build a resilient, sustainable and self-reliant energy system poised to meet future challenges. The energy transition, as we've talked about before is all encompassing and includes many different strategies. So, while we sometimes talk about the end result that EV or that heat pump that needs to be installed on the show, we also need to look at the more macro level, as how do we actually arrange our energy systems and our provincial grids, and what is the best option for that. So, that wraps up our look at Canada's electricity trade and how the current trade landscape might impact that moving forward. Hopefully you found that interesting. Thanks for tuning in for another think energy short, as always, we'd love to hear from you, and we'll talk to you next time. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of The thinkenergy podcast. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and it would be great if you could leave us a review. It really helps to spread the word. As always, we would love to hear from you, whether it's feedback comments or an idea for a show or a guest. You can always reach us at [email protected] /episode/index/show/thinkenergy/id/35576445

Capturing lightning in a bottle with Energy Storage Canada 02/24/2025

thinkenergy shorts: shining the light on power outages 02/10/2025

thinkenergy shorts: shining the light on power outages How can you prepare for the inevitability of a power outage? What role does your utility provider play in restoring power? How are they being proactive about future outages? In this episode of thinkenergy, host Trevor Freeman shines the light on power outages and the strategies used by utilities to manage them. Learn about preventive measures, emergency responses, and the tools Hydro Ottawa uses to restore power quickly and enhance grid resilience. Listen in. Related links ● Canadian Red Cross Emergency Preparedness Kit: ● Hydro Ottawa Outage Centre: ● Hydro Ottawa Emergency Preparedness: ● Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: ● Hydro Ottawa: To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: To subscribe using Spotify: To subscribe on Libsyn: Subscribe so you don't miss a video: Follow along on Instagram: Stay in the know on Facebook: Keep up with the posts on X: Transcript: Trevor Freeman 00:07 Welcome to a think energy short hosted by me, Trevor Freeman. This is a bite sized episode designed to be a quick summary of a specific topic or idea related to the world of energy. This is meant to round out our collective understanding of the energy sector, and will complement our normal guest interview episodes. Thanks for joining and happy listening. Hey everyone, and welcome back, as you heard in the intro, this is a think energy short, so it'll just be me diving into a certain topic that helps round out our understanding of the energy world. Today, we're talking about something that we've all experienced or has affected us in one way or another. At some point power outages. So, a power outage is never fun. Nobody wants to go through that, but as we increasingly electrify our lives, they become more and more impactful when our mode of transportation and our method of heating and cooling our homes relies on electricity, we want that power back as soon as possible. Today, we're going to look at how utilities like Hydro Ottawa manage outages, from prevention to repairs so that we get power back on as soon as possible. Now here in Ottawa, we all know how unpredictable the weather can be. One minute it's a blizzard, the next it's sunny and 15 degrees outside, or vice versa. And over the past few years, we've seen it all from wild wind storms, everybody remembers the derecho, tornados, ice storms, floods, we've kind of run the gamut of weather, and that's going to continue as climate change changes our global weather patterns, we're going to see more and more extreme weather. So, this is a topic that's not going anywhere. It's also not just mother nature that's throwing us curveballs. Sometimes it's a squirrel or another animal that's, you know, causing mischief on our power lines, or a car that takes out a hydro pole, or just equipment reaching the end of its life. Whatever the cause, when the power goes out, all we want to know is one thing, when will it be back on? So today, we'll go behind the scenes a little bit and see how we tackle outages from start to finish. We'll look at the strategies that we use to prevent outages, the priorities that we follow during a storm, and the lessons learned to improve the grid for the future. So, let's dive in. The first topic is prevention. Now we can't predict all outages. For example, if it's animal interference or a car accident, we can't predict that. But, for weather related outages, you might be surprised to know that Hydro, Ottawa has a team monitoring the weather, 24/7. They're kind of like our weather detectives, and they look at forecasts and try to predict potential impacts to the grid related to weather. Even when the skies are clear, however, our crews are working hard to prepare ourselves for things like inclement weather. They're out there, inspecting lines, trimming trees and upgrading equipment. Think of it as giving our entire electrical system a regular health checkup. Speaking of health checkups, trees are a major culprit when it comes to outages, especially here in the Ottawa Valley, where we have so many trees and a lot of forested and wooded areas, which is great, it's why we love this area, but that can interfere with our power lines. So Hydro Ottawa has a team of dedicated arborists who work year-round to keep branches trimmed and clear of power lines. But sometimes there is a storm on the horizon, and that's when things kick into high gear. Our crews are put on standby. We alert our customers through email and text and social media in order to be as prepared as possible and let us respond quickly when an outage does happen. So, during the storm, when the storm hits and the power goes out, what happens then? While restoring power isn't as simple as just flipping a switch. Hydro Ottawa follows a carefully structured plan to ensure safety and that we get the lights back on as quickly as possible. Let's take the example of a major storm that has caused widespread outages across our service territory. Our first job is to investigate the extent of the damage and understand what's actually happened. Where is there damage on our system? Now when it comes to restoration, safety is our number one priority, so we want to address any hazards like downed power lines immediately, as soon as we find out about them, and that's both for the safety of the public and the safety of our crews. Now our crews may be out there even while the storm is still going on, so safety is absolutely paramount, and we ensure that they work safely. The next focus of ours would be critical infrastructure. So, this is things like our own substations and main power lines, the real backbone of our system that provides power to the rest of the city, and then we look at the essential services. So, these would be things like hospitals, water treatment plants, things that our emergency responders need. We then move on to widespread outages. So, our goal is to bring customers back on as soon as possible. And we look for those areas where we can get the largest number of customers back on the quickest. After that, we would move to smaller neighborhoods and smaller clusters, those pockets of outages where there are less customers impacted. And finally, we move on to individual homes and businesses that might be out. Now it's important to note here that if those homes and businesses have sustained damage to their own electrical equipment, so something that is customer owned, that may need to be addressed before we're able to restore power, and the customer needs to work with a licensed electrician to make those repairs before we can turn the power back on. But the good news is is we will work with a customer and help them understand what's required on their side in order for us to restore power safely. Again, I can't stress this enough, we want to make sure we do everything as safe as possible for the customers and for our crews. Throughout this entire process, communication is absolutely critical. So, we want to be communicating with our customers about what's happening on the grid, hopefully giving some insight into when they might expect the power to be back on. To do this, we use outage maps on our website and on our app, text alerts, and social media in order to communicate. Now, it's important to know here that we provide initial restoration times, but those may change once our crew gets on the site and assesses the damage, or as a project progresses and we understand what's required to get that power back on. So, sometimes restoration times can change, and they are dependent on a number of different factors. Can be weather conditions, the location of the outage, how severe the damage is, and what other outages are happening on the grid. During an outage, it's important that you as the customer also stay safe. So, in the winter, stay in your home as long as it's safe and warm and you have food and water. The city during widespread outages, or if an emergency is declared, may open emergency warming centers or cooling centers during the summer months. And you can get more information on that by listening to local broadcasts, by looking at city resources and also checking out Hydro Ottawa resources. One thing I can say is that during a storm and while there's a power outage, our crews will be at work, 24/7, until power is restored to every customer. Okay. So, the storm is over and the power is restored, so the work stops there, right? Wrong. After every storm, we look for lessons learned to improve our response and improve the grid's resiliency. So, we look at outage data, response times, the repair efforts, to really refine our strategies and determine where improvements can be made. One question that we often get, especially after storms, is, why not just put all the power lines underground to prevent storm related outages? While that may sound like a great idea, the reality is that underground systems are significantly more expensive, sometimes up to 11 times the cost of overhead lines. So, undergrounding may work in some cases, it's definitely not a one size fits all fix. The last section to talk about is how to be prepared power outages, unfortunately, will happen. We can't be 100% sure that we can prevent them. So how can you make sure you're prepared? Well, the Canadian Red Cross recommends having an emergency kit ready with enough supplies to be self-sufficient for at least 72 hours. Think about things like food, water, medications, flashlights, a battery powered radio, anything you might need to be self-sufficient for that 72-hour period. There are lots more tips that you can find on this on Hydro Ottawa's website. So have a look. That wraps up today's episode. We've covered a number of different things, from before storm to after storm and continuous improvement. Just remember that you can stay informed by visiting Hydro Ottawa's outage map on our website or on our mobile app. You can follow us on social media and make sure you sign up for outage alerts. Thanks for tuning in to a think energy short and join us next time for another guest interview. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of The thinkenergy podcast. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and it would be great if you could leave us a review. It really helps to spread the word. As always, we would love to hear from you, whether it's feedback, comments or an idea for a show or a guest, you can always reach us at [email protected] /episode/index/show/thinkenergy/id/35192385

Decarbonizing Canada’s buildings with the Building Decarbonization Alliance 01/27/2025

Decarbonizing Canada’s buildings with the Building Decarbonization Alliance Canada's building sector accounts for 30-40% of the nation's energy use. Bryan Fannigan from the Building Decarbonization Alliance joins thinkenergy to share how the sector can align with Canada's emission reduction goals. From policies and grid impact studies to strategies helping steer towards a net-zero status by 2050. Listen in to learn about the practical challenges with decarbonizing existing infrastructures and innovative approaches to support the transition to more sustainable building practices. Related links Bryan Flannigan on LinkedIn: Building Decarbonization Alliance: The Transition Accelerator: Concordia Plan/Net Zero: The Canada Green Building Strategy: ITER fusion energy project: Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: Hydro Ottawa: To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: To subscribe using Spotify: To subscribe on Libsyn: Subscribe so you don't miss a video: Follow along on Instagram: Stay in the know on Facebook: Keep up with the posts on X: Transcript Trevor Freeman 00:07 Hi. Welcome to think energy, a podcast that dives into the fast, changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators and people on the front lines of the energy transition. Join me, Trevor Freeman as I explore the traditional, unconventional and even up and coming facets of the energy industry. If you've got thoughts, feedback or ideas for topics that we should cover, we'd love to hear from you. Please reach out to us at . Hi everyone. Welcome back. You really can't overstate the importance of buildings in our lives. We eat, sleep, work, learn and socialize in buildings, among many, many other things, a huge percentage of our lives takes place inside buildings. In fact, most of us probably have to make a conscious effort to actually spend time outside of buildings. I know that I try to make a point of spending time outside every day, and I have to be conscious about it, because it might not otherwise happen, and as a result of that, centrality in our lives, buildings are major users of energy. Some estimates say that around 30 to 40% of energy use in Canada is associated with buildings, and they're also a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. So around maybe 18% or so in Canada, that means that the buildings themselves and the way we build them, the way we heat them, the way we use them, are an important part of our efforts to decarbonize and to further the ongoing energy transition. Supporting this effort is the main goal of the building decarbonization Alliance. Spun out of the transition accelerator, the building decarbonization Alliance is a nonpartisan coalition that works to inspire and inform industry and government leadership, accelerate market transformation and really get the building sector on track to meet Canada's emission reduction goals. They focus on convening conversations, conducting analysis and identifying some of the barriers to building decarbonization, and then working with partners to overcome them. And I think that's a really important part. Joining me today as my guest is Brian Flannagan, who's the executive director of the building decarbonization Alliance. Brian brings more than three decades of leadership and consulting experience all focused around reducing emissions and improving the energy efficiency of the built environment. Prior to joining the organization, he's played leadership roles across a number of different leading energy and environmental consulting firms. He spent time working with the Federation of Canadian municipalities and helped launch the Green Municipal Fund. Brian Flannagan, welcome to the show. Brian Flannagan 02:47 Thanks for having me. Trevor, this is great. Trevor Freeman 02:50 So why don't we start kind of right with the basics? Can you give us an overview of the building decarbonization Alliance and the work that you are doing alongside your members? Brian Flannagan 03:00 Yeah, thanks. Well, you know, as you said at the top of the hour, without kind of repeating the background or there, we're a nonpartisan, not for profit organization whose goal it is to really advance sort of market transformation, thinking about it from the perspective of, you know, creating a prosperous economy for Canada, having buildings that are a place where people want to invest, and the long-term goal is that we got to get them. Get to net zero. Global factors dictate that if we don't act on that, we're going to get left behind. And so, for those purposes, we want to bring the market along and align it toward this goal. And so, this alliance that we have is just that we have partner organizations who support this vision to have the building sector decarbonize between now and 2050 to meet those objectives that are set nationally and internationally, for that matter, and we work with those partners to sort of align the narratives around this and to put in place in the long term, the tools and policies that we need to support that. So, our main approach is really to convene those stakeholders around the issues that we see, to tackle some of the sticky narratives that are there. You know, any market transformation involves incumbents that have lots of good reason to maintain the status quo. So that's a feature of a system that we have to acknowledge, and it's something that we recognize we have to adjust those narratives to really advance, advance the common objective, right? And so, we work with that kind of vision, with our stakeholders, to really try to overcome, identify and overcome the barriers to getting to that goal. We kind of focus on a couple of key areas given, you know, the ability decarbonization space, the ecosystem is vast. Lots of market actors already out there, lots of other not for profits, lots of other organizations that are working really, really hard to advance this as well. And so, we tend to focus on kind of four main areas, making sure that there's policy support at various levels of government, and understanding which policies might be effective and which ones might be less so, and trying to advance the ones that. High leverage looking at the grid impacts of electrifying buildings, because it's undeniable that if you switch from fossil combustion of fossil fuels to electricity, you require a clean electricity system that has to have the capacity and be robust enough to support that. So, we want to be clear about that. We want to really address that in a cogent sort of way, and then really mobilizing and activating the sector to implement these changes and to find the solutions, because many of the solutions are at the intersection of different subsets of the of the sector, whether it's banking and finance or whether it's development community or the utilities, every market actor has a role to play to find solutions. Is very rarely one sub sector that can really act to, you know, to overcome a barrier. And so, we try to work at the intersection of these different groups. And by convening the players, we can roll up our sleeves and kind of get to that. And then, last but not least, you know, this is a very complex sort of question in terms of, how do we get there? What are the pathways? It kind of reminds me of nutrition, medicine, things like that, where, you know, at one instance, it's great to eat eggs, and another instance, terrible to eat eggs, and then it's good. To eat eggs. And then it's good to eat eggs again, because the evidence is shifting right, and we have to follow the evidence. We have to understand that the systems are complex and that various investments in the grid will alter the landscape. And so, we're working really hard to increase the analytical capacity of the sector, to model and to be able to understand how this will really play out when you have exponential sort of technological advancement coming to play. And you know, different investments and different dynamics that are bearing out as the sector decarbonizes, which is, it's really complex, and so we need better tools to be able to grapple with that. So those are the four sort of main areas, and it's a heavy lift. We arrive on the scene with great humility, recognizing that we stand on the shoulder of many, many other organizations who've come into the space trying to take a slightly different approach by bringing all the players together and trying to find some common understanding of how we how we get this done. You know, we have to do something different. We've been doing energy efficiency for four decades, give or take with the programming that we've had, and it's been very effective. I don't think there's any more old T 12 light bulbs anywhere that worked. That's great, but we need to do something different now to get fossil fuels out of the buildings for heating purposes, right? That's the goal. Trevor Freeman 07:18 I'm glad you brought up the complexity side of things. I think when we look at buildings and decarbonizing buildings at first blush, you can think, Okay, well, change out systems. And you know, there are carbon intensive systems and low carbon systems, and obviously we need the latter, but getting those systems in our buildings, and getting buildings that work well with those systems, and getting tenants that interact with those systems, well, is that complex kind of quagmire? And so really glad you brought that up, and we'll probably talk more about that as we go. I do want to also highlight you mentioned kind of working with other organizations and partners, and specifically, I know you guys are affiliated with but somewhat unique from the transition accelerator. So, talk a little bit about the transition accelerator and how your work with them. Sort of overlaps, but is unique. Brian Flannagan 08:09 Yeah, absolutely. Well, so we're, we are housed within the transition accelerator. We are basically a branded initiative of the transition accelerator. You know, we could stand alone as our own, not for profit and be separately incorporated, but from an efficiency and a sort of effectiveness perspective, the decision kind of was made to stay within the transition accelerator as an organization and so I think it's very effective, because that allows us to leverage, you know, the communications, knowledge mobilization and broader infrastructure for HR and things Like that of the transition accelerator. So, the transition accelerator, is a Canadian not for profit as well, and its focus is very similar to the BDS focus. However, it's elevated to the to an economy wide level. And so, the transition accelerator is interested in finding pathways to net zero for all sectors of the economy. So, I think transportation, the electricity system itself, decarbonizing the grid, looking at low carbon and Net Zero fuels and how those might impact other sectors, heavy industry and aviation and transportation sectors, as well as looking broadly at the overall state of what is the future economy going to look like. The whole point of this is to position Canada internationally as a global leader in this transition, recognizing that other nations are acting, and we have a competitive position to play. And that has to happen by looking across all the different sectors. And so, the objective is really to set that 2050 vision, identify the pathways for the different sectors of the economy. Buildings are one of which and then to kind of advance the whole thing along recognizing as well. I guess what's really important in all of that is that there's a huge interaction between the different sub sectors, right? So, transportation and buildings are a great example. You know, if everybody electrifies EVs, there's an immediate impact on how we electrify the heating systems in the buildings, and then it has a huge impact on the grid immediately as well. And so. The intent with the transition accelerator as an umbrella organization housing all of these activities, is that we capture those dynamics. And when I talked about the analytical capacity, you know, the models that we're building, the end use models for each of the sub sectors, the ideas that they eventually connect, and they that they are able to have a whole of economy sort of flavor to them. And so, it's been a very, very effective relationship. I think it seems to work well, and that vision and idea seems to be materializing as we get going. It's been two years so far, and I can say that it's been just a fascinating journey to be exposed to those other sector dynamics as well. Trevor Freeman 10:36 Yeah, I know on this show, we talk a lot about the different parts of, as you said, all of society that need to be decarbonized. Obviously, buildings kind of comes to the forefront often and so specifically around buildings talk us through this maybe kind of a basic question, but, you know, help our listeners understand. Why are buildings so important? Why is the decarbonization of our built environments so important when it comes to decarbonizing all of society? Brian Flannagan 11:05 Yeah, I mean, that's, that's the, that's the crux of the question, right? Well, there's a bunch of reasons. I mean, if you think about it, the building, this is where we live, right? These are our homes. These are, this is where we go to work. This is our place as a business. From an economic perspective, organizations arrive in jurisdictions for the purposes of meeting their overall objectives, and if you require energy intensive sort of production, or if you want to have a big workforce, you want to house your workforce in buildings that align with your objectives. And increasingly, those objectives feature a low carbon kind of future, right? And so just from that perspective, it's important for us to kind of get aligned with the global trend toward this, to make sure that we have the investments that we need and that we want to attract, and we want to have places where people can live that are aligned with those kinds of values. But from an emissions perspective, it's hard to kind of overstate how important this sector actually winds up being the building sector emits about 90 megatons, give or take, of direct scope one emissions. And if you factor in the grid emissions, that result from being buildings being connected. So, the grids across Canada, it's about 120 megatons. There's digits there that we could go into. But to put it into context, that's about the same as all of the vehicles on the road. So, when we think about how important it is to electrify the fleet of vehicles that we're all driving, the building sector is the same. It's the same level of importance. And if we think about all of the work that we've done to decarbonize our electricity system over the years, eliminating coal plants and those kinds of initiatives that we that we hear, are in the news recently, the building sector emits about twice as much as all of that. And so, the context is that buildings are pretty vast in terms of the overall emissions, and when we think about where those emissions come from, ultimately, it's combustion of fossil fuels for heating our buildings. We're in a cold climate in Canada, case, a lot of energy to heat buildings, and because of the abundance of the resource and a bunch of policy decisions that have been made decades ago, you know, we're in a situation where we've got an abundant and relatively inexpensive source of fossil fuel to heat our buildings. It's about 1500 petajoules, I guess, give or take. And ultimately, we need to move to eliminate that over time, or to largely eliminate it. I mean, I think there's always going to be a bit left in the system. There's, you know, it's, it's a very complex and daunting task, because the building sector itself is very diverse. The buildings last a really long time. It's not like, you know, technology change, where you have, if you want to change a phone, you can upgrade it from one year to the next. It's small. It fits in your pocket. It's easy to manage, but buildings are constructed to last hundreds, 100 years. 50 years is the typical lifespan. But, you know, we have lots of buildings that are very, very old, and it's a slow kind of system to turn over. It's a slow inventory to turn over. So, it's a really big challenge, a lot of a lot of emissions from the sector. And so, it rises to the level of really needing close attention and a different approach than what we've been taking in the past. Trevor Freeman 14:04 Yeah, and one of the things I like about focusing on the building sector is it's one of those areas where efforts to decarbonize, efforts to improve the way we use energy in our buildings, obviously have some carbon impact, but that's not the only benefit that they have. There are sort of other ancillary benefits that that building owners and tenants can realize as a building goes through a decarbonization process. Talk to us a little bit about some of those other benefits and why a decarbonized building is a better building to be in. Brian Flannagan 14:39 Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess there's, there's a couple of things. I'll take a step back from it and talk about retrofits and deep retrofits versus regular retrofits, you know, and what it winds up looking like in terms of benefit streams. We've, I think, in the past 40 years or so. I think since the since the 80s, we've been doing retrofits that are ostensibly about reducing operating cost. Ostensibly about making sure that we don't have to build out our energy systems bigger than they need to be. It's always about the avoided cost of energy. That's the way our incentive programs have been set up. And so, we've had lots of projects over the years that make buildings more efficient at consuming the energy that they do consume, which is a really important objective. And so, you get, as I mentioned, all the lighting projects that we've done, and we've done three waves of lighting projects, different fluorescent technologies, and then CFL technologies, and then now led technologies. And those are kind of project-by-project retrofits that happen because the building owner says, well, wow, if I do that, I'm going to reduce my utility costs, and I'm also probably going to save maintenance costs, like LED lighting technology really reduces the maintenance costs associated with taking care of the light bulbs. It's a cost reduction exercise, right? What's different about decarbonization is that we don't really have those cost signals, those pricing signals, are just not the same. It's not the same dynamic anymore. And so, you have to bring into play long term energy and social and governance paradigms. You have to bring in long term pricing signals, long term risk. You have to bring in long term market decision making in terms of the global factors that we were talking about earlier, right? And so, you know, it requires a bit of a vision, and it requires acting on the policy environment that's in place. And in order to really make those projects work, you have to take a much longer-term view. You have to look at the overall state of the capital renewal of the building. You have to look at all of the different systems at the of the building at once. And that's where we get into the term a deep retrofit, right? And so those kinds of projects can yield tremendous benefits when they're undertaken correctly and over time, in an individual building or inner portfolio of buildings, and so we get this bundling effect of things happening all at once to really make the space more comfortable at the end of the day, though, what, what the whole objective needs to be, is just eliminating the fossil fuel combustion. And it happens that when you do that at the same time as doing some other things like envelope work or fenestration, or, you know, better, control systems or demand response kind of technologies, then you get... /episode/index/show/thinkenergy/id/34993940

Looking ahead at 2025 clean energy trends 01/13/2025

Looking ahead at 2025 clean energy trends The energy sector is always changing. Episode 149 of thinkenergy explores what to keep an eye on this year. Like political influence. How will the Trump administration's takeover reshape policies across the border? What are the potential impacts of federal and provincial elections here in Canada and Ontario? From energy strategies to affordability to decarbonization efforts. Listen in as host Trevor Freeman uncovers how politics influence the energy sector and what to expect from thinkenergy in 2025. Related links Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: Hydro Ottawa: To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: To subscribe using Spotify: To subscribe on Libsyn: --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: Follow along on Instagram: Stay in the know on Facebook: Keep up with the posts on X: Transcript: Trevor Freeman 00:07 Welcome to thinkenergy, a podcast that dives into the fast, changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators and people on the front lines of the energy transition. Join me, Trevor Freeman, as I explore the traditional, unconventional and up and coming facets of the energy industry. If you have any thoughts, feedback or ideas for topics we should cover, please reach out to us at [email protected] Hey everyone, and welcome back, and welcome to 2025. Happy New Year. I hope you all had a restful and relaxing break. I know I certainly enjoyed a little bit of time off with some friends and family, and it was nice to sort of recharge. But here we are at the start of a new year, at 2025 early January, the whole year is ahead of us, and there's lots of work to do, and being in the energy sector means there's lots of change ahead. On that note, today, we thought we'd dive into some of the areas that we think might shape or influence or be areas to watch for when it comes to energy in 2025. There's no such thing as a quiet or stand still year when it comes to the energy sector, 2025 will be no different. So, we thought we'd take a look at some of the things that we think might sort of hit the headlines or really drive change. So, without further ado, let's dive into those areas. Area number one is politics. So, energy is political, and energy shapes politics, and politics shapes energy, and that's the same every year, but 2025 is shaping up to be a pretty significant year when it comes to political change that might impact energy policy. So, to start with, we are mere days away, a little over a week away as I record this from a new US administration. The Trump administration will take over on January 20, and like any change in administration and what is arguably the biggest economy in the world that will have an impact on climate change policy, energy policy, the flow of goods across borders. You know, there's talk of tariffs between Canada and the US. So just because it is in the United States, that doesn't mean it won't impact us here in Canada, so we'll be looking to see what change that does bring, what how that influences politics and energy policy and the flow of goods and all of those things that can impact what we do with energy. A little bit closer to home however, we also have some change potentially coming here in Ontario, at least, we are looking at potentially two elections this year. So, to start with, there's the federal election. It is very, very likely, almost a sure thing that we will see a federal election in the coming months. Justin Trudeau has recently announced his resignation, which will almost definitely trigger an election. So, we could be looking at a new government, or a new mandate for the existing government. So, what might that mean? Well, if the Liberal Party the current government, manages to get another mandate and remain in power, we kind of know what their priorities are. They've been going down a path for the last little while. They will probably continue to invest in clean energy infrastructure, they will continue to push for net zero goals and look for ways to support others to achieve net zero targets as well. If there's a change in governments, which the polling suggests is likely, and the Conservatives get into power, they are likely to look to prioritize affordability and resource sector competitiveness. They may also adjust timelines for emissions targets as a result of that. The one big thing that's worth mentioning, of course, is the price on carbon. This was brought in by the existing Liberal government, and they stand behind it. The Conservatives are very much campaigning on a platform of getting rid of the price on carbon, the Federal price on carbon that will have significant impact on energy policy and how things move. There are a few previous episodes that you can listen to that talk a little bit about that, and I'm sure we'll talk about it throughout the year as things play out. And finally, in this section, in Ontario, it's very likely that we might see a provincial election as well. All signs are kind of pointing towards a provincial election this year. So what could that mean? Well, similarly, our existing government has kind of made their energy policy known. We know what their focus is. So they are focused on expanding our traditional energy mix, so nuclear, some natural gas, as well as some investments in renewables in order to make sure that the grid can handle growth and electrification in that sort of rising demand that we're seeing. Should we see a change in government to one of the opposition parties? There may be more of a push for more renewable sources and lowering those carbon emissions faster than the current pace of change, at least based on what they are saying. So we'll keep an eye on that and how that comes into play. Obviously, energy is sort of primarily in the provincial jurisdiction here, so a change in government or a new mandate for the existing government would certainly have a big impact on energy policy. So area number one politics, area number two is energy affordability. So Canadians have always cared about affordability when it comes to energy this has been sort of a driver in previous elections, but it is definitely top of mind now, as we are coming out of sort of a wave of inflation, supply chain issues, there's an affordability crisis, sort of across the economy in Canada, for many Canadians. So that definitely applies to energy as well. What does this mean? Well, it certainly will influence the way many people vote in the elections that I just mentioned. So look for Canadians to be wanting to know what those political parties stance is on energy and energy affordability. It may also impact the pace of adoption of decarbonization measures and electrification and some of those energy transition pieces that we're seeing. So if folks are struggling with the affordability of their bill. That means they are not likely to invest in large upfront capital cost items to change that. On the other hand, Canadians will be looking for ways to reduce their energy costs, and so maybe some of these items that might help reduce electricity costs will become more attractive to Canadians, they will also be looking for programs to help them with this, and the province just recently announced their new incentive structures, or the new iteration of save on energy incentive programs called the home renovation savings program here in Ontario, and Canadians will likely want to take advantage of that to help upgrade equipments, make their homes more efficient. There's a commercial stream for that as well, so businesses and institutions will also be looking to take advantage of that to address energy costs. So energy affordability will certainly be a driver, as it often is in 2025. Area number three is decarbonization. So decarbonization is here to stay, and we expect that to ramp up this year, for sure, to continue being a point of importance for Canadians. So the climate crisis won't disappear from the news. As I record this, we're, you know, seeing these really terrible images and stories coming out of the Los Angeles area about wildfires, it seems like that's a perennial thing. We see that every year now, that will continue, and that really does drive people to think about their own decarbonization journeys. We are still in the early stages of adoption for some of this technology. You know, heat pumps, home generation and storage, real deep decarbonization measures were in those early stages. So I don't expect, you know, massive steps forward in the next 12 months, but I think more folks are going to start thinking about and planning for their actions on this, and that's at the both the residential and the commercial level. So here at Hydro Ottawa, we're seeing a lot of our commercial customers take advantage of our Enercan funded Ottawa Retrofit Accelerator program, which really supports that sort of carbon pathway planning, that plan to decarbonization. And I think a lot of folks will start thinking, you know, what's my next move when it comes to decarbonizing? You know, if my furnace is getting to be a little bit old, am I going to put that heat pump in? You know, even if I don't do it in the next 12 months, I want to start thinking about what that looks like. So we expect decarbonization to continue to be a point of focus. We expect it to be a point of topic, you know, in these elections that we talked about, because that climate crisis is in front of our faces, always in the news, and that won't be changing. Area number four is clean electricity, grid modernization and energy efficiency. So in keeping with the previous point, decarbonization, electrification is one of the main tools to decarbonize, and we are moving to changing some of those end uses, from fossil fuel combustion to electricity. So things like heating our homes, our spaces, our water and transportation. You know, how we get around, what we drive, what sort of public transportation we take. The solution to these things, when it comes to climate change, is primarily electricity. So in order to make sure that we have enough electricity and that the electricity we have is clean enough to support that, we will see more movement towards this in this year. So just in December before the end of the year, December 2024, the Federal clean electricity regulations were finalized. And these regulations kind of chart a path to decarbonizing electricity generation in Canada by 2050 you'll notice that that's a change in date. The previous target was going to be 2035 but over the course of the last little while, the federal government has come out and said, yeah, look, we think it's more realistic to set 2050 as a target, so that is the new target. And the federal government's investing significant money behind this. There's $60 billion to help this general move towards decarbonizing our electricity generation, and to make sure that that's done in a way that keeps energy affordable for Canadians. At the same time, utilities across the country will continue to invest in grid modernization. So as well as infrastructure expansion, not just modernization, we're also building and growing our grids to keep up with the pace of change, but we need to also be able to leverage more DER's on the grid, so more distributed energy resources, small scale solar generation, things like that. So we will continue to see utilities make steps in that direction. They will look to levels of government to support those initiatives through programs and funding and regulatory change. So we will continue to see that change in grid modernization. I know it's definitely a big topic for us here at Hydro Ottawa. And finally, in this section, energy efficiency. Energy efficiency is not new. It's been around for for quite a while. In fact, it was the primary focus, kind of before we shifted a little bit more towards thinking about carbon. But we cannot fully decarbonize. We cannot fully electrify without significant energy efficiency. We just won't be able to affordably build the infrastructure we need if we're not using energy in an efficient way. So that will continue to be a focus. And in fact, I mentioned the new incentive programs from the province of Ontario that is very much designed to support ongoing energy efficiency measures. So, we will continue to see that as a focus in 2025 and our final area, area number five, is technology. So there is no year anymore, in fact, maybe there never was where technology doesn't continue to grow and expand and evolve in ways that we couldn't even imagine. And it does seem like the pace of change is picking up, but I think that's kind of normal. So we will see technology that supports or augments the energy transition continue to evolve in 2025 and the ways that technology influenced that really, you know, we have an idea on some of them, and it'll be interesting to look back in 12 months at what we know in December 2025, that we didn't even know here today in January. So a couple specific areas. You know, we're seeing EV technologies continuing to involve we will see continued EV adoption throughout the year. Year over year, over the last five years, you know, EV adoption in Canada has increased steadily. In July of 2024 you know, zero emission vehicles hit almost 14% of market share, we can expect that to continue increasing. As that happens, you know, more charger technology out there, more sort of, not just the physical charger, but the ways that those chargers interact with the grid more control over that to make sure that we're managing charging in an appropriate way. The role of AI is really going to be interesting to watch this year. So AI, of course, is all over the news across all sectors of the economy, but certainly in the energy sector, it has a role to play, and there's kind of two facets to that. The first is the role that AI might play in helping us manage our energy costs, our energy usage, and that's both at the consumer level. So, what will AI help me do in my home, to manage my energy costs, to manage the sort of cleanliness of my energy? Let's say I want to really focus on just, you know, green energy when the grid is at its cleanest and try and avoid it when it's maybe more carbon intensive. What's the role of AI in that this is likely a multi year stretch. I'm not saying that we're going to sort of have all those questions answered by the end of this year, but I think we will see movement in that direction over the course of this year, and then also at the utility level. What's the role of AI in helping utilities manage the grid? You know, understanding where there are feeders that are increasing or that are getting near capacity limits and needing to shift. Again, this is not a 12 month exercise. This is a multi year exercise, but I expect we will maybe see some movement in that direction. The other way that AI and the increasing role of AI will impact the energy sector is just purely from an energy needs perspective, so AI is an order of magnitude higher when it comes to the amount of computing power that is necessary. So that, you know, the kind of stat that gets thrown around is that a chat GPT search uses about 10 times more energy as a standard Google, you know, search, a search engine search. So with all of this stuff going through AI, we're seeing more computing power needed. So that means, you know, bigger, more dense data centers that have larger cooling needs, which means more energy requirements. And, as much as we're seeing electrification drive demand up for electricity AI usage and data center usage is also driving up demand. And, so we're seeing larger load requests. You know, utilities are having to figure out, how do we provide way more power than we've had to previously, to some of these new customers and customers that are wanting it kind of overnight, like, hey, we're ready to build a data center like tomorrow. Can you supply us with a significant amount of power? So that will certainly be a driver. The last little piece of technology that I want to mention there's, you know, we could go on for hours on this topic is when it comes to sort of home generation and storage, especially storage. Solar panels have kind of been around for a while now. We've seen that really precipitous drop in price when it comes to solar technology, and that continues, but home, or sort of behind the meter storage, is really becoming a thing that is more realistic than it has ever been before. So, the incentive programs that I've brought up a couple times here in the province of Ontario now provide an incentive to put in a behind the meter battery in your home, and the role that those will play, we're only just beginning to see, you know, helping customers manage their energy costs. You know, charge that with your solar panels and then use the battery during peak times, or charge it during off peak times and use it during peak times. You know, managing costs redundancy and resiliency, and, you know, helping you out with a bit of a bridge during times of outage will be really important. And you know, we're seeing that at the at the household level, but we're also going to see that on a much bigger scale, at the commercial level. So, commercial customers are also looking at what's the role of battery storage to help them manage costs, and then even one next level, up at the grid level. So, we are seeing large scale battery storage projects that will support sort of grid management, help manage peaks for utilities so that they can, you know, defer or delay or reduce the size of that infrastructure builds, you know, if they can manage to rely on batteries for those handful of times a year when we spike into those peaks, then that helps out with grid planning. So those are some of the technology pieces that we expect to see really kind of flourish or take it to the next level in 2025 again, all of these things are not short term projects, 2025 we'll see some change, but these are, like, multi year things that will go on beyond that. So those are the areas that we think will kind of drive change, or be areas to watch for this year. You can likely expect some conversations on the podcast about that over the course of the year, because certainly they will be making news, and there's some really interesting folks working on some really interesting things when it comes to those areas. But, was there anything that we didn't identify that you're kind of keeping your eye on? Is there anything that you think we should be keeping your eye on, or that you're keeping a look at? Feel free to let us know you can reach out to us at [email protected] As always, we love to hear your thoughts and feedback. We love to hear kind of your ideas for topics or episodes that we should do or guests that we should have on the show. We're going to continue to explore with format this year. So we'll definitely keep talking to some really smart folks, we will throw out a few more of those kind of explainer episodes where we try to demystify a complex or maybe unseen topic when it comes to the energy sector. But, whatever we do, we look forward to having ongoing conversations with you guys and hearing your feedback, and this is the kind of stuff that we just love talking about. So thanks for listening. Happy New Year, and we look forward to chatting to you next time. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the thinkenergy podcast. Don't forget to subscribe. Wherever you listen to podcasts, and it would be great if you could leave us a review. It really helps to spread the word. As always, we would love to hear from you, whether it's feedback comments or an idea for a show or a guest, you can always reach us at [email protected] /episode/index/show/thinkenergy/id/34807405

Holiday Rewind Part 2: Unwrapping the energy transition 12/23/2024

Holiday Rewind Part 2: Unwrapping the energy transition The final episode of thinkenergy in 2024 unwraps on the year’s biggest topic: the energy transition. Learn how it’s shaped discussions and actions across the energy sector, as we revisit the most insightful moments from past episodes, including expert insights on sustainable practices, investments needed for future transformations, and the impacts on rural, remote, and urban communities. Tune in for a holiday rewind of how the energy transition affects Canadian consumers, businesses, and the environment. Related links ● Episode 144 (The what, where, when, and how of Canada’s energy transition): ● Episode 140 (Current affairs with Francis Bradley, Electricity Canada’s President and CEO): ● Episode 141 (Decarbonizing and electrifying your home, with Sarah Grant of Goldfinch Energy): ● Episode 142 (Electrifying Canada’s remote communities with QUEST Canada): ● Episode 142 (Turning energy consumer interest into action with EY Global): ● Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: ● Hydro Ottawa: To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: To subscribe using Spotify: To subscribe on Libsyn: --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: Follow along on Instagram: Stay in the know on Facebook: Keep up with the posts on X: Transcript: Trevor Freeman 00:07 Welcome to think energy, a podcast that dives into the fast, changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators and people on the front lines of the energy transition. Join me, Trevor Freeman, as I explore the traditional, unconventional and up and coming facets of the energy industry. If you have any thoughts, feedback or ideas for topics we should cover, please reach out to us at [email protected]. Hey everyone and welcome back. Well, we find ourselves here at the tail end of 2024 about to wrap up the year. Hopefully you are all looking at some restful holiday plans, a chance to sort of unwind and decompress after what seems to be the same every year, kind of a busy year. There's always lots going on, but hopefully you're looking forward to some downtime over the holidays. I know I certainly am, as is normal, at the end of the year, we are looking back on the year that was the year that we've just gone through. And I'll say right off the bat that I'm really grateful for this year and this chance to step into the host role of the think energy podcast earlier this year, I took over in March of this year, when the previous host, Dan Seguin, retired, so I'll express my gratitude right off the bat to Dan and team for sort of pioneering this podcast over the previous years and then trusting me to take over the host chair. It's been a really fun journey and fun to kind of engage with our guests on different topics that I'm really passionate about you guys know from listening to this that I really like talking about climate change and energy and the energy transition, and this is a really cool and neat platform to be able to do that. So, thanks to the team for trusting me with that role. One thing we've been doing, as we've been looking back, is trying to figure out, you know, what is the main theme of this podcast here? What do we actually talk about? In our last episode you know that we did a bit of a summary of some of the top episodes from the year, in terms of, you know, interest from you the listener. For this one, what we wanted to do is really embody the theme of the year, and I think it should be no surprise that the theme is the energy transition. I mean, that's kind of the theme of the podcast. I know we touch on other aspects of working in the energy sector, but the energy transition is really the all-encompassing theme or thing that we talk about, and we spend a lot of time on here in this podcast, and so we wanted to bring you some of the episodes that really talk through what that energy transition is, and what does it mean for us. What does it mean for us as energy consumers, as homeowners and people that work and own and run businesses, as people that work in the utility industry and are making decisions about the future of energy? So, we've picked a few clips from the year that we think really embody that. So, get comfy, hopefully you're warm inside, as it's maybe snowy out where you are, maybe not, maybe you're listening from somewhere warm. But get comfy and have a listen to what we think are some of the clips that really embody what this year was about when it comes to the energy transition. To start things off, I think it would be good to and unfortunately, you're going to have to listen to my voice for another little bit longer. It'll be good to start with an episode I did not too long ago, which was really a primer on the energy transition, which really focused on helping everybody wrap their heads around what exactly is this thing that we talk about called the energy transition. So have a listen to this clip from that. And if you're interested, go back and listen to the whole episode. When we think about the energy transition, we probably mostly think of this ongoing shift to cleaner emissions free energy. So EVs over gas cars, heat pumps over gas furnaces, etc. That is definitely part of it. In fact, that's a major part of it. But like most things in life, it's never just as simple as that. The energy transition is a truly fundamental shift in our global relationship with energy, which includes not just what makes our cars go, but everything from how, where and when we generate energy, how, where and when we store and use energy, how we pay for the energy we use, how we finance and pay for energy projects and the systems that we need to do all the things I just mentioned. It will include a shift in what policies and regulatory guidelines and barriers we put in place to protect the public, but that also encourage change that we want to see happen to allow for innovation and advancement. It isn't completely throwing out everything we have and starting from scratch, although some things will disappear, like coal fired electricity generation, for example, but in a lot of areas, it is building on what we've already got at a pace that we haven't seen before, or at least in a very long time. I think that's a key point here. One of the things that makes the energy transition, a change worth noting is the pace of change that we will see. Things have never really been static in the world of energy, from that time when our earliest ancestors first sparked that fire, this is the poetic part that I mentioned earlier, our relationship to energy has never really stood still, but other than a few significant events, the upward trend in sophistication and growth and scope has been fairly linear, gradual, one step after the other, et cetera. It's those exceptions, though, those things that are different from that gradual, linear growth that probably most closely resemble this period of change that has started that we're calling the energy transition. Take the Industrial Revolution, for example. For decades and centuries prior, there had been gradual improvements in how we got around or how we work the fields. Let's say, you know, first by hand, then with tools, maybe a better plow came along. We started using a horse or an oxen to pull that plow, etc. That along comes the steam engine, and all of a sudden, things take off like never before. It wasn't just a matter of swapping out a horse for an engine. It may have started there, but entire economies and aspects of society changed or sprang up where they didn't exist before one change rolls into another and another in quick succession, and before too long, things that couldn't be imagined only decades before are suddenly a reality to a degree, that's what we're looking at today with the energy transition. How far that change goes remains to be seen, but it's pretty clear that we have begun one of those disruptive periods of change that will be looked back on as a major turning point. So yes, the energy transition is about shifting away from greenhouse gas emitting fossil fuels, coal, oil, natural gas, et cetera, to renewable, non-emitting energy sources, solar, wind, hydro, nuclear, etc. But it's also so much more. Even without climate change, our need for energy is growing at an exponential pace. In Canada, we're fortunate in that we have a strong foundation with a relatively decarbonized grid already, so about 80% carbon free nationally, and a diverse mix of hydro, nuclear and renewables like wind and solar. But it's still going to take quite a lot of effort to decarbonize that remaining 20% at a time when, as I keep mentioning, demand is increasing rapidly. In Ontario, our electricity system operator, the ieso, just updated their future demand projections to show that provincial demand will be 75% more or less high by 2050 than it is today. This means we also need to invest in our grid infrastructure to ensure it can handle the increased load, as well as utilizing things like decentralized generation and storage to ensure we don't over build not to mention making sure we can handle more extreme weather. So, I think that's a good place to set the stage for us. But now let's get into some of the real experts on this. And we'll go next to a conversation that I had with Francis Bradley, who's the president and CEO of electricity Canada. Electricity Canada is the sort of national voice of sustainable electricity. Here in Canada, they represent 40 of the largest utility companies. So that's companies that generate, transmit and distribute electricity from coast to coast all across Canada. And Francis and I talked about what level of investment is going to be required in order to accomplish some of those aspects of the energy transition that we talk about. So, here's what Francis had to say about that. Francis Bradley 09:02 I mean, these are, these are great questions in terms of what the investments are going to look like. And so, you know, we're looking at, as I said earlier, doubling the doubling the grid, we're going to need at least two times more kilowatt hours when we get to the future. So, you know, that's the level of investment that we need to be thinking about. There have been different organizations that have tried to kind of get a scope and scale of what that actually looks like. Again, I mentioned the RBC climate Institute last year. It had a study that came out, and I believe they, they peg this at, I think was $2 trillion was the was the amount that they expected this to cost? Where's the money coming from? Well, you know, that's a really good question, and it's one that we've been engaging in for a number of years now. And I'll try not to be, like, totally pedantic on this, but you know, if you can consider from a public policy standpoint, if we believe that expanding the electricity system is necessary to decarbonize the Canadian economy, then essentially, what you're saying is that expanding the electricity system is a public good from, you know, from an economic theory standpoint, if it's a public good, well, then it is something that should be borne by that taxpayer, not the ratepayer, right? And so, you know, part of this discussion is, who needs to bear the costs for building out a clean, non-emitting electricity system so that the rest of the economy can decarbonize. Should it be the electricity customer, or are there parts of this, this core infrastructure, that that are regarded as a public good, and it's something that this paid for by the taxpayer, you know, and we see this in other sectors, other sectors as well, where, you know, certain things are perceived to be public good and their taxpayers supported. And we saw a bit of a recognition and a realization that this made sense to a degree in the federal government's budget in 2023 where, you know, they essentially pledged one in every $8 in new spending was going to clean electricity projects through a variety of needs. You know, the investment tax credits, the Canada infrastructure bank, a number of funding mechanisms. So, I mean that those kinds of dollars from the federal government was a commitment to building infrastructure that really is unheard of at a national level since the Second World War. So, you know, it really kind of moved clean energy and electrification into the category of, well, I guess it's a public good. Because, you know, there's a recognition that if the federal government wants to achieve these policy objectives, it needs to put some federal dollars in. So, you know that determination is and whether it's a public good or not, has been made in favor of the taxpayer versus the rate there. Now, again, you know, you could easily say, well, hang on a second, the rate payer and the taxpayer the same person, except that it doesn't quite work the same way. You know, do we want to attach to the customers’ bills, every single customer, the cost of you knows, this, this expansion of our infrastructure or not. And you know, electricity bills are not something that fall, as taxes do disproportionately on those that are wealthier, right? And so, it is a little fairer. Now, you know, in terms of the specific investments, you know, I think exactly how this is going to happen and how it's going to roll out. Those details are still being worked out by some of our members. But I do want to highlight that, you know, the approach here that we're seeing from the government, which we appreciate, is, you know, a one that is so far technology and agnostic, which we think is the right way to go. So, you know, we there isn't, like, a right way or a wrong way to generate electricity. So, you know, the future that we see is going to be an all of the above future that will encompass wind and solar and nuclear and traditional hydro and and hydrogen and carbon capture and storage and more. Not only does that give us, you know, the greatest flexibility, and gives us the ability to balance different types of generation, dispatchable versus non dispatchable. But it also gives us, you know, overall, a far more flexible system. So, you know, that's the what the future is going to look like. So, to, you know, to give you the short answer, it'll be all of the above, and it'll be probably $2 trillion. You know, I kind of touched on this a couple of times, but No, first and foremost, the energy transition, if you will, as I noted earlier, can't be paid exclusively by the ratepayers, right? You know, this is an overall objective that we have. And so, you know, the infrastructure build is so large that that it needs to be, certainly, parts of it need to be paid through the tax system, and that that is progressive in a way that rates are not progressive to begin with. Now, you know, but boy, addressing vulnerable customers absolutely critical. Now there's a variety of things that that could be tried. You know, in the United States that there's a Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program that it helps keep families safe and healthy through initiatives that assist families with energy costs this, I think they call it the LIHEAP provides federally funded assistance to reduce the costs associated with home energy bills, energy crises, weatherization and minor energy related home repairs. So you know, a similar initiative in Canada could be there to assist the but the most vulnerable, you know, as you're aware, you know, your most vulnerable customers are the ones that have the least capacity to do things like weatherization, and so, you know, there's an example of a national program that we could look at as a model. Trevor Freeman 15:16 Francis is spot on there when he talks about not only the energy transitions potential impact on our most vulnerable. So those living in energy poverty areas are struggling with energy affordability, but also everybody who's looking to make improvements to their homes where they live in order to reduce costs and participate in the energy transition. That brings us to my next clip that I'd like to share with you, and that's a conversation I had with Sarah Grant. Sarah Grant's a good friend of mine who also happens to be an expert in her field, which is helping everyday Canadians on their journey to decarbonizing their homes so that they can contribute to Canada's energy transition. Looking at, what are the things you do in a home to decarbonize. How do you go about that? That process, Sarah and her company, Goldfinch energy are based out of Toronto, and I was really great to hear what she had to say about what it takes to decarbonize a home. Sarah Grant 16:18 Okay, going from large to small so the largest source of emissions in a home is your space heating. Typically, the emissions are about the same as driving a sort of a mid to large sized car. You know, most people drive, on average, 15,000 kilometers a year. The emissions are going to be about the same so that's going to be the biggest one, if someone is looking and they're a little bit overwhelmed, and the best alternative is a heat pump. So these are they come in many different forms, but the most common, and I think the most common scenario for most homes, is if you have forced air, so ductwork and these kind of heat pumps can extract heat from the air outside. A lot of them can work up to minus 30 degrees. So even up to minus 30, they're able to grab latent heat in the air and pump it inside, and then it gets pumped around your house. The cool thing about them is that they can also work in reverse. So in the summer, they act just like an air conditioner. In fact, the technology is very much the same as an air conditioner, just that they work in reverse in the winter too, so they can also cool. So these are called Air source heat pumps. And yeah, if someone has forced air and they have a gas furnace or an air conditioner or both that need to be replaced, an air source heat pump is, a great option. A lot of the folks that we've worked with that have switched we talked about comfort, sort of, some of the side benefits, I would say, of a heat pump is they're typically quieter, if designed and sized and installed properly, they're quieter both the outside and the inside aspects of a heat pump, and the air from the vents is a lot more comfortable. So, we got a heat pump about three years ago, and the first winter we had it installed, my father-in-law came over for dinner one night and just stood in front of the vent, kind of like a cat basking in that warmth, and said, Oh my gosh, this is way more comfortable. It's not that dry, scorched air that a lot of people associate with, with four stairs. So that's, that's an air source heat pump. You can also, there are also ground source heat pumps, but for a lot of you know urban areas, these ground source heat pumps involve drilling into the ground, either horizontally or vertically, to extract heat from the ground. They, they, I have worked with a few homes in sort of more rural areas where it does make sense, but the costs associated with them are, are really high, and often there's not enough space in urban areas, so they're not quite as common. And I'd say, sort of, just to kind of close the conversation on, we'll conclude it on the on the heating side of things, if you do have another source of like heat, maybe it's maybe it's cast-iron radiators or baseboards, there are also heat pumps that can help you as well. So, with cast iron radiators, they're what's called air to water heat pumps. So, they'll the outdoor unit will look similar to someone who has forced air. So, it's an it's going to... /episode/index/show/thinkenergy/id/34551270

Holiday Rewind Part 1: Unwrapping the best of 2024 12/09/2024

Holiday Rewind Part 1: Unwrapping the best of 2024 The holiday season is here and 2024 is coming to a close. It’s a good time to reflect, so we’re looking back at five of the top episodes of thinkenergy in 2024. Join your host Trevor Freeman, as he unwraps the year’s most important topics surrounding the future of energy in Canada. Listen in for how experts are guiding change with insightful data and how they’re communicating facts about the climate crisis. Plus, learn about new energy policies and ongoing updates to the electricity grid. Related links Episode 134 (What the data tells us): Episode 122 (Climate communication): Episode 138 (Energy policies deep dive, part 1): Episode 136 (Modernizing the electricity grid): Episode 135 (Modernizing Ontario’s energy future): Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: Hydro Ottawa: To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: To subscribe using Spotify: To subscribe on Libsyn: Subscribe so you don't miss a video: Follow along on Instagram: Stay in the know on Facebook: Keep up with the posts on X: Transcript: Trevor Freeman 00:07 Welcome to think energy, a podcast that dives into the fast, changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators and people on the front lines of the energy transition. Join me, Trevor Freeman, as I explore the traditional, unconventional and up and coming facets of the energy industry. If you have any thoughts, feedback or ideas for topics we should cover, please reach out to us at [email protected] Hey, everyone, welcome back. Depending on where you live, you may notice that it's getting a little chilly outside. There is actually a couple snowflakes in the air or even on the ground, depending, again, on where you live. Up here in Ottawa, where I am, it's definitely starting to feel like we're getting close to winter, maybe not quite there yet, but like we're getting close to winter, which does seem to be happening later and later every year, because we're near the end of the year, we thought it would be a good idea to kind of look back at Think Energy over the last 12 months, and this has been an interesting year, both for Think Energy as well as for the industry we work in for Think Energy. It's been an interesting year because we transitioned hosts, and that brings me into the picture. So, I took over the hosting chair earlier this year, and I've really had a great time having conversations with folks and getting to dive into topics that either I know a little about, but not the full picture, or sometimes don't even know that much about. So, it's really been fun to do that, and it was fun to look back over the year at the different episodes that I've recorded and get a sense for where we've come with the show. The industry we work in has also been full of changes, and I think that is just the new reality. Every year, at the end of the year, I could probably say, wow, that was a really impactful year., things changed a lot. Hopefully all that change is in the right direction towards this energy transition, towards cleaning our energy and getting off fossil fuels. But like anything, change will be a bit up and down. Today, we're going to look back at the year and highlight some of the moments from our top episodes. These are the episodes that resonated with you, the listener the most, the ones that kind of got the most listens and the most reaction from and it's fun to pull out some of the impactful moments for us from that, from those episodes. So, in the holiday tradition, we're gonna go back and pull out some holiday treats from our from our favorite episodes, if you will. We're going to start by going all the way back to April, when I had the pleasure to chat with David Coletto, the founder and CEO of abacus data. So, David gave us a snapshot of what Canadians are really thinking about when it comes to the future of energy and our planet. This conversation is the perfect starting point for this episode, because it really lays the groundwork for understanding what Canadians think and feel about the energy landscape and how we will move forward. So, what did David's research reveal about how Canadians prioritize climate change amongst all the other things that are vying for their intention? Here's what he had to say when I asked him about evolving attitudes towards this pressing issue. David Coletto 03:24 Coming out of the pandemic, though, and I think the defining mindset up today, which is really important to understand, to then understand why people will be resistant to certain public policy choices on climate, or may not be ready to fully embrace a transition, is that most Canadians right now, and I say most, I mean, like 80 to 90% of them, I believe, have a mindset that's very much tied to scarcity. And that is that is a real shift. And what that means is that a lot of the things that people have come to expect they can get in their lives are either more expensive, harder to find or get or they fear losing what they already have, and those are often tied to issues like housing, the general cost of living, and healthcare. And so that mindset then causes us to view public policy decisions, broader economic forces and our day to day lives to a very different lens than one where I describe as there's plenty of everything, right, and a plenty mindset means I can take risks. I can perhaps pay a little bit more, even if the perception is that I pay more, even if it's not true, in order to achieve other kinds of goals. But when I'm the perception of struggling every day just to get the kind of life I want, or I'm the one in three Canadians who feel like they've completely fallen behind, that is going to make it much harder for me to be persuaded to do things that feel like a big change, or feel like they're going to disrupt my life more than it already is. Now, if we expand that and then we say, okay, so how do we overlay that? Add on to views around the broader issues around climate change, energy transition, I think what's clear in the long-term trends is the vast majority, 90 plus percent of Canadians believe climate change is real and is caused by human behavior. Overwhelming majorities believe that we that's actually a crisis that we have to do something about. And in the shorter term, the last, I would say, 12 to 18 months, as a result of you and me, Trevor, I don't know about you, I grew up in, you know, in Ontario. I never once in my entire life stepped out on a June morning and saw smokey skies and, you know, take my dog for a walk and bring her home, and she smells like smoke. That was never part of my experience. My wife grew up in Alberta, much more likely to happen in in in Western Canada over time. So, I think there's also become a realization that's firmed up, that if we don't do something about this, that it's going to have not just theoretical consequences for the earth, but actual implications for my life. Won't be able to do certain things, my health might be compromised, the value of my property might be at risk, I may not be able to ensure and so that, I think, has created far more desire or demand to see action. But what's muted it, at least in the short term, is that scarcity mindset, where people have basically said, including young people, which is the most fascinating thing, is people often assume younger Canadians are more likely to, you know, say climate change is a priority. For the first time and probably ever that I've tracked this, we now have younger Canadians. If you're under 30, you're the least likely to say climate change is one of your top three priorities. And that's because other issues, like housing, like economic security, like the cost of living, have overtaken them. And so short-term fear of short term scarcity has, at least for now, pushed down fears about the longer term scarcity that climate change will create. Trevor Freeman 07:00 Super interesting. I really like this conversation with David, because it was really great to get into the psychology of climate action and some of the barriers we need to overcome. I mean, there's a risk of thinking about climate science and the collective action that we have to take as being very scientific and data driven, and a lot of sense as it is, but we are all still people in the mix here, and we need to choose to take action, and how a country and a society, and in fact, that globe chooses to take action is really dependent on how we feel and think about it. So, this was a great conversation, and good to get that insight from David. It really kind of gets us to ask ourselves, what is going to mobilize and motivate the majority of people to take action when their focus is on more immediate needs? And that kind of ties into the next conversation that I want to highlight, which is actually a conversation that my predecessor, Dan Seguin had with Amber Bennett, the deputy director of rec climate, who talked about how we can perhaps move the needle when it comes to a large segment of the population that wants to take action but aren't entirely sure how. So, Amber shed some light on how to engage this movable middle, if you will, those people who believe in climate change, but maybe need that extra nudge to prioritize action. So let's hear what Amber had to say. Amber Bennett 08:29 I feel compelled to say that I think the term movable middle is used differently by different people. I think when the context of, you know, the work that we do, it kind of comes out of, you know, some of the themes that I was talking about in the last in the last question or last answer. It's this idea that, you know, people are kind of undecided, or they're conflicted about an issue, so they could move either one way or the other, but they're not, at the moment, oppositional, right? So, if you think about, you know, a broader population, there is a segment, you know, of Canadians whose identities are really built around the idea that they don't believe in climate change, they're not going to support, you know, climate action and whatnot. There's also on the other side, a whole group of Canadians whose identity are built around I'm a climate activist and I'm a climate advocate and, you know, and I'm an environmentalist, and so they're on the other side, but most of us just kind of we live in the middle. Some are more well informed than others, but for the most part, people are concerned right in the middle. They have they you know, when they ask yes, we want the government to act, we are highly supportive of it. But when it comes down to it, it's this tension around the fact that, because they may not be well informed, they're not thinking about this. They have many competing priorities. They're kind of undecided, or sometimes they're just conflicted about an issue, right? Because, on the one hand, as an example, yeah, I think we, we absolutely need renewable energy. We need lots of, you know, solar panels. I just don't want them on my house. Or we need lots of, you know, solar renewable solar farms. I just don't want them all over the landscape that I cherish from my childhood. So there are many things that you know are underneath of that are operating underneath for people that kind of create some conflict for them. So, people, so when we talk about the movable middle really, I think what's important is to acknowledge that most people are concerned, they want and they support action, but they're undecided, potentially, about one particular aspect or issue of it, or there's some other kind of thing that's happening for them that's creating a conflict, or they're kind of uninformed. So, you know, I think that you know one example, or rather, I'll back up that uninformed piece is particularly important right now as we see more and more kind of organized misinformation and disinformation, right? So, as an example, when I'm in focus groups, I can predict with very, you know, the lot of certainty. What are some of the kind of key narratives that are going to surface where people are kind of undecided. One of them might be, well, EV batteries are actually worse, you know, for the environment, than, you know, driving a car. Or there's no way that we're going to be able to electrify everything the grids can't support it. Or it may be solar panels actually create more emissions when you produce them than they save in their lifetime. So these kind of, like very dominant or kind of reoccurring pieces of information, and when people who are not thinking about this a lot or deeply as much as maybe you or I or people who are listening to this, so when, when people encounter these, this kind of information or confusion about what are the actual solutions, they really don't know what to think, right? So, like, a third of us sit within that category, right, of I actually don't know how to make sense of the information that that I'm hearing, right, and I don't trust so much of it, because I know that, you know, I know about misinformation. I know that I shouldn't be, you know, trusting everything that I hear, etc. So that's kind of the deal with the movable middle, right? So they're belief climate change is real, they're not climate deniers. They just may be conflicted or undecided or just not, you know, as informed, because they're not thinking about it on a daily basis. So, you know, as an example, when we talk about the challenge, you know, part of this is really, I think, being more clear about the cause of climate change, but also, what are some of the challenges that we're seeing that are related to climate change within our communities. You know, I was listening to a program, CBC program, the other day, and there's an entire community in Newfoundland that's actually moving back from the water. And this is, you know, after the aftermath of of hurricane Fiona and whatnot. So, you know, some of the challenges that we're seeing, what's the challenge that we're trying to overcome? And ideally, I would right size that at a community scale, right? So people feel overwhelmed when it's my personal, individual problem, but if we can begin to talk about this as a community challenge, then people are much more likely to engage because they don't feel like they're in it all on their own. 14:34 Playing into that idea that it takes a village to tackle climate change, let's go to one of our other popular shows this season with our guest, Nicholas Rivers, who's an associate professor of Public Policy and International Affairs from the University of Ottawa. I had a great chat with Nicholas about the role of public policy when it comes to action related to climate change, and we can't really discuss the world of energy in 2024 and not talk about one of the biggest and maybe most misunderstood topics in Canadian energy, carbon pricing. Carbon pricing is one of those things that we all hear about. We all kind of have an idea of what it is, but maybe it's not exactly what we think it is. So, it was really helpful to get Nicholas to break it down for us and to help us really understand it. So, let's have a listen to my chat with Nick Rivers about carbon pricing. Nicholas Rivers 15:32 Let me start out by saying, What's the point of carbon pricing? Because I think it's not evident for lots of people. It seems like a crazy idea. The basic idea is that we live in a market economy, and a market economy is one where the market responds to the cost of producing something and the desire of people to buy something, and so the market sets the prices, and the market determines how much gets produced in response to the prices, and how much people buy in response to the prices. It's not directed by some other entity, and the market economy tends to work best when the prices of things reflect their costs. So, if I want to go buy some bread, the idea in a market economy is that the price of the bread that I buy should reflect the cost to produce the bread right, the cost of the grains that are used to make it, and the cost of labor and the machines that are required to make it. And if that does reflect the cost, and there's a motivation for the bread maker to make the bread for me and so it'll be there when I want to buy it. And the idea that behind this carbon pricing is that there is a cost to me producing carbon emissions, right? So it the cost is it makes the world a little warmer, and there's a cost in lives and livelihoods and Well Being from climate change, but I don't pay a price, right? I don't pay the cost. I'm not required to pay the cost, because this is a non market good. No one's producing climate change. It's a public good. And so the idea behind carbon pricing is, hey, the market doesn't work for this kind of good. One way we can fix it is by attaching a price to carbon emissions. So it's just like bread. When people, you know, use it, they have to pay the price to reflect the cost. And so that's the kind of basic fundamental. And the idea that economists have had for a long time is that if we properly price carbon emissions, people are going to use an awful lot less of them, because now their actions now their actions reflect the costs. Okay, so, so that's the kind of basic idea behind carbon pricing. Canada has brought in a carbon price federally in 2019 provinces implemented carbon prices, some of them much before that, so Alberta brought in an industrial carbon price in 2007, BC brought in a carbon price throughout all emit for all emitters in 2008 and Quebec as well. So, the federal carbon price now is kind of the law of the land, in the sense that in that 2016 meeting that I mentioned, where the federal and provincial governments agreed about carbon pricing. The agreement was, we should all have a carbon price. Let's like this a level playing field. Let's all do our piece. And the federal government kind of took that message back and developed a federal carbon pricing benchmark, which said, hey, provinces, you can do your own carbon price as long as it's at least, you know, this certain level of stringency. But if you don't do it, we'll bring in our federal carbon price instead. Okay, so provinces have the ability to do something on their own, and if they don't do anything, the federal government will bring in a carbon price. And so what we've got now is a kind of a system that's a bit piecemeal, where some provinces have a their own carbon price, and other provinces have not implemented a carbon price, and the federal government has brought one in their place. The Federal carbon price has two parts. One is a consumer facing part, so for people like you and me, and for people or for for institutions that are not giant emitters, like a university or hospital or a mall, for example, they all are subject to what the federal government calls a fuel Levy and what the rest of us call a carbon tax. Big industrial emitters, like a pulp and paper plant or a steel plant or a big electricity generator are subject to a different scheme. It's still a carbon price, but the way it works is a little different, and it's called an output based performance standard. So I'll speak about each of them briefly on the industry side. The way it works is that each facility that produces a lot of emissions gets a target, and it's usually a same target for everyone in the sector. So the target could be like the target is for a steel sector you got to produce steel with a carbon intensity of less than, say, one ton of carbon per ton of steel that you produce. So they get that target, and if they manage to get their facility emissions below the target, they get a reward in terms of a carbon price. And if they if their emissions are above the target, they have to pay a carbon price. Trevor Freeman 20:32 A financial reward. So they get some sort of incentive to being below that benchmark. Nicholas Rivers 20:35 They basically get carbon... /episode/index/show/thinkenergy/id/34316445

Breaking down Distributed Energy Resources, with Hydro Ottawa’s Trevor Freeman 11/25/2024

Breaking down Distributed Energy Resources, with Hydro Ottawa’s Trevor Freeman What are Distributed Energy Resources (DERs)? How important are they to the energy transition? Host Trevor Freeman shares how solar panels, batteries, and small-scale wind turbines are shifting from niche innovations to central figures in reshaping our energy infrastructure. Discover how these tools help reduce reliance on centralized power and empower you to generate and store your own energy, reduce grid dependency, and pave the way for a greener, more efficient, and cost-effective energy future. Related links ● Hydro Ottawa 2021–2025 Strategic Direction: ● About Ontario’s Feed-In Tariff: ● Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: Hydro Ottawa: To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: To subscribe using Spotify: To subscribe on Libsyn: Subscribe so you don't miss a video: Follow along on Instagram: Stay in the know on Facebook: Keep up with the posts on X: Transcript: Trevor Freeman 00:00 Welcome to think energy, a podcast that dives into the fast, changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators and people on the front lines of the energy transition. Join me, Trevor Freeman, as I explore the traditional, unconventional and up and coming facets of the energy industry. If you have any thoughts, feedback or ideas for topics we should cover, please reach out to us at [email protected]. Hi everyone. Welcome back. Okay, so it's time for another explainer episode. Just as a reminder, I plan to do these from time to time to make sure that everyone is up to speed on some important foundational concepts, things that we talk about often on the show, that maybe we take for granted, that everybody knows what we're talking about. Because this is the kind of thing that's we start to live and breathe every day, and not all of our listeners are there as well. Today, I'd like to quickly go through something we mention a lot on the show, and we probably mentioned it using the acronym DERs, but distributed energy resources, that's the acronym der and I'll probably be referring to them as DERs here on the show from time to time. But so, I wanted to give you a bit of a basis of that. It's something that you've probably heard a number of times. It comes up in a lot of different aspects of our conversations here on the show, DER's are not necessarily brand-new technology. They're not necessarily new things, but their role in our energy transition is evolving and accelerating, and we're going to see a lot more of them as we move forward. So, I think it's important to sort of set that foundation and set the groundwork so that everybody knows what we're talking about here. So, what are distributed energy resources? Well as the name suggests, they are small scale generation or storage resources that are located at or near the point of consumption, like our homes and our businesses. And before we talk too much about them, I think it's important to understand why they are unlike our traditional energy resources. So, for the last 100 years or so, our energy has been primarily centralized, at least in the case of electricity, especially one of the great engineering marvels of the last century that I know, I've talked about on the show before, and something that we still benefit from today is the centralized electricity grid. So, across Ontario, Canada, North America, there is this vast interconnected grid that brings relatively affordable electricity to customers from large scale, centralized generation. The generation technology of the last 100 years has made the most sense when it was built at a large scale and when it was centralized. So not everybody had a river or waterfall in their backyard for Hydroelectric Generating Station. Not everybody could build a coal or gas fire generating station in their backyard. Nor would we want that, nor would you want to have to have a coal fired generating station in your backyard. So, as we were scaling up our use of electricity in the last century, it made sense to centralize this generation, to build it big, so that it could serve the greatest number of customers and to transmit that electricity to where people used it, these types of projects, and let's include nuclear in there that haven't mentioned that yet. These are large, complex, major public projects. So you're not going to build a bunch of small ones. You're going to want to centralize that for economies of scale and things like that. So that centralized approach has worked well over the last century and will continue to be part of our energy mix moving forward. We're not getting away from centralized generation and our electricity grids. But things are changing. There are now other options on the table, and these other options are set to play a major role in our energy futures. Enter distributed energy resources or DERs. DERs are things like small scale solar or battery storage, in some cases, wind turbines and even your electric vehicle. These technologies mean that some of our energy needs can be met, not just from a distant, centralized generation station, but right from our own rooftops or our driveway. Why is this important? Well, the DERs have a big role to play in our future, and there are many benefits to de ours. So first off, let's put ourselves in the shoes of a homeowner investing in some kind of DER. Let's say solar on the rooftop. Being able to generate your own electricity gives you some control over your energy needs and costs. Think about investing in a DER, as locking in some portion of your energy costs now for the life of that equipment, regardless of what happens to sort of the market rate of electricity and electricity prices over time you've paid for that solar generation, you know what those cost, It's in today's dollars, and you've got that generation for the life of the equipments. And that kind of locks you into that. It gives you some predictability, and it insulates you from sort of what's happening in the market. You also have the opportunity to use your der in conjunction with the rate structure of your utility to really minimize your cost. So, let's say you have a battery and your utility has a time of use rate option, like we have here in Ontario. If you change your battery during an off peak time when electricity is cheap, and use it during a peak time when electricity is expensive, you can really drive your costs down. And all of the electricity you're pulling from a grid, or some large portion of it, can be at that lower off peak cost. That brings me to my next point, which is the carbon impact of electricity. So, we talk a lot about climate change on the show. We talk a lot about the fact that really what we need to do is drive down our carbon intensity, drive down the amount of carbon we're emitting. And how much carbon is emitted from electricity generation really depends on where you live, but let's take Ontario as an example. Most of our electricity in Ontario is emissions free, so we have a large amount of nuclear. We have a lot of hydroelectricity. We have some large scale solar, a lot of wind turbines, but we do still have gas fired generation. This typically shows up during our peak times when electricity demand in the province is at its highest. So, if you can rely on your der during those peak times, your battery or your solar panels rather than the grid, you are avoiding using more carbon intensive electricity, and if we scale that up to more than just the individual perspective, the more DERs we have that reduce our overall system peaks, the less we have to rely on that carbon intensive gas fired generation, in the case of Ontario, for generation during those peak times. So DERs are a good tool to lower the carbon intensity of our electricity grid. One last point from the individual customer's perspective is resiliency and reliability outages are, unfortunately something that can't 100% be avoided, and that is increasingly so as we experience more extreme weather events related to climate change, DERs, especially when there's a battery involved, can provide some resiliency against those times when there may be a grid outage, even if it's just to power your essentials to buy some time for your utility to work on restoration. It reduces the pressure on you as a customer, when the power is out, you can kind of get by until the utility is able to restore things. So, let's zoom out a little bit. You may be wondering why someone from utility me is going on about the virtues of what you might consider to be a competing technology to our core line of business, which is supplying electricity to our customers. But DERs can actually be a huge help to our grid. And utilities are increasingly looking at how we can best enable DERs in a way that benefits all of our customers, not just those who have the solar panels on their own roofs, but everybody. In fact, at hydro Ottawa, we highlight this in our current strategic direction. We have eight key points in our strategic direction, and point number four is leverage and promote DERs to understand why it's helpful to remember that utilities have to build our grids to serve what you might consider the worst-case scenario or peak demand. This is the time when the draw of electricity from the grid is at its highest, we need to make sure that on those hot, sunny afternoons when everyone's AC is blasting and people are getting home from work or school, starting to cook dinner, starting to watch TV, plugging in their electric vehicles, etc., etc., the grid can handle all of that load, but for much of the time, demand on the grid is actually a lot less. We don't see those peaks all the time, so that means we have to build up to a capacity that isn't always being used, and with the changes that we'll see as a result of the ongoing energy transition, so electrification of heating, more electric vehicles, etc., as well as other driving factors like increased data center demand hands due to AI and the never ending March to digitize our society, we are going to see those peak demand periods, that sort of max pull from the grid get higher and higher under the traditional approach to the grid, the only answer would be to build more and more and with the pace that things are changing at. And have a listen to my last explainer episode on on the energy transition for more on that, relying only on the sort of traditional builds model would be expensive for all stakeholders, including our customers, and it would be hard for us to keep up with the pace of change. Don't get me wrong, our grid does need significant investment to expand meet customer needs. We are going to be building out the grid as we've talked about here, but that is not the only tool we have, thanks to DERs. So, imagine if we could take that peak demand that I've been mentioning, and lower it a bit, or shift some of that load from a peak time to an off-peak time. Doing so would let us get more out of our existing grid assets, and in some cases, even delay or defer some big capital investment, a new transformer, a new substation, for example, DERs will help us do that. So, any individual solar panel or battery may not make the difference, but imagine 10s or hundreds of DERs on a given feeder that might be enough to shave that peak load by a significant amount. So, something like a solar panel can be thought of as a passive benefit to the system, meaning it generates when it's sunny and up here in Canada when it's not covered in snow. So, we get the benefit when the conditions are right, but they may not always be right, so we can't necessarily rely on them all the time. But if you pair that solar array with a battery, or looking a bit into the future with an EV for example, which is basically just a battery with wheels. Now we've got some control, and that control is where the real value lies, and it's with things like batteries and EVs, but also other smart connected devices, like your thermostat, for example. So, there is a future not too far from now, where you might get a signal from your utility saying, Hey, we're getting close to our capacity on your feeder, so we'd like you to switch over to your battery, or we'd like to pause your EV charging for a few hours. Or maybe we want to bump the temperature up on your thermostat by a degree or two, so you're not cooling so much just for the next few hours, and we'll give you an incentive on your bill if you let us do that now, you might say, no, actually, I've got to get that EV charge because I'm about to head off on a weekend road trip or take the kids to soccer or whatever it might be, or no, I'm actually hosting a party tonight, so I don't want to mess with the AC right now. Thank you. So, you can opt out of that call, but most of the time, you'd likely say yes, because Sure, I mean, I'm home for the night, as long as my EV is charged by the morning. I don't care if it happens right now or in a few hours, and what's a degree or two for the next couple hours on my thermostat, I probably won't even notice, and I'll get that credit on my electricity bill, that action, that collective action, multiplied over hundreds or 1000s of customers, can be the difference between having to build new infrastructure like a transformer or even a substation or not, and that has big implications on how much the grid costs and how flexible we are with the solutions that we're putting in place. Those examples that I just gave are kind of focused on the smaller DERs, but there's also a role for large DERs as well. These are things like 10 or 20 megawatt batteries that are playing that same peak load reduction role, but for a large scale industrial or commercial application, for example, think about a massive customer. The same idea, you know, reduce the magnitude of those peaks, but with a single, massive device. So, the ability to manage peaks is extremely beneficial to utility trying to manage the grid, and DERs will be a really big part of that. So, the question may be, why now? Why are we all of a sudden hearing so much more about DERs and seeing the start of what we expect to be a big ramp up of Der installations? As I said at the beginning. I mean, solar panels aren't a new technology. They've been around for quite a while. Batteries are evolving. But as you know, we've had batteries for a while, so there's a couple of reasons behind this. And before we jump into those, there is a caveat here that I am obviously talking to you from Ottawa, Ontario. And so, the context around what I'm going to say here is very Ontario kind of North American specific. There are other jurisdictions in the world, you know, Europe, for example, that are quite a bit further along than us when it comes to DERs, or at least, their approach has been different in a different timeline. So, keep in mind that I'm talking about sort of the local context here. So, the first reason why we're seeing a lot more of this kind, boils down to basic economics and market forces. So, a rooftop solar array 20 years ago was something that could be considered a luxury item. It's extremely expensive and Ontario, at least prior to the feed in tariff program, which launched in 2009 there wasn't really even a great mechanism for recovering your costs, kind of the best you could hope for was, you know, eliminate your electricity consumption from the grid and thereby reduce your cost on your electricity bill, at least for the electricity portion. The last 15 or so years have seen significant changes in that area. So, programs like Ontario's feed in tariff, and then sort of a subsequent evolution into our current net metering option, have created a viable business case for putting solar up at the same time that solar technology and sort of the global value chains around that have evolved and costs have dropped exponentially, so on a global scale, when we look at sort of cost of solar globally, the cost is now about 90% less than it was in 2010 to put solar up on your roof, for example. That is not a small fee. So, think about how significant a drop that is. So that combined with government programs like tax credits, low or no interest financing options for DERs and other energy efficiency measures, and all of a sudden there's a really good business case for putting up solar. Solar, I would say, is the furthest ahead on that journey when you talk about DERs, but battery technology, EVs, et cetera. They're seeing a similar process where they are no longer just super high end luxury items anymore. I mean, you've probably seen this as you look around, you probably see way more EVs out there. You see that green license plate that starts with GeV. We're seeing these technologies become more common, the cost coming down and more accessible for more people. Another main driver is just the need for these types of solutions as part of our energy transition. And again, have a listen to my last explainer episode on the energy transition for more on this. But because of the ongoing climate crisis, as well as increasing demand from things like AI data centers, the need for fast evolution and how we manage our grid, how we support our customers, how we provide the power that's being asked of us, is really critical, and so that's why you'll see government programs that support der technology, and hopefully we'll see even more of Those moving forward. Lastly, what else needs to happen to get there? So, I've kind of painted this picture of widespread DER adoption. It's everywhere we're utilizing it. You know, utilities are making use of The DERs that are out there. That is not today's context, but I'm hopeful that it's sort of tomorrow's context, that we're on the cusp of that what needs to happen to get there? Well, one of the big things is grid modernization. So I'll take this opportunity to give another plug to the episode that I did with hydro Ottawa's Jenna Gillis earlier this year about our own grid modernization efforts. But essentially, we need to evolve our grid technology and the sort of system office technology, you know, that's where we control the grid and our own IT infrastructure, how we communicate with our devices, to the next level, which will allow us to do the kinds of things with DERs that I mentioned earlier, and as I talked about with Jenna, our efforts towards this are underway. This is a real project. This isn't sort of a concept that we're thinking of this is something we're doing that's underway. It's ongoing, and we're preparing ourselves for a de our future. That's one of the reasons why we're doing this, one of the reasons, finally, there continues to be a role that governments at all level can play to further incentivize and enable DERs, whether that's through incentives or subsidy programs, or updating existing regulations and rate classes, so that the business case for DERs makes sense in sort of the areas or applications where they will benefit the grid and all customers. There's a role to be played there government and those conversations are underway. There are der working groups in Ontario that we're a part of, and we're hopefully going to see more movement on that as we move forward. So hopefully that gives you a sense of what DERs are and why they're so important, why that acronym comes up on this show so frequently amongst our guests and the conversations that we have, they really are just one more tool in our energy toolbox that we will use to build that smart, clean, connected energy future that we talk about on this show so often. They are one of the ways that we're going to get there, and a big part of that. So, thanks for listening. As always, send us your thoughts and feedback. Let us know topics that you want to hear about. We'd love to hear from... /episode/index/show/thinkenergy/id/34106216

Cybersecurity and the energy sector, with Hydro Ottawa’s Jojo Maalouf 11/11/2024

Cybersecurity and the energy sector, with Hydro Ottawa’s Jojo Maalouf Our daily lives are more and more connected online. This includes our utility grids. Jojo Maalouf, Hydro Ottawa’s Director of Cybersecurity and IT Infrastructure, joins thinkenergy to discuss the role of cybersecurity in the energy sector. From cybersecurity threats, like cyber warfare and ransom-seeking hacktivists, to the measures required to defend our energy systems. Plus, how AI both helps and complicates matters. Listen in to learn what’s driving change and the collaboration needed to protect the grid. Related links Ontario Cybersecurity Framework: Get Cyber Safe resources: Jojo Maalouf on LinkedIn: Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: Hydro Ottawa: To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: To subscribe using Spotify: To subscribe on Libsyn: Subscribe so you don't miss a video: Follow along on Instagram: Stay in the know on Facebook: Keep up with the posts on X: Transcript: Trevor Freeman 00:07 Welcome to think energy, a podcast that dives into the fast, changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators and people on the front lines of the energy transition. Join me, Trevor Freeman, as I explore the traditional, unconventional and up and coming facets of the energy industry. If you have any thoughts, feedback or ideas for topics we should cover, please reach out to us at [email protected] Hi everyone, welcome back. It won't be a surprise to anyone listening that our energy systems, like much of the rest of our lives, are becoming more and more connected and more online than ever before. Let's just take a look at our own personal lives. We've got apps that can control multiple aspects of our homes. For example, for my phone, I can adjust temperature, set points and fan speed heating and cooling in my house, I can turn on or off lights, both inside and outside. I can look and see who just rang my doorbell, even if I'm in another city, and I can check and see where my vehicle is, whether it's charging or not. And I can even turn it on all from my phone. And I would consider myself like middle of the road in terms of how connected and online I am. There are even further examples of this in some of those ultra-connected homes. This is part of our fast paced and constant evolution towards invenience and using technology to find solutions to problems that we didn't always know existed, and maybe they didn't actually exist. We've all heard that term, the Internet of Things, referring to this ultra-connected world where it's not just people talking over the internet, but our devices and systems are talking as well. I was absolutely floored when I was doing some research on this podcast to find out that this term, the Internet of Things, was first used 25 years ago, in 1999 when I first wrote the text for this. I put a placeholder in to say, oh, it's been around for over 10 years. And then when I actually did my research, it's over 25 years. Think about how far we've come since that idea was thought of in 1999 how different life is today than 1999 our energy systems and our utility grids are undergoing a similar transition. I talked about this a little bit with Hydro Ottawa's Jenna Gillis in a previous episode about grid modernization. So go back and have a listen to that. If you haven't already, we are adding more and more data points to our grids, and that includes sensors, smart switches, fault detectors, smarter meters, etc., etc. Even for hydro Ottawa, a local distribution company with around 350,000 customers, we are talking about many times that number of smart devices in the coming years, all connected, all trading data between themselves and our central systems and the smart folks who run them now, there is a ton of upside to this transition, and that's why we're doing it. More data leads to better decision making, a better view of what's happening, whether that's during an outage or at times when the grid is heavily utilized. It lets us get more out of the equipment we have, react and adjust to the needs of our customers, and react and adjust to the needs of the grid. It will lead to faster restoration during outages, and sometimes that restoration will be automatic without having to roll a truck. It will allow us to better integrate distributed energy resources like small scale solar and storage and other things into our grid for the benefit of our customers and the grid. There is no question that this is a move in the right direction, and hydro Ottawa is leaning into this aspect of the energy transition to build a smarter grid for our customers. However, it does highlight something that has long been a priority for us, cyber security. With so many connected devices, with so much data out there, we need to be extremely vigilant and rigorous with our digital security. Cyber-attacks on utility infrastructure are not theoretical. In 2015 and 2016 attacks on the Ukrainian power grid resulted in large scale power outages in that country, as we increasingly rely on electricity for so many aspects of our lives, attacks like this, whether by nation states or bad actors seeking financial gain, can have devastating consequences. Luckily, this is something that has been a priority for us for many years, and as the threats become more sophisticated, so too do our strategies to protect our systems and our grid from those attacks. Joining me today to talk about this is Hydro Ottawa's director of cybersecurity and IT infrastructure. Jojo Maalouf, JoJo, welcome to the show. Jojo Maalouf 04:46 Thanks for having me. Trevor Freeman 04:47 All right, so Jojo, cyber security is a little bit of a buzzword that a lot of folks have probably heard in a bunch of different contexts. Help us unpack it a little bit. What do we actually mean when we talk about cybersecurity threats and cybersecurity prevention, I guess? Jojo Maalouf 05:05 Very good question, right? So, I mean, let's kind of simplify things, so we obviously have these adversaries, right? And these adversaries are trying to get into organizations networks. We hear a lot of the sensitivity or the criticality of information, so they're trying to obtain that information. And, you know, can they look at potentially monetizing that? Really what we're kind of trying to do, or what cyber security is, is, if you think about it, we have these bad guys, these adversaries. They're trying to get into organizations they possess or introduce some sort of level of risk. What we are trying to do as people in cyber security is defend those organizations from those risks and those adversaries. So, in order for us to do that, we need to put together a program. We need to make sure we have the relevant controls in place, because, at the end of the day, what we're trying to do is mitigate that risk to an acceptable level where the business can run. Trevor Freeman 06:07 Yeah, totally. And who are these threats coming from? Like, we hear a lot about state sponsored groups for profit, hackers. There's sort of that hacktivists, kind of ideologically driven group. Who are we worried about in the in the energy industry? Jojo Maalouf 06:20 You know, it's very good question. I think, to be honest, you, I think we worry about all of them. I think from from our perspective, threats are threats. And obviously, depending on the magnitude of those threats and where they're coming from, they could potentially possess or introduce a different type of risk. But the reality is, they all introduce a level of risk. Yes, we are worried about state sponsored entities. You know, we've seen what's happened throughout the years. It started out in Stuxnet with Iran in 2010 we've seen what's happened with Ukraine in 2015 the end of day, what are we trying to protect? We're trying to ensure that a cyber-attack doesn't actually impact our ability to deliver power to our customers. What we are seeing now in the industry, obviously, is that adversaries are understanding that they can really monetize this, right? So, we're seeing the exponential growth of ransomware throughout the years. I remember back in 2016 when a major Canadian university was asked to pay a think approximately a $35,000 ransomware. Where we looked at that in comparison in 2024 where the average cost of a ransomware attack is just under $5 million. So, it's a billion dollar industry, right? And it's only growing. You know, I'd say the threats are coming everywhere, but you're definitely seeing the monetization aspect of it growing exponentially. Trevor Freeman 07:51 Yeah. So, I guess from our perspective, it really doesn't matter what the motivation is. If someone's getting into our systems and sort of impacting our ability to do what we do doesn't matter what the motivation is. It's a problem for us, and we try and guard against it. Jojo Maalouf 08:05 Correct. I think, I think people are very highly motivated now, whether it's for it's ransomware, whether it's state sponsored, I think entities, or I would say adversary, sorry, are definitely highly motivated. And it doesn't really change our approach. So, you know, the energy sector needs to make sure that they do what they can to protect the systems. Trevor Freeman 08:23 Yeah, fair enough. So, we've talked in the past on the show, and in my intro, I talked about grid modernization, and this sort of evolution of our grid, and the technology on our grid to have more and more connected devices out in the field, and the amount of data that's flowing on our grid is increasing. Obviously, there are many benefits to this, but inherently that brings a degree of risk as well. Can you talk to us about the risk that their grid modernization brings, and sort of how we're thinking about that? Jojo Maalouf 08:58 So, Trevor, I think you said it well when you said more and more devices are connected now. So really, what ends up happening every time we add a device that's connected, it increases the organization's risk profile. So ideally, what we want to be able to do is we want to manage exactly what that those entry points into potential organizations are. So, every time I add a device, I have to think that it increases that attack surface to a degree. So, I mean, you've talked about what grid modernization can do. There are many capabilities I think that's going to benefit organizations. But I think as this happens, we need to ensure that cybersecurity risks are managed to ensure that that risk profile is managed to an appropriate level. Trevor Freeman 09:48 How prepared is the energy industry to respond to and to recover from a major cyber-attack, if one were to happen on the power grid? Jojo Maalouf 09:57 Honestly, I think that the energy sector as well. Prepared as a critical infrastructure entity, the energy sector has the benefit of dealing a lot with government partners. So, I think what you want to do as an organization is you want to build that trust, that ecosystem of partners, whether it is through public and private relationships. But I'd say from a critical infrastructure perspective, there are very good relationships with the industry, very good relationships with government partners. I think testing organizations resiliency has been in play now for many, many years. But I think from a cyber perspective, I think it's something where organizations continue to be prepared, continue to do some of the appropriate testing, you know? And I'll be honest, I say it's, it's, you never want to be complacent, right? And I think what we've learned over the years is threats are evolving. Threats are changing. The industry is always going to be susceptible to attacks. Trevor Freeman 11:00 Are we collaborating and working with other stakeholders? I mean, both at the sort of other utility level, you mentioned, governments and regulatory bodies, are we collaborating with those other entities? And sort of in line when it comes to cybersecurity? Jojo Maalouf 11:15 There is a lot of collaboration that occurs within the industry, whether it's in Ontario, you'll see now that the regulator, the Ontario Energy Board, you know, there is the Ontario cybersecurity framework that has been in play now since around 2018 even at the national level there. Here are many different bodies where, you know cybersecurity, like critical infrastructure protection is paramount, as discussed regularly, and then obviously there's the government agency. So, there's a lot of collaboration that goes whether it's from the provincial, the National, and then the government side as well. And I mean, I think you need those relationships, right? You need those partnerships to help. Trevor Freeman 12:02 Yeah, we're not we're not a lone utility kind of figuring out on our own. We're working with our partners and our peers to figure that out. The other kind of area of emerging technology that I want to talk about is, AI, artificial intelligence and sort of machine learning. Are we using those technologies? Or do you see us using those technologies in the future to sort of enhance the cyber security of our grid and our assets? Jojo Maalouf 12:29 Yeah, I mean, I think obviously artificial intelligence, machine learning, seems to be the 2024 theme. The reality is, is a lot of technologies have already adopted, whether it's AI or machine learning, into their into their solutions. You know, I think the whole Gen AI aspect is growing, and it's something that I think is going to benefit everybody in the industry as well. The unfortunate thing is, is that I think adversaries are going to be able to use these technologies as well. You know, whether it's to paint a better picture of an organization, maybe to customize some attack patterns, but I think it's something where we have to embrace the technology. We have to use it in our, I would say, in our toolkit, but we're very much cognizant of the fact is that adversaries are going to be using these, these tool sets as well to potentially target organizations within the energy sector. Trevor Freeman 13:33 And are there specific things that you know, speaking as the local distribution company, specific things that our customers can do or should be aware of? What's the role of our customer when it comes to cybersecurity? Jojo Maalouf 13:46 It's a very good question. I mean, from a from a customer's perspective, I think customers need to realize the importance of their information. So, I mean, the reality now is a lot of adversaries are targeting people directly because they want their information. Their information. Their information is valuable. So, I think as a customer, what they want to make sure they do is that they do what they can to protect their information. So, some very simple steps that they can do make sure you have a complex password that only you know, that's not easily guessable. The other thing is, you don't want to use that password across multiple systems. So, what's the best way for you to be able to manage all your passwords? Invest in a password manager. There are free solutions out there. There are other really good solutions that are at a fraction of a cost as well as that password. What you want to make sure you do is you have multi factor authentication attached to it. What that really means is it's a second level of authentication that's going to challenge you to make sure you are who you say you are. It could just be an application that's installed on your phone. Think those are really some really good ways that you know a customer can use to protect themselves. I think even investing in credit monitoring is really good because. Is the last thing you want to do is an adversary to target you, steal your information, then all of a sudden, are starting to open up accounts in your name, right? So credit monitoring is another really important one. So, I mean, I think those are some really basic ones, but I think that they can go a long way to protecting a customer from threats. There are some really good online resources that they can use. Public Safety Canada has their get cyber safe website that provides a lot of information for, you know, everyday residential people or customers, sorry, steps that they can take to protect themselves. Trevor Freeman 15:33 And for our listeners that kind of are thinking like, Oh, I feel like I've heard that before. I think you're right. You have it is those basic steps that really can protect us. And just so that everybody knows this is a focus of us internally as well, all employees of Hydro Ottawa also have a focus on what can we as employees do in order to make sure we're protecting our systems, we're protecting our data, and all the things that JoJo mentioned when it comes to password integrity, conscious of protecting our data. We're focused on that on a day-to-day basis as well. Jojo, thanks very much for taking the time to talk us through this. It's something that is maybe a bit adjacent to the energy transition, but so important as we increasingly digitize our grid, digitize our systems, as I mentioned, add more data points. We can't sort of leave cybersecurity behind. So, I really appreciate you taking the time to join us today, as our listeners know, and as you know, we always end our interviews with a series of questions to our guests. So I will jump right into those. Jojo, what's a book that you've read that you think everybody should read? Jojo Maalouf 16:39 Yeah, good question. I'll give you two books, especially within the context of cybersecurity. You know, we did briefly mention Stuxnet. A really good book is by Kim Zetter. It's called Zero Day, and it basically depicts what happened with Stuxnet. Really informative. It's actually really good read. It's not necessarily technical, but just goes to show kind of how cyber warfare was actually built. Another really good one is from Andy Greenberg. It's called sandworm, a new era of cyber war in the hunt for the Kremlin's most dangerous hackers. Another really good read as well. So, I think those are two books, I would say, in the cybersecurity context, that I think are really good reads. Trevor Freeman 17:29 Nice. Same question. But for a movie or a show, is there a movie or show that you think everyone should have a look at? Jojo Maalouf 17:36 I'm actually really into Yellowstone these days, right? So, I'm gonna give that props. Trevor Freeman 17:41 Nice. That's a good one. If someone offered you a free round-trip flight anywhere in the world, where would you go? Jojo Maalouf 17:48 Good question, I think right now where I am, I'd probably go anywhere, either in the Alps or in the Dolomites, to ski. Trevor Freeman 17:56 That's awesome. And our last question, what is something about the energy sector or its future that you are particularly excited about? Jojo Maalouf 18:04 To be honest with you, I What really interests me and what I'm really excited about is, think the evolution in change into we are now a technology company, And I think what we're where the energy sector is grow is, is moving towards, is really exciting. You know, I think over the years, it's been a very siloed approach to the way services are driven or given where I find now, its very technology focused, right? And I think that's very exciting times. Trevor Freeman 18:39 Very cool. Well, JoJo, I really... /episode/index/show/thinkenergy/id/33849222

The what, where, when, and how of Canada’s energy transition 10/28/2024

The what, where, when, and how of Canada’s energy transition The energy transition is a big topic on thinkenergy. But what exactly is it? What does it mean globally, in Canada, and to you as an energy user? In this bite-sized episode, host Trevor Freeman unpacks the what, where, when, and how of the energy transition. From energy production and storage to how electrification is implemented in different communities. Listen in to learn about the nuances shaping the energy landscape, including the economic, political, and technological shifts driving change. Related links ● Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: ● Hydro Ottawa: To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: To subscribe using Spotify: To subscribe on Libsyn: Subscribe so you don't miss a video: Follow along on Instagram: Stay in the know on Facebook: Keep up with the posts on X: Transcript: Trevor Freeman 00:00 Welcome to think energy, a podcast that dives into the fast, changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators and people on the front lines of the energy transition. Join me, Trevor Freeman, as I explore the traditional, unconventional and up and coming facets of the energy industry. If you have any thoughts, feedback or ideas for topics we should cover, please reach out to us at [email protected] Hi everyone and welcome back. Okay, so today is going to be a little bit different than normal. I mentioned in our first episode following the summer break that we'd be trying out a few new things, and this is one of them, we're going to periodically mix up the format and deliver kind of a shorter, bite sized episode. Every once in a while, the goal of these episodes will be to provide a little bit of an explainer or context setting information on a topic that either we reference and refer to often, but maybe haven't explicitly explained, or to maybe demystify some aspect of energy in the utility sector that can be overlooked or generally goes unseen from the outside. So for example, you know, what does that line item on my bill actually mean, or something like that? How we fill that shorter time slot may vary, but one of the formats will be just kind of me waxing on, hopefully poetically, hopefully not too mundane about the issue. I promise to keep it as short and succinct as I can think today is going to be probably on the longer side of that short and succinct window, but I will do my best. So what's on Trevor's mind for today? It shouldn't surprise you that it's the energy transition. Obviously, listeners of previous episodes will have heard me use that term probably in almost every episode since I took over the helm here at think energy. I think it's likely that if you're listening to this podcast, you've got a pretty good idea of what we mean by that, or a general sense, at least, but there is some nuance to it that I think is worth picking apart for a few minutes, and I always want to make sure that we are also welcoming to new people into the conversation who maybe don't know what that is, and so this would be kind of a good explainer for that. So with that rather verbose intro, let us dive in. When we think about the energy transition, we probably mostly think of this ongoing shift to cleaner emissions free energy. So EVs over gas cars, heat pumps over gas furnaces, etcetera. That is definitely part of it. In fact, that's a major part of it. But like most things in life, it's never just as simple as that. The Energy Transition is a truly fundamental shift in our global relationship with energy, which includes not just what makes our cars go, but everything from how, where and when we generate energy, how, where and when we store and use energy, how we pay for the energy we use, how we finance and pay for energy projects and the systems that we need to do all the things I just mentioned, it will include a shift in what policies and regulatory guidelines and barriers we put in place to protect the public, but that also encourage change that we want to see happen to allow for innovation and advancement. It isn't completely throwing out everything we have and starting from scratch, although some things will disappear, like coal fired electricity generation, for example, but in a lot of areas, it is building on what we've already got at a pace that we haven't seen before, at least in a very long time. And I think that's a key point here. One of the things that makes the energy transition a change worth noting is the pace of change that we will see. Things have never really been static in the world of energy, from that time when our earliest ancestors first sparked that fire, this is the poetic part that I mentioned earlier, our relationship to energy has never really stood still. But other than a few significant events, the upward trend in sophistication and growth and scope has been fairly linear, gradual, one step after the other, etcetera. It's those exceptions, though, those things that are different from that gradual, linear growth that probably most closely resemble this period of change that has started that we're calling the energy transition. Take the Industrial Revolution, for example. For decades and centuries prior, there had been gradual improvements in how we got around or how we worked the fields. Let's say, you know, first by hand, then with tools, maybe a better plow came along, and we started using a horse or an oxen to pull that plow, et cetera. Then along comes the steam engine, and all of a sudden, things take off like never before. It wasn't just a matter of swapping out a horse for an engine. It may have started there, but entire economies and aspects of society changed or sprang up where they didn't exist before one change rolls into another and another in quick succession, and before too long, things that couldn't be imagined only decades before are suddenly a reality. To a degree, that's what we're looking at today with the energy transition. How far that change goes remains to be seen, but it's pretty clear that we have begun one of those disruptive periods of change that will be looked back on as a major turning point. So yes, the energy transition is about shifting away from greenhouse gas emitting fossil fuels, coal, oil, natural gas, etcetera, to renewable, non-emitting energy sources, solar, wind, hydro, nuclear, etcetera. But it's also so much more. The World Energy Council Secretary General and CEO Angela Wilkinson put it best when she said, we're actually looking not at one energy transition, but multiple transitions plural, because there are many diverse pathways to a sustainable energy future. So, there is the aforementioned shift away from fossil fuels for space, water, heating and transportation. A very large portion of that fuel switch will be to electricity, which means we also need to decarbonize how we produce electricity. Phase out coal, nearly all-natural gas, the remaining diesel generation in favor of non-emitting energy sources that I just mentioned. We will also see more distributed energy resources, so things like small scale solar and battery storage and more programs like demand response to manage when we use energy. And there are also other items that I highlighted at the beginning, our financial mechanisms, our regulatory and policy framework, all the interconnected pieces that go along with this. Now, if you'll permit me just a couple more minutes, I do want to touch on a few more aspects of this. The first is, why? Why is this transition happening? One major, overwhelming driver, of course, is the climate crisis. This isn't the episode to fully pick that apart and define it, but suffice to say, climate change is and will continue to be, a signature global crisis of this century, and it is driven primarily by fossil fuel usage, the energy transition and all its various aspects and parts, is a big part of the strategy to slow and stop Climate change and to limit its impacts to what is already baked in. But other things are driving this too. As we continue to digitize our lives, another major disruptive change that probably is worth its own conversation, and as tools like AI evolve, our need for energy is growing faster than ever. We can't meet those needs with the business-as-usual approach. The energy transition helps us deal with this rising demand, regardless of the reason, whether it's for electrification or large, dense data centers that are needed to run things like AI. There are also considerations like energy security and the benefits of decentralizing at least some of our energy sources. And finally, air quality considerations are a major push to reduce harmful emissions and replace that energy with clean, non emitting sources. Listeners in Ontario who are say around my tenure as kind of that oldest millennial age group will remember smog days in Ontario, which no longer exists, mostly because we moved away from coal fired generation, a bit over a decade ago. There are other parts of the world that still see really poor air quality, and shifting away from fossil fuel combustion will go a long, long way to addressing that. Now, the energy transition is not all sunshine and grassy meadows. It is a hard journey with challenges and obstacles to overcome. To start with, time is tight, and that is an understatement. We lost our chance, which could have started as early as 50 years ago, for this to be a slow and easy process, we need to move fast. Our climate is changing rapidly around us, and we are not on track to reduce emissions at the pace we need to. We haven't been keeping up with past targets and goals for reductions, and so we really need to pick up the pace. And like I mentioned earlier, even without climate change, our need for energy is growing at an exponential pace. In Canada, we're fortunate in that we have a strong foundation with a relatively decarbonized grid already, so about 80% carbon free nationally, and a diverse mix of hydro, nuclear and renewables like wind and solar. But it's still going to take quite a lot of effort to decarbonize that remaining 20% at a time when, as I keep mentioning, demand is increasing rapidly. In Ontario, our electricity system operator, the IESO, just updated their future demand projections to show that provincial demand will be 75% more or less higher by 2050 than it is today. This means we also need to invest in our grid infrastructure to ensure it can handle the increased load, as well as utilizing things like decentralized generation and storage to ensure we don't over build not to mention making sure we can handle more extreme weather. Just to give you a sense of what all that means, I'll remind you of an episode we did a few months ago with Jenna Gillis, Hydro, Ottawa's manager of distribution system integration, about our grid modernization roadmap, which is a 10-year plan to modernize our grid to make sure it can support. Support the kinds of things we're talking about here today. And I encourage you to go back and have a listen to that if you haven't already. To zoom out a bit, the energy transition is also very political as any major disrupter in society would be. There are differing viewpoints on the tools and tactics, the carrots and sticks, if you will, with which to enable change, differing viewpoints about the pace of change that we should be aiming for, and differing viewpoints even about where we ultimately end up when it comes to energy, and that is true within each jurisdiction, so within Ontario and within Canada and between jurisdictions at a more geopolitical level. So, to find alignment to make progress in these areas, these are not easy tasks. Have a listen to my earlier episode with Nicholas Rivers from the University of Ottawa for more thoughts on that and on the role that governments and policy makers can and should be playing. Now, as urgent as the need for change is, as exciting as the benefits might be, and as appealing as the vision for a smart, clean, connected energy future can appear, we can't just plow ahead without also considering the consequences and impacts of our choices. The energy transition will be disruptive, and there are a lot of good things about that, but let's not forget the root of that word, disruption, disturbance, things we know today, systems we have today will be upended, will need to change and adapt and quickly, and there are people who rely on those systems. In Canada, we have an entire industry, a substantial portion of our economy, that is associated with fossil fuel extraction and processing, and that's just one example for the transition to work and to actually move forward, it has to be fair and equitable and just for everyone. People and communities whose livelihoods are going to be upended need to be supported. The energy transition is also not free. Another massive understatement. All this change that I've been talking about here costs a lot of money. For Canada to reach net zero by 2050 it could require an estimated $2 trillion in investment. Now there are a lot of benefits to that, absolutely. I'm not saying that's not a worthwhile investment, but it's worth thinking about. So, we already have affordability challenges for many of our neighbors. We have institutions like healthcare, education and housing struggling to hold up under the pressure of the pandemic that we just experienced, inflation, supply chain issues, underfunding, all these different things. This transition has to happen in a way that, again, allows everyone to benefit and participate in it, regardless of their income levels, in a way that doesn't cause those other institutions to crack and crumble. You'll notice I'm not talking any specific solutions to this, and I guess that's the benefit of sitting in the host chair. I get to bring other smart people on to talk about that. But I do want to highlight that in this little talk here. Going back to the World Energy Council that I mentioned earlier, they also note the concept of the energy quadrilemma. So as in more than a dilemma, a quadrilemma. What they mean by that is that the transition needs to be just, so ensure fairness for everyone through the process needs to be orderly, so making sure that we approach things in a structured and efficient manner. It needs to be inclusive, so ensuring that everyone has an equal voice in the decision-making process, and it needs to be equitable, making sure that everyone has access to affordable, reliable and clean energy. It's worth noting here that our current system doesn't yet provide this. In my previous episode with Gemma Pinchin from Quest Canada, we talked about the number of rural and remote Canadians relying on diesel generators, for example, for their energy needs, because they're not connected to a grid and they don't enjoy all the benefits that come with that not everyone has the same access to energy across the country today, and that is its own challenge that needs to be solved as we go through this energy transition. So, as we get close to wrapping this up, let's talk about the how, what will enable us to realize this transition that we've been talking about. To start with, we need to scale up. We have heat pumps, EVs, renewable generation and battery storage today, those are major pieces in the energy transition, but we need more can we need it faster, and most of all, we need it cheaper. We've seen this drop in costs for things like solar already. If you look at the cost of solar from, you know, let's say 15, 10, five years ago to now, it's dropped precipitously. But we need that across all aspects of the transition. And this happens naturally in some cases, but we also need to speed it along with both policy and market forces. So the more demand for heat pumps, the more get made, the cheaper it is to make them. We need public awareness. We need to collectively recognize the importance and urgency for action so that we can make decisions whether that's what vehicle that. Or what project to tackle in our homes, or what we demand of our political representation that will drive us in the right direction. On that note, we need clear and consistent policy from all levels of government that will support and encourage the energy transition, and we need the appropriate levels of investment from our various levels of government to make this transition possible, Again, listen to my conversation with Nicholas rivers for more thoughts on what that might look like. And we need leadership, leadership from our governments, but we also need to look at ourselves as how can we show leadership Canada and Canadians can punch above our weight class, so to speak, by setting an example for others to follow, and by developing policies, programs and technologies, even to serve and guide others. So, to wrap it up, as I come to a close here, the energy transition is a little bit bigger than just fuel switching. It definitely is that, but it's more. It's a long, tough road, but we're on it no matter what it started, and it will continue, and it's also full of exciting possibilities and opportunities. Now, I hope this summary wasn't too vague. That was, it was meant to be high level, and again, I'm going to play the host card here and point to past and future episodes to dive deeper into specific aspects of this. But what I will say is that I'd love to hear from you. If you have thoughts about what we cover on the show, what we're not covering that you think we should be reach out to us. [email protected], I'd love to hear from you. Love to get your thoughts on this. Feel free to let us know what you think about this kind of format. If this works for you and you want to see kind of more of these explainers. Great. That's awesome. If you want to reach out to us and say, I think that was maybe just a little bit too much, Trevor, I get it. That's okay. I won't be offended or too offended. Now, I normally wrap up my episodes with a series of questions for my guests. Since I don't have a guest today, I won't make you listen to me sharing all of my answers, but I will leave you with a book recommendation. And I have to be honest here, I'm taking a rather dangerous step of recommending a book that I haven't actually read yet, but it is next on my list when I finish what I'm reading now, and it came highly recommended to me, and I'm really excited to read it. It's a book called, What if we get it right by Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson. It's a collection of essays and poetry and conversations that really gives some optimism about what could be when it comes to climate change and the energy transition, it is an exercise in not letting the sometimes-disheartening aspects of the climate crisis keep us from dreaming about the possible and to have hope and faith in the future that we can solve these challenges, we can realize the benefits of this energy transition that we talk about and that we know are possible. So, I'm really excited to read it soon, hopefully it lives up to my recommendation and the recommendation that was given to me for it when I wanted to let you know about it as well. So thank you, as always, for joining. Thank you for letting me and the team here try out this different format. Definitely let us know what you think about it, and keep checking back in for more great conversations with great leaders in the energy world. I promise I will be bringing guests back onto the show. It won't just be me talking. There will be some great ones coming up. So, thanks very much, and check back next time. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of The Think Energy podcast. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and it would be great if you could leave us a review. It really helps to spread the word. As always, we would love to hear from you, whether it's feedback... /episode/index/show/thinkenergy/id/33600562

Electrifying Canada’s remote communities with QUEST Canada 10/14/2024

Electrifying Canada’s remote communities with QUEST Canada The climate crisis is a global challenge. But there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. While urban centres are driving discussions on electrification and policy, rural and remote communities, including many Indigenous areas, face distinct energy realities. Gemma Pinchin from QUEST Canada joins thinkenergy to share how these communities can engage in the energy transition equitably and sustainably. Listen to episode 143 to learn about the diverse approaches to decarbonization in different global contexts. Related links ● QUEST Canada: ● QUEST Canada Net Zero Communities Accelerator Program: ● QUEST Canada on X: ● QUEST Canada on YouTube: ● Gemma Pinchin on LinkedIn: ● Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: ● Hydro Ottawa: To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: To subscribe using Spotify: To subscribe on Libsyn: Subscribe so you don't miss a video: Follow along on Instagram: Stay in the know on Facebook: Keep up with the posts on X: Transcript Trevor Freeman 00:07 Hi. Welcome to think energy, a podcast that dives into the fast, changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators and people on the front lines of the energy transition. Join me, Trevor Freeman as I explore the traditional, unconventional and even up and coming facets of the energy industry. If you've got thoughts feedback or ideas for topics that we should cover, we'd love to hear from you. Please reach out to us at [email protected], everyone, welcome back. Climate change is truly a global issue, and that is true in really every sense of that word. I mean. Carbon emissions come from literally everywhere humans live in the world. Climate impacts are felt across the globe, with no regards to borders, and as a result, the ongoing energy transition, which is one of the main tools we're using to address the climate crisis, also needs to be global, unfortunately, and as I've talked about several times on this show and a bunch of different contexts, there's really no overarching global solution that can be applied everywhere. Of course, electrification is one of the main strategies in most cases, and that can be applied in all different parts of the world, but exactly how electrification is deployed, what technology is going to be used in, what specific use cases, what government policies are going to work. There is by no means a one size fits all approach to those questions. Local context is so important when it comes to the energy transition, and that's a big part about what today's conversation is about. I'm going to assume that, like me, most not all, but most listeners of this show live in or adjacent to or very near an urban center of some sort. I certainly do. I live in Ottawa, the capital of Canada, as such, when we talk about the various technologies or policies or approaches, we probably do so with an urban lens. The things that we're thinking of when we're talking about this stuff is in that kind of urban context. But that isn't everybody's reality. Rural and remote communities have a very different relationship with energy than urban centers in Canada, at least, there are over 280 communities which are home to around 200,000 people who aren't connected to the broader electrical or natural gas grid. The process of decarbonization represents unique challenges for these communities and for these Canadians who get their energy in a very different way from the rest of us. And another aspect of this is that there are also often overlaps between what I'm referring to here as rural and remote communities and indigenous communities, and proper, meaningful engagement with indigenous communities is an extremely important step in making sure that the energy transition is equitable and just for everyone, not to mention as the original stewards of the land most of us live on, we can learn a lot from indigenous communities about how we can exist on this land in a way that is not detrimental to the land and to our own health and well-being. To that end, I'm really excited today to have Gemma Pinchin from Quest Canada on the show to help us pull this apart a little bit and understand this context a bit better. Gemma is a senior lead of research and projects at Quest, and is responsible for the motivating Net Zero action and rural and remote communities research project. Gemma Pinchin, welcome to the show. Gemma Pinchin 03:42 Thank you so much for having me. Trevor Freeman 03:44 So why don't we start Gemma by having you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came to be working in the role you're in, and also what quest Canada does. Gemma Pinchin 03:54 Sure. Yeah. So I come from a background in research and policy and kind of like a number of areas. Most recently, I was working with the IESO. I was working on their indigenous relations team, really, in indigenous energy planning and capacity building. So, I have a master's in globalization and international development, and a bachelor's in history. So, a bit of a varied background. I've sort of worked in a bunch of roles, but I've always sort of had an interest in the climate crisis and how communities are really facing that and dealing with that. So, I joined quest in early 2023 and I was really drawn to their mission. It was really inspiring for me. So, the quest is a national charity that focuses on helping communities on their pathway towards net zero. So, they've been around since 2007 and they facilitate connections, empower community champions and advise decision makers. So, we really, we develop tools and resources and convene a variety of working. Groups and also provide advice to decision makers. So, Quest's mission, the one that I was inspired by, is to encourage, assist and enable communities to contribute to Canada's net zero goals. Trevor Freeman 05:13 And your particular focus, if I'm not mistaken, is on sort of rural and remote communities. How did you, why is that your focus? How did you end up there? Gemma Pinchin 05:21 Yeah, so through Quests projects, particularly the net zero community accelerator, which works with communities to the end goal is to create community energy and emissions plan we saw, and also through policy work and those kinds of pieces, we saw that there was the net zero transition is sort of chugging along, but there's kind of been a gap. The transition tends to focus more on the urban context. You know, urban population centers, the big cities, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, those kinds of places and that we saw as leaving out a really big chunk of Canadians. I think the statistic off the top of my head is 1/5 of Canadians live in rural and remote places. So, it's not a small statistic. So, we wanted to make sure that as the net zero transition was moving along and progressing that this large group of Canadians weren't forgotten about and the net zero transition is going to rely, and has been relying on rural land, rural populations, you know, to house Renewable Energy for food production as well as carbon sequestration. So, leaving this big group of people out is just kind of inconceivable, I guess. And what quests saw was that this was happening. So, we started this research project to sort of make sure that those voices were being heard and considered as Canada moves through the net zero transition? Trevor Freeman 07:03 Great. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's one of the reasons why I'm excited to have you on the show today is to talk about that. And as I mentioned in the intro, even this conversation that I often have on on this show tends to focus more on those kinds of urban centers, or features of the energy transition that are more often found in urban centers. How does the traditional grid interact with our customers, things like that? So, I'm excited for this, for this conversation today, I think it'd be helpful before we really dive into it, to define what is a rural and remote community. So maybe let's start with that. What do you consider a rural and remote community and maybe go into what is unique about their energy needs and priorities compared to those in the urban centers. Gemma Pinchin 07:49 So, my research will, I've completed a literature review, and then I'll be going on and doing work in communities, work with 15 communities. So, I kind of, at the beginning, I was trying to figure out how to define rural, because it's going to be, or it is currently across Canada research project. So, I was trying to figure out if there is a, you know, standardized definition. But it turned out that every single province had a different province and territory has a different definition of rural or remote, and even stats can in order to be considered a rural community, you have to be under 1000 people. But that felt a little bit too small. When I moved to Canada, I grew up in a rural community that had a population of 3000 and it felt very, very rural. So, I felt that was going to be a bit of a barrier for a lot of rural communities, not all rural communities, but, you know, rural communities have varying different population amounts, and then the population for the remote cities for example, like white horse or Yellowknife. They're considered remote due to how far away they are from everything else, but they have quite large population bases for the territories. So, for the sake of my research, we decided on a population cap of 30,000 which is quite large, but we wanted to be able to include those remote cities if they were willing to be a part of the research. And then I really decided that rural communities were in were best placed to sort of define whether they considered themselves rural. I live in, I live outside of Toronto, so I'm not currently live in a place where I would consider it rural, and I think communities themselves are in the best place to define themselves as rural. So that's kind of, it's a little bit vague, but that's kind of what, what we ended up going with. And then in terms of needs and priorities of these communities. Compared to urban centers, a big one is getting energy to communities, particularly remote communities. A lot of remote communities are reliant on diesel or fossil fuels, still, because getting in Ontario, the grid is fairly clean, but some communities just do not have access to it because they're so far away and so remote. So transportation to rural communities is probably one of the biggest differences, I guess. And then the types of emissions are also very, very different. So urban centers, it tends to be, you know, buildings and like cars and things like that. Whereas for rural centers, there's not as many buildings, obviously. So they have transportation to and from is a really big one, and then from the big sectors, so agriculture, mining, those kinds of pieces. Yeah, those are kind of the biggest differences, I would say. Trevor Freeman 10:58 And as all the examples you gave were kind of in the Canadian context, and that's going to be the basis of going to be the basis of most of our conversation today, but I do know that you did spend some time looking at the international context, and obviously rural and remote living is not a uniquely Canadian thing. Of course. What did you learn through your kind of literature review on energy challenges internationally? Gemma Pinchin 11:21 Yeah, so for this research, I hoped to sort of just focus on the Canadian context when I just started out, but there wasn't as much readily available literature I would be able to base an entire literature review on. So, while this is sort of a great justification for my ongoing research to be able to do a literature review. It was a little bit frustrating, so I decided to open it up to the usual comparator countries, so the UK, the US, Australia, and then Europe more broadly. And I found that the energy challenges and opportunities, I found that they were quite similar, like, even in the UK. I grew up in the UK, so I'm pretty aware of the sort of differences geographically between Canada and the UK, but everything's much closer together. But still, there is still this, like, big rural, urban divide, and there's still, like, remote communities in the UK, even though that they're not Canada remote, but you know they're still, they're still quite remote when you sort of apply a UK context to it, the biggest challenges and opportunities that I saw was that there needs to be a real consideration for rural needs and not just apply the same lens as urban needs onto that obviously, though we need to use rural space for renewable energies that's sort of across the board, is going to be something that everybody needs, and the costs of the net zero transition to be a barrier for rural communities. So, something I found a little bit interesting that I hadn't considered before was that for diesel dependent communities, that there was such a high cost associated with diesel fuel that there wasn't any extra money left over to fund the net zero transition. So it was kind of, I'd never really considered it that way, that you're spending all this money on this fuel and that's kind of eating up all of your energy costs. There's nothing left over to be able to fund this transition, and that there's this trust in diesel, because it's been what's been working for however long, for like a small, tiny community in Australia or Canada or the US or wherever. You know, it's kind of nerve wracking to give up that piece that's been working for years and years and years and take a risk on this new technology that might not be as effective in in their perception as how diesel has been. Trevor Freeman 13:57 Yeah, I mean, that's interesting in that I see a lot of parallels between that context and other contexts, including the urban context of we are comfortable with what we know. We are comfortable with the things that we have seen working and experienced working to get us to work and back, or get the kids to school, or heat our homes Exactly. And as soon as someone starts talking about this new thing that we don't really know that that makes us a bit nervous. So, it's interesting that that that applies regardless of where you are. What are some you know, for a lot of our listeners, I think are probably more familiar with the urban context, what are some misconceptions that you have heard or that you've come across when it comes to the energy needs and capabilities of rural and remote communities. Gemma Pinchin 14:48 So, I think there's this idea that a one size fits all solution for every community, and that solutions that work in urban centers will work in rural centers, and that. Just not, not the case. For example, something obvious like transportation, my literature review highlighted that within urban centers, the most sustainable option would obviously be public transport. But if you apply that same lens to a rural community, you know, cars are bad, and we shouldn't be using them rural communities. It's almost impossible to be sustainable in net zero because they don't have the public transport option. So in that context, looking at it with a different lens, looking at it with a rural lens, you would look at sort of like consolidating car trips or making sure that services like health care and groceries and you know, the things that we take for granted in urban centers, making sure those are close like they're kept in communities, like a lot of services are kind of moving out of rural communities. And that doesn't necessarily seem like a net zero issue, but when people in those communities have to drive like, three times as long to get to their doctor, that's a huge, you know, emissions issue, you know. And it's just, it was an interesting look at the way that we're even myself, before I was doing this, I was like, well, cars are bad, like, you know, like gas cars aren't great for emissions. But the reality is, for rural communities, they need this transportation that there's no there's no other way for them to get around, and it would be incredibly isolating, and you can't function as a society if you're just stuck in your house, you know. So having that different lens and looking at it in a different context. I think that's really, really important as we move rural communities through this net zero transition. Trevor Freeman 16:51 Yeah, it highlights a point that I know has been made here before, of the energy transition, regardless of where you are, requires a holistic approach. It requires some pretty nuanced thinking, and I think you're highlighting a really great example of that, of it's not just a piece of technology or it's not just a program that's going to resolve this problem for us, there are sort of cascading impacts of this, and primary health care provider shortage in rural communities is directly correlated to higher emissions in those communities and like, that's an interesting picture to paint and something that's important for us to remember. So, you mentioned this earlier, kind of the stats around how many people actually live-in rural communities, I think you said one in 20. That's over 200,000 people that are kind of not connected to, or this is a different stat I'm pulling here. Sorry. This is the number of people not connected to sort of the traditional electricity grid or to the natural gas grid here in Ontario. Talk us through a little bit more you mentioned, kind of the reliance on diesel in those communities. Talk us through sort of the unique challenges when you're not connected to the electricity grid. You don't have that transmission line coming into your community. What is the role that those traditional fuel sources, like diesel, for example, play in those communities? Gemma Pinchin 18:12 Well, in those communities that aren't connected to, you know, natural gas or the electricity grid, like diesel used to be their only option. You know, modern life, we need electricity power like we need to power modern life. You can't have a modern existence without some form of power. So, you know, diesel, they are completely reliant on diesel. The ones that aren't connected. I mean, it's frustrating, because these communities do tend to be quite far away from the power grid infrastructure. So it's usually considered economically non-viable to connect those remote communities to the provincial power grids, because these communities are also very small. So, it's a small number of people that you would have to spend all this money for the infrastructure to get, you know, the power lines to them, and Canada, Ontario, Canada, both of them are very big, so there's many communities that exist quite far away from power lines or existing grid infrastructure. So, yeah. So yeah, diesel just, it's kind of been their only option for power to have a modern, modern existence, up until, I would say now, well, recently. Trevor Freeman 19:27 Yeah, that's a great lead into kind of the next part of this is what comes next, if we're, if we're trying to get off of diesel, for example, for power generation, if, sort of the economics and the feasibility of bringing the traditional power grid to remote communities isn't really feasible. What role do other technologies play? And I'm thinking of obviously, like on site, renewable generation or storage, like, what's the option for these communities? Gemma Pinchin 19:54 So that would kind of be entirely dependent on each... /episode/index/show/thinkenergy/id/33419227

Turning energy consumer interest into action with EY Global 09/30/2024

Turning energy consumer interest into action with EY Global Who is impacted by energy? We all are. Regardless of our roles, whether we work in the industry or not, we all use energy in some form or another. And we use it everyday. So, when it comes to energy transition, industry leaders must consider the end user. In episode 142 of thinkenergy, Greg Guthridge and Nicholas Handcock of EY Global share how stakeholders and utilities can better understand the consumer energy experience—and, ultimately, how to develop more informed strategies to the energy transition. Related links EY Global: EY Global ecoEnergy Profile quiz: EY Global on X: EY Global on YouTube: Greg Guthridge on LinkedIn: Nicholas Handcock on LinkedIn: Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: Hydro Ottawa: To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: To subscribe using Spotify: To subscribe on Libsyn: --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: Follow along on Instagram: Stay in the know on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HydroOttawa Keep up with the posts on X: Transcript: Music. Hi. Welcome to think energy, a podcast that dives into the fast, changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators and people on the front lines of the energy transition. Join me, Trevor Freeman, as I explore the traditional, unconventional and even up and coming facets of the energy industry. If you've got thoughts feedback or ideas for topics that we should cover, we'd love to hear from you. Please reach out to us at [email protected], Hi everyone. Welcome back. Something I try to do on this show is to make sure that we're looking at the energy transition from a number of different perspectives. So, we obviously touch on the technologies that will be part of that transition, whether that's heat pumps or EVs or some of the grid technology that utilities like hydro Ottawa are beginning to roll out to modernize our grid. We also look at the overall governance and policy structure that guides our you know, societal energy decisions, how we choose to go about using energy, making energy, etc., in our society, the role of the various stakeholders on the grid gets touched on understanding kind of who the players are. There's a bit of an education piece here of knowing who all the complex players are in this, in this kind of system. And one thing that we've touched on before that I think is really important to keep bringing to the forefront is the end users of energy. And frankly, that's all of us, no matter what other roles in the transition we might play. We're all end users. We all need to heat our homes and workplaces. We all need to move around in some manner. We need lights, we need to cook, we need to charge our devices. And we don't really want to have to worry about those things. We want that to be smooth and easy and how we as end users of energy are experiencing and interacting with and in some cases, taking a leadership role in the energy transition. That's really important, because we need all those things, and we want all those things to be smooth. It's important for our utility companies to understand and to take that into account when we're planning our and I'm speaking as a member of utility. Now, when we're planning our strategies and programs and products, we need to take into account, how does this impact our end users of energy? How are they going to experience this? So, my talk today is with Greg Guthridge and Nicholas Hancock of EY global. Greg is EY Global's powering utilities customer experience transformation leader and Nicholas leads EY research program that's called navigating the energy transition. Both of them ultimately help various stakeholders, including utilities, better understand consumer values, their preferences and their aspirations for their energy experience, which ideally will lead to more informed strategies and approaches to the energy transition for those decision makers, whether that's at the policy or the regulatory or the kind of utility implementation level. So, I'm really excited to talk to Greg and Nicholas today and hear their insight into the work that they've been doing. Greg and Nicholas, welcome to the show. Thanks, Trevor, great to be here. Thanks for the invitation to share our perspectives today. Sure. So, I always like to start getting to know a little bit from our guests of how they got into the energy space. And Greg not to kind of put you on the spot or embarrass you, but you've been named as one of consulting magazine's 25 consultants for excellence in energy, which is a rather lofty sounding title. I understand. You have several patents in the US for energy efficiency and demand management analytics. Tell us a little bit about your journey and how you came to be in the energy space. Greg Guthridge 04:00 Yeah. Trevor, it was really interesting my journey. You know, it's, you can think of it a little bit as an accidental process here. I didn't leave college thinking that I would be a consumer person in the energy space. In fact, I also, I thought for a long time that utilities were kind of a boring and dusty part of the energy ecosystem. I wanted to be in marketing or in manufacturing, or someplace, you know, considerably more sexy. But what's interesting is, you know, what an amazing journey into what I believe is kind of the center of the universe. Now, you know, energy is everything for us, and I can't think of a more interesting and dynamic place to be at the moment as we think about how we're going to transition to a cleaner, safer, more secure energy system in the future. So, it's been, it's been fascinating to kind of make my way down this path, but I'm super happy to be right at the center of what I think is one of the most, most critical elements of our society and our economy moving forward. Trevor Freeman 04:00 Absolutely and my goodness, if, if I ever meet that person who you know 20, 30, years into their career, is doing what they thought they would do at the end of college or university, I feel like I'd strike a gold mine. But now let's pivot over to EY global, and the work that EY does in the energy sector, specifically the role when it comes to the energy transition, tell us a little bit about what EY is doing in that space. Greg Guthridge 05:39 Oh, Trevor, it's fascinating. EY has really taken a very progressive approach to helping our clients, a broad swath of clients, from industry to manufacturing to energy to utilities, you name it, across the spectrum. Really imagine you know how their capabilities; their value propositions and their customer experience need to evolve. Of course, I I represent the customer element of the EY practice in utilities and in resources, but we have experts that that can help with everything from infrastructure to generation to renewables, to audit and tax and financial services, and you name it. In the customer space, we're really laser focused on helping our clients think about and imagining. You know that if you think about it, the typical utility to date is, is the is the product of over 100 years’ worth of development. Most utilities were formed in the Edison era, many, many years ago, and they have a big challenge on their hands. They've got to find a way to kind of evolve not only their business and operating models, but also their regulatory and their customer experiences to really form fit to the future, and that EY is right at the center of offering a whole gamut of different capabilities across the spectrum, across their value proposition, to help them through that, that transition. Trevor Freeman 07:15 Now you use the word customer, I assume you're talking about that end user of energy, that end user, of, you know, electricity, in the context of our conversation today is, do you differentiate between sort of that residential user, someone in their home and powering their appliances, versus, you know, medium, commercial business, versus those large, mammoth users at the data center level? Greg Guthridge 07:39 Yeah, Trevor, I'm glad you brought up the word customer, because we use that word as kind of an overarching term. And let me maybe, if you don't mind, I'll, I'll dive in a little bit more on that, because customer is, is actually, you know, I'll use it on occasion, but it's actually a bit of an old-fashioned term, believe it or not, it's, we try to use the term consumer, or, even better, omni-Sumer, when we talk about the participants in the energy experience moving forward, and we're picking these words carefully, because customer kind of implies a one-way interaction. Consumer implies that you're dealing with a customer or a participant that's two way that's engaging, you know, in a much more active capacity. And then you get into omni-Sumer, which is the what we believe, really the consumer of the future. These are participants that are, you know, multi-channel, Multi Product, multi provider, a many to many kinds of experience. So, you'll hear me use them all interchangeably, but really, what we're trying to convey is that, you know, the good old days of somebody at the end of the value chain just receiving a bill for our energy that they take for granted is disappearing. Now, to your actual question, you know, around, you know, the different strata of consumers. We do think of it in terms of, there's residential customers, you know, the mass market, the people at home, and then we have a number of other sorts of major categories that that we think about. There are small and medium businesses, large, commercial and industrial. There's a category which we call mush, which is municipal and universities and schools and hospitals. And then there's a, you know, kind of new categories of consumers that are forming peer to peer, and prosumer, type of consumers that that are trading energy, you know, you know, they've got, they might have electric vehicles or solar or storage, and they're not just consuming electricity for their own benefit, they're actually selling it back into the grid or to others and becoming more of a business partner along the way. So, the takeaway here is that what used to be a passive one way. Customer experience is now leaning into a much more two way engaged and much more complex consumer experience between the energy provider and their and their participants. Trevor Freeman 10:14 Yeah, and I don't want to paint the picture that this is unique to the energy space or the utility space, because so many different industries we hear about it all the time are being disrupted by changing technology, changing customer preferences. But I think it's really true in the utility space that as you described, the customer, or the consumer of even 20, 30, years ago, doesn't really exist anymore. Is fast becoming kind of out of date, and that whole landscape is changing drastically as we move forward. And so, all the things that we're going to talk about next are kind of in the context of we're looking forward, and we don't necessarily have a great model in the past to tell us, what is that relationship with a customer going to be 20 30, years down the road, because it's changing so rapidly, Greg Guthridge 11:02 you betcha, Trevor Freeman 11:04 just to throw one more one more variable at you, it's not just the different types of customers that a company like EY global is dealing with, because you work across the globe in many different jurisdictions, you're also dealing with different regional challenges when it comes to the energy transition. You know, energy typically is a at least partially or fully regulated sector. You're dealing with different regulatory bodies, different governments. Tell us how you approach that difference. And so obviously, as our listeners know, I'm sitting here in Ontario. Has got a pretty complex regulatory environment. How do you tailor your services or your advice to your customers or to your clients in those different areas? Greg Guthridge 11:51 Yeah, fascinating question, Trevor, and you're absolutely right. The regulatory models, the products and services, even the consumer bases, they vary dramatically. You know, market by market, country by country, region by region. At EY, we take a kind of a two-pronged approach. The first is that, you know, there's more similarities than there are differences. When you kind of peel back the curtain and you look at the basics, and the basics are, we have to find a way to provide to help our utility clients provide the most effective, affordable and safe and secure, reliable energy. And from a consumer perspective, that really leans in on a couple of key pillars that don't vary anywhere that affordability, value based, cost effectiveness of operations, revenue growth and along the way. Let's make this as engaging as possible for consumers and employees, so the basic building blocks actually don't vary that much around the world. What does vary is whether you're regulated or not your products and services vast differences in the kinds of products and services that really resonate with consumers. And that doesn't just go for regional differences. It also goes for just variations in demographics and other, you know, social kind of variations that you see with consumers. And in that case, EY takes a very, you know, client centric approach. So, we take our building blocks that we believe are fairly universal, and then how we implement those in a particular region or with a particular utility, that becomes a much more unique and custom process, where we work really closely with the client to be as centric as possible in in thinking about for this particular utility in this particular market, what's going to make the best sense and what's your priority? So, it's a bit of a combination of trying to use standard building blocks, but then apply it in the most customized process imaginable. Trevor Freeman 14:06 Yeah, and then, just speaking from experience, working at the sort of, you know, distribution utility level, right down, I guess you can say on the ground, with the customers. It's then our challenge at the utility to take that insight, to take that learning and figure out how to apply it or how to use it to support our specific customers, consumers, individually. So great, great to break it out like that. Okay, I want to ask you about EY's voices of the energy consumers initiative, and this is some research that you did and trying to help us understand who is out there engaging with energy, and what are they thinking. Trying to profile some of these individuals a little bit. It reminds me of that technology adoption curve that folks may be familiar with, and able to identify where they fall on that curve. So. Tell us about or give us an overview of that, of that initiative, and what you're trying to understand from that. Greg Guthridge 15:07 Trevor, I'm going to start the response to this, and then I'm going to hand it over to Nicholas Hancock, who leads our research. To give a bit more of some color commentary on how we structured our research. But to start up with we really about four or five years ago, we started to really think about the supply and demand of the energy transition. And a lot of focus around the world is on the supply side, building the infrastructure, building in new renewable and green and sustainable sources, getting all of the technology to get cleaner power from one place to another, from an engineering perspective. And what we really started to realize is that as part of the energy transition, if you think about it, we're trying to do a generation of change in just a couple of decades. And on the demand side of this equation, we've got a bunch of very complex consumers, consumers that you know interact and behave irrationally with different behaviors. Some will be very excited about the energy transition. Others will be very reticent, and everything in between, and so in order for the energy transition to accelerate and to achieve the benefits that we're all looking for, we need to find a way to engage the consumer in ways which, frankly, are going to really push the envelope with consumers. So we started our research program, and Nicholas Hancock, who's on, uh, has been leading the charge. And I think Nick, if you don't mind, can you give us a quick overview on the global nature of the research and how we've approached it? Nicholas Handcock 16:52 Yeah, absolutely. So we started our research program about three years ago, really trying to take a global view, mixing regions that are both, some of them really leading out there on the front edges of the energy transition. So, we've got countries, for example, like Sweden, that are, you know, kind of further down the path as well as, you know, North America, which is, I would say, a little bit more in the middle. And then we've got some countries that are maybe lagging or taking their own paths in the energy transition. We've included countries like China, Singapore. We included Indonesia last year. So really a global view of what are consumers kind of thinking in terms of how they approach the energy transition, what sort of products and services are they interested in, and what are the values and preferences that they bring to it when it comes to their energy providers, but also a broader ecosystem of providers that we see emerging out there, who are they really interested in turning to when it comes to advice, when it comes to learning about solutions, purchasing them, and even things like, for example, control over solutions in the home, which, when it comes to, you know, energy, flexibility in the future is really important. We've been exploring how do different consumers approach and feel about this. And so, what we did is we, develop a survey, we're entering our fourth year of doing that. Now we work with a third party to do those surveys online across the globe. So, it is sort of an independent third party that helps us to perform those and then we take those results back and take a look at what we see. And to your point, Trevor around, sort of the voices of the transition we've been looking at, how do some of those different groups break out? What are the different values of different aspects of those consumers out there? Because even sitting around the dinner table, I'm sure everybody can feel we don't all have the same opinions when it comes to energy, and even more so when it starts to come to things like changes to your home or changes to your vehicles. So that's really what we've been exploring for the last number of years. Trevor Freeman 18:41 Yeah, great. So, you've identified five different, let's call them archetypes or types, you know, profiles, if you will. You call them your eco energy profiles. Can you walk us through each of the five and give us a little summary of you know who that person is, or who that individual is that fits within that profile? Greg Guthridge 19:01 Sure. Trevor. You know what we did is, having looked at all these different markets, we found some pretty interesting similarities, and the percentages of the population that fit into these five categories, it varies quite significantly, market by market, country by country, geography by geography, but there is some there's a way for us to more simply think about a incredibly complex, fragmented, distributed customer base, residential mass market customer base, into what we think are really simply five different categories. And we the organization of these five categories. We've thought about them from a behavioral perspective, from a value from you know, what's their interests, and how do they plan to engage? And sort of in sequence here, I'll talk about the five, and I'll put them in... /episode/index/show/thinkenergy/id/33233627

Decarbonizing and electrifying your home, with Sarah Grant of Goldfinch Energy 09/16/2024

Decarbonizing and electrifying your home, with Sarah Grant of Goldfinch Energy Most Canadians are eager to combat climate change. But how? One actionable area is reducing emissions from our homes. In episode 141 of thinkenergy, Sarah Grant, founder and co-owner of Goldfinch Energy, shares ways you can reduce your home’s reliance on fossil fuels. Goldfinch Energy is a women-owned, Toronto-based organization offering energy assessments, clean tech roadmaps, and green renovation support services. Listen in to learn about home decarbonization and electrification solutions. Related links Goldfinch Energy: Sarah Grant on LinkedIn: Natural Resources Canada Energy Advisor program: Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: Hydro Ottawa: To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: To subscribe using Spotify: To subscribe on Libsyn: Subscribe so you don't miss a video: Follow along on Instagram: Stay in the know on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HydroOttawa Keep up with the posts on X: Transcript: SPEAKERS Trevor Freeman, Sarah Grant Trevor Freeman 00:07 Welcome to think energy, a podcast that dives into the fast, changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators and people on the front lines of the energy transition. Join me, Trevor Freeman, as I explore the traditional, unconventional and up and coming facets of the energy industry. If you have any thoughts, feedback or ideas for topics we should cover, please reach out to us at [email protected], hi everyone, and welcome back. And welcome back from the summer. As you know, think energy paused over the summer, and hopefully you got a break over the summer as well, time to rest and be rejuvenated. There were certainly times of that for us here. I was able to get out and do some camping and canoeing with the family, which, if you're not from Canada, if you're if you're not in Ontario, there's some fantastic camping and canoeing spots here, so come and check them out. But it was also a busy summer. Things, some things do slow down, and others just seem to fill in that empty space in the calendar. So, we've been busy and hard at work. One of the things we've been doing is spending some time thinking about what this next season of think energy has in store. There are lots of great topics to explore, lots of interesting and smart people out there to talk to the world of the energy transition and energy in general is not slowing down. In fact, it's picking up steam quite a bit. So, lots to dive into this season. We may take a different approach on some topics, on some episodes. We might try out some new things. So yeah, come along for the ride. So today, for our first episode of the season, we're going to kick things off with something close to home, and you will forgive me for that very intended and poor pun, because we're talking about home decarbonization and electrification. We know that most Canadians want to do something about climate change. The data shows us this, and you can go back and listen to my conversation with David Caletto from abacus data for more information on this. We want to live in a society that isn't producing harmful emissions that are jeopardizing our future, but it often feels like so much of that is out of our control. So when it comes to climate action, what we often look to is those things that are in our control, which, for those fortunate enough to own their own homes, is the emissions that result from where we live and, by extension, for somehow we get around the city, so our vehicles, even that action, however, can be daunting if we don't know where to start and we don't know what our options are, and we're relying on contractors, or tradespeople who tend to take maybe a more traditional, fossil fuel based approach. There are great contractors out there, but sometimes it's hard to find them, so today we're going to explore that a little bit. Now I do want to throw a quick caveat out there to say that this conversation is really through the lens of kind of a single family or semidetached home, and through the lens of those that either own their own home, or at the very least have some decision making. Power for that home. Decarbonizing multi-unit buildings like apartments or condos or decarbonizing for renters, is a whole different but equally important conversation that I do plan on tackling at another time. So my conversation today is with Sarah Grant, who is the co-founder and co-owner of Goldfinch energy. Goldfinch energy is a Toronto, Ontario based, women owned small business that is dedicated to helping Canadians reduce their homes reliance on fossil fuels. They offer energy assessments, clean tech roadmaps and green renovation support services. Sarah has degrees in engineering and computer science. She's held leadership roles in renewable energy and local food systems, and is a certified energy advisor. And is really someone who's just passionate about tackling climate change and passionate about talking about it as well. So, I think you're going to enjoy the conversation today. Sarah, welcome to the show. Sarah Grant 04:21 Thanks for having me Trevor Freeman 04:22 so. Full disclosure to our listeners here, Sarah and I have actually known each other for quite a long time. And I was trying to do the math there, I think it's like getting close to 20 years now, and we know each other from a different line of work. We both were in international developments and worked overseas for a while. So, I think my first question is, tell us how you came to be in the home energy business. That's a bit of a shift from international development. And then tell us a little bit about what Goldfinch energy does. Sarah Grant 04:53 Awesome. It is true. It is a bit of a shift, although I have always been interested in big, big problems that the world is facing, and working in international development, yeah, I guess 20 or so years ago, I could already see the impacts of the climate crisis, working with subsistence farmers, hearing them tell the stories of how they would plant and um, reigns weren't as predictable as they had been before. And so, when it was time for me to come back to Canada live a bit closer to family, it was something that I was always interested in, and felt like it was another global problem that I could start working on more locally, more specifically, sort of how Goldfinch was born was, to some extent, out of the pandemic. So, some goodness came out of that. Early in the spring, I was working in another sort of climate focused endeavor, a nonprofit that it was clear wasn't going to do very well with the pandemic ongoing, and a friend actually approached me and said, hey, I have this idea. She herself had been working in the sort of climate change world and had had a furnace die, and had asked about heat pumps, and was just laughed at. So, she ended up with a oversized, gas guzzling furnace to continue to heat her home and knew she could have done better. So, Goldfinch energy was sort of born out of that idea that we're not alone. Many of us want to do something, and our homes are a large portion of our individual commissions. If you are lucky enough to own a home, that is, and there are small steps, big steps you can take. All of it matters. And so that's Goldfinch. So, we then, early on, decided, in order to help people, it was going to be useful to become energy advisors. So, I took some training. Actually, it's a really interesting program the federal government through Natural Resources Canada administers the, I guess, the industry of being an energy advisor. And so, there are sort of two exams you take. And so, we studied in 2020, and launched Goldfinch energy with the idea that, after doing some market research as well that, you know, what was really going to be helpful was being able to help people sort of break down the complexity of what's going on with their homes, what they can do to address the climate change crisis. And also, you know, with a home, it's also not just about that. It's about maybe making it a bit more comfortable, or maybe there's a planned renovation that someone might want to do to change the layout, what have you. And so, we establish golden energy to help people make their homes better for the planet and for themselves. Trevor Freeman 07:52 Great. Yeah, it's, I think I hear that a lot from folks, and it's in my own experience of, you know roughly that you want to do the right thing, you know, roughly that, yeah, I want to, you know, reduce carbon, but I don't know how. And the answer I'm going to get from my average contractor is not going to point me in that direction. I'm hoping that we're seeing some change, and folks like you guys are maybe pushing that a little bit, but it's great to know that there's organizations out there that can provide that direct support. So, I mean, what we're talking about today is pretty much home electrification, or, let's say, home decarbonization. And so, let's pull apart what that looks like. And there's probably a few different scenarios of how a homeowner could approach this work. There's the one that you described where your furnace kind of dies in the middle of January, which is my own experience a number of years ago. And you have to make a really quick decision. But let's park that scenario for now. Let's talk about if you have time, if you know you want to do this, and you can start planning now, what where do you start? And, oh, you know, looking through the services that you guys provide, you have the energy assessment, the cleantech roadmap, talk us through some of those tools that you use to help people kind of start their decarbonization journey. Sarah Grant 09:16 So, this is a great question. The best way to start is just by getting a sense of where your home is now. A lot of the homes that I work in, I'm based in Toronto, are 100 plus years old. So, you know, when they were first built, didn't have any insulation. They leaked like a sieve. They were probably heated with wood or some type of fossil fuel. And you know, different expectations were had and over the over the decades, often homes have had a myriad of homeowners and renovations or no renovations. So, an energy assessment is a way for someone to better understand what's going on with their home right now and our clean tech roadmap, then segues from that and helps goes deeper into okay, I now know where my home is losing heat, where you know how efficient or not it is, what levels of insulation exist in behind the walls and in the attic, and you know how drafty it is. There's a cool tool that we use to measure that, the clean tech roadmap, then puts that assessment and translates that into helps people translate that into a plan that they can then ideally act on. So, this plan includes details like, Okay, what you know if you are going to be renovating the basement, stay and want to finish that space. What are the recommended insulation materials that you should use? And how should you treat water? Because, you know, often basements are a little bit below the water table. So, what does that look like? How can we better air seal that space to make it less drafty as well? And maybe you're going to be touching the heating or the hot water. So, what are the options there? What are some contractor names? So, it's really designed to give people all the tools that hopefully they may need if they have the time to not only understand where their home is at, but what they can do and then even have everything at their fingertips to start to seek out quotes and start to take action on their home in the way that's best suited to them. So, some homeowners are able and fortunate enough to kind of do everything in one big bell swoop of, you know, a big, big renovation, perhaps, or, you know, over a few months’ time, able to kind of get, get everything off the list. A lot of the homeowners that we work with aren't in that sort of circumstances. A lot of homeowners who just bought a house, so the house is new to them, but maybe 100 years old. And so, having that clean tech roadmap in their hands then allows them to sort of say, Okay, well, what? What do we want to do this year and the next year, and I've had people that, you know, we worked with four years ago, have who have come back to me a few years later and said, Okay, well, now we're ready to do this? Can you help us which, which is so great, so it's designed to sort of meet people where they are, where they are, with their goals, with their budget and their lifestyle. Because not everyone can afford to kind of do all the you know the right things all at once. Trevor Freeman 12:24 Yeah, so, I think like having someone in to one understand what's there, because not everybody knows exactly what's in their house, as you said, and then have that plan. That doesn't mean you have to implement the plan today all at once, but knowing you know when this piece of equipment goes or when I work on this part of the house, here's what I'm going to do, here's the things I need to consider. And having that kind of in your back pocket. Or when you do that work is super helpful. You touched on something else that I want to ask you about, which is, you know, oftentimes when we think about decarbonizing our homes or changing out big pieces of equipment. Of course, we're thinking of, you know, our heating system, our cooling system, our hot water system, but you mentioned a couple other things. So, what are some things to address before getting into those big equipment purchases? You know, changing out your furnace. What should what should you do in advance of that? Sarah Grant 13:20 I mean, first and foremost, you know, if you have a home and you have issues with water, with mold, those are kind of, you know, structural issues. Those are aspects that tend to, you know, they're top of the list. But, you know, assuming, let's assume, you know, we're talking about homes that kind of don't have those pressing needs. Some of the some of the items that are ideal to address before electrifying are involve making your home better at keeping the heat in. So that's really comes down to just insulate, more insulation where you can, to the extent that you can, and reducing air leakage. So, a lot of people are familiar with insulation. Usually, most contractors these days, if someone's renovating a kitchen, will find a way to add some insulation. Reducing air leakage is still, I would say, not as much on a contractor's radar as it would be ideal. A lot of the green contractors and architects that I work with, it's sort of as important, or even more important, and to us it is as well. So, in the winter, the insulation for your house is kind of like your sweater, and if you don't have any sort of windbreaker, you're going to have a lot of air leakage. So, the air leakage for your home is kind of like adding a windbreaker. Sorry, I started to talk about it like with homeowners, like there are different levels of air leakage. So, level one just involves walking around with a caulking gun and doing what you can to seal up the gaps and the cracks, maybe around the windows. In the window trim, maybe along the baseboards. People often have a good sense of some of the larger sources of air leakage, because they feel drafty, and so that's kind of level one, air leakage. Level two could involve maybe doing a little bit more in the basement, around what's called the rim joist. So, if you look up in your basement and your basement is unfinished where the sort of the ceiling joists meet the walls, those are often a huge source of air leakage. And there's a lot that can often be done to reduce air leakage there. And there are different products. I don't know if we want to get into that today, but I'll just leave it at that for now. And level three is if you are going to be replacing the siding from the outside or from the inside, gutting your house, adding an air barrier, which is a material that serves to reduce the air leakage. Overall, it is like wrapping your house in a big windbreaker. If someone is able to do that, if you're able to say, if you have siding on the outside of your house that you need to be replaced. Adding an air barrier can have the most significant impacts in terms of reducing air leakage. So, you asked, sort of, where should someone start? I think, you know, it does come back to a lot of people I find replace their siding or replace their windows, maybe more for esthetic reasons, or they have reached their end of life. But reducing air leakage, doing what you can if you're replacing your siding, to also add insulation, isn't always on people's minds. So again, back to having that plan. If you have a plan, if you know, okay, when I need to redo my flat roof or redo my siding or redo my windows, I'm going to be thinking about these extra pieces that will ensure that I'm going to take a few more steps to make my house do a better job of keeping the heat in, by adding more insulation, by reducing air leakage. Those are great, great first steps when possible. Trevor Freeman 16:54 And the added benefit, I think, of that, and this is important for people to know, is there's a huge comfort impact there. I mean this, we're not even really talking yet about energy savings and carbon you will just have a more comfortable home if it's less drafty, if it holds the heat in better, keeps the heat out in the summer, and that is one of the drivers for some of these changes that we're talking about here today. It's not just because you really care about climate change, it's also because you want a more comfortable and efficient home. Sarah Grant 17:25 100% I think that comfort just like someone having a broken furnace. Well, maybe not exactly, but similar to, I think, is can act as that trigger, as that motivator, to push people. So I do often have people calling and saying, Hey, like, can you come and do a consult? Because we don't often use the third floor of our house. It's just not as comfortable. And so we'll figure out what's going on and help people make a plan to address that. And ideally, you know, I find when I'm able to do that, I'd rather help someone make a better use of existing space than help them plan out an addition. Um, I have sometimes ended up talking people out of an addition, because upon sort of discussing their house real, we've realized, okay, like they don't use their basement because it's unfinished, it's dark, it's damp, it's, you know, it's the scary, cobwebby place. And so we develop a plan that involves adding more sunlight and making it comfortable, making it not so damp and scary, and that helps. They're already heating that space. It's sort of a space that you're already sort of half there. And so energy wise, you're making an improvement, and have avoided making your house bigger, which is maybe required, but it can be avoided, is better too. Trevor Freeman 18:49 Okay, so I want to dive into the things that probably people are most familiar with when we talk about reducing our own fossil fuel consumption in a home. And so these are your big users, like how you heat your space, how you heat your water, and for some people cooking. So especially those first do space heating and water heating. The majority of Canadians at least use some kind of fossil fuel to heat their homes, especially here in Ontario. So that's typically natural gas cooking is a little bit more of a mixed bag, but there's a lot of gas cooking out there. So maybe talk us through what would be the sort of low to no carbon option for each of those three things. Sarah Grant 19:31 Great, okay, going from large to small. So the largest source of emissions in... /episode/index/show/thinkenergy/id/33040252

Summer Rewind: Modernizing the Electricity Grid with the Advanced Distribution Management System 09/02/2024

Summer Rewind: Modernizing the Electricity Grid with the Advanced Distribution Management System Summer rewind: If electrification is the future of energy, the grid must become more efficient and more reliable across Canada. Jenna Gillis, Manager of Distribution System Integration at Hydro Ottawa, joins thinkenergy to discuss the process. Listen to episode 136, as she shares how Ottawa’s electricity grid is being updated with an Advanced Distribution Management System (ADMS) and what this means for you, your family, and residents throughout the region. Related links ● EV Everywhere Pilot Project: ● Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: ● Hydro Ottawa: To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: To subscribe using Spotify: To subscribe on Libsyn: -- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: Follow along on Instagram: Stay in the know on Facebook: Keep up with the posts on X: Transcript: Trevor Freeman Hey everyone. Well, it's officially summer, and the think energy team is taking a break to recharge over the next two months, but also to plan our content for the fall. So stay tuned for some great episodes in the fall. Not to worry, though, we still have our summer rewind to keep you engaged. This is where we pick out some of the great past episodes that we've done and repost them. So whether you're lucky enough to be sitting on a dock or going on a road trip or if you're just keeping up with your commute through the summer, it's a great time to revisit our past content. You will hear past episodes from my predecessor and the host chair, Dan Sagan, as well as a couple of mine from the past few months, and you're welcome to check out your own favorite past episodes as well. Wherever you get your podcasts. We hope you have an amazing summer, and we'll be back with new content in September, and until then, happy listening. Trevor Freeman 00:07 Hi, welcome to think energy, a podcast that dives into the fast-changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators and people on the frontlines of the energy transition. Join me Trevor Freeman, as I explore the traditional, unconventional and even up and coming facets of the energy industry. If you've got thoughts, feedback or ideas for topics that we should cover, we'd love to hear from you. Please reach out to us, I think energy at hydro ottawa.com. Hi, everyone, welcome back. I'm pretty excited about today's topic, because we're going to be tackling something a little bit technical. And that's always fun. And today is going to be the first of what might end up being a few different episodes looking at this term called grid modernization. So today, we're going to do just a high-level overview. And then over the next few months, there'll be a couple of different episodes that will dive deeper into some of the specific aspects of grid modernization. So that term grid modernization can be a little bit daunting, but that's okay. Our goal here is to pull apart these topics to better understand what they are and how they impact all of us, you know, from those of us working in the energy sector, all the way to the end users of our product, if you will, our electricity customers. So let's start by a bit of a primer. And I think it'll be helpful to start by talking about what the grid is. So the electrical power grid has been called the world's largest machine, and the greatest engineering achievement of the 20th century. And for good reason, thinking of it as a machine is a great metaphor, because just like a car, or a sewing machine or a snow blower, there are a lot of parts. And if any one of those parts breaks or isn't working as it's supposed to be, that will impact the overall function of the machine. And the same is true for the grid. And the parts we're talking about here are the holes, the conductors or wires, the transformers, the switches, as well as the many different sensors and meters and communication devices that help the humans in the mix, monitor and control things. The difference though, is that you know, even for a complex machine, like a car, there are hundreds or maybe even a couple 1000 parts. But the electricity grid, even if we just look at let's say hydro Ottawa as territory, there are hundreds of 1000s of parts. And if we scale that up to Ontario's grid, we're talking about millions and millions of individual parts all working together, so that when you turn your lights on at home, electricity that was generated hundreds or 1000s of kilometers away, flows into your device and makes it work. That's pretty impressive. And if any one of those millions of parts breaks, there's an impact somewhere on the grid. If multiple things break, or if there's something really critical that isn't working. That's a major problem. And we've seen these major problems. We've seen large scale outages. And you know, we tend to focus on Ontario's grid on this show, because that's what we call home. But our grid is connected to our neighboring grids, who are connected to their neighbors to form really an interconnected North American grid across Canada and the United States. It really is a modern engineering marvel. And, you know, we didn't just get here by chance. This was kind of designed, you know, back at the early days of the 20th century in the early 1900s. Electrical pioneers met for the first time in what is now Kitchener, Ontario to discuss what it would look like to wire Ontario's customers together to form a provincial electricity grid. Our predecessor company, the Ottawa hydroelectric commission, connected to that provincial grid in 1916. So, what we know as the Ottawa grid and our service territory is over 100 years old today. Before that, across Ontario, reliable and continuous power in the region was kind of uncommon, and really dependent on whether someone in the area like a major business or a wealthy individual had invested in a localized electricity grid for their own needs. An interconnected provincial grid was designed and implemented with a goal of making electricity available to all Ontarians regardless of where they lived. And that kind of evolution of the grid in Ontario is similar to how it worked in other parts of North America and indeed the world. That's kind of how grids came about in the last century. Ontario's electricity grid, however, like all grids around the world, was really designed as a one-way street. So, the idea was to generate and then transmit, and then deliver that electricity to customers in that order. Back then, those pioneers really couldn't have imagined an electricity grid that would need to support two-way interactive things like small scale distributed renewable energy, you know, solar panels on roofs or electric vehicles, or energy storage, and a whole host of other things that, you know, want to do more than just draw power from the grid. As we've talked about the ongoing energy transition, and electrification, which is being driven by the pressures of climate change, is really driving a societal shift to bring the electricity system into the 21st century, and to make sure it's powered with clean, renewable electricity. So, our grid is starting to undergo this major transformation. And we won't be able to do that effectively or affordably by just using the same strategies and technologies and the same pace that we've been doing it at over the last 100 plus years. We need to take it to the next level; we need to rethink what we're doing to upgrade the grid and how we're doing it. And that's really what grid modernization is, it's not saying we don't have a modern grid, it's realizing that the grid of 10 years from now needs to be different in a much bigger way than it's different from how it was 10 years ago, that pace of change needs to happen quicker. And we need to bring on new functionality. It's not just you know, incremental change anymore. To help us make some sense of this. I'm really happy to have Jenna Gillis to chat with today. Jenna is the manager of distribution system integration at hydro Ottawa and is leading this major project that we're calling at a high-level grid modernization, or more specifically, our advanced distribution management system, or ADMS. Jenna has been with hydro Ottawa for 16 years and has held a number of different roles on the operations and systems side of our business and really knows how our grid operates, how it's been operating, how the humans in the mix control things. And what's necessary to get us to that next stage that we've been talking about. Jenna, welcome to the show. Jenna Gillis 07:04 Great. Thanks, Trevor. excited to talk to about this today. Trevor Freeman 07:07 Yeah, I'm excited to. So let's start at kind of a high level here and help our listeners understand how we currently operate our grid today. So paint the picture for those of us who don't kind of get to see what happens behind the scenes. How do we control things today? Jenna Gillis 07:23 Yeah, for sure. So what people might not realize that we actually have people sitting in a control room centralized control room that looks at our system 24/7 365. So we've got people monitoring the system all the time. And they look at the grid state, and they help direct field activities. They look at triaging outages as they become aware of them. And right now, we've got visibility to our control room to all of our substations, so all of our, you know, high level devices, but only down to about 8% of the feeders and not actually all the way out to our customer level. So what does that mean? That means that we still rely on customers calling us or reporting online when they experience an outage. And all of that information does make its way back into our control room operators. And it goes into a system we call the outage management system, which helps us track and identify where we might be seeing issues out on the grid. So the operators then use that information to help make decisions in terms of controlling the grid where they need to open up closed devices where they need to send field crews to restore power. So on top of that, most of these activities are done by field crews. So the system operators are in direct contact with our crews out in the field and providing direction on where to go, what devices to you know, have them physically open or close in the field. And we've got about 10% of our system right now that has remote capabilities. So that means that the operators can choose to open or close those devices, basically at a click of a button back in the office sitting at a computer. So most of what we do today really is human based and does take an expert control operator to be monitoring the systems and making the decisions. Trevor Freeman 09:08 Yeah, so we've got this like really complex system. It's, you know, state of the art system, if you will, that requires, like you say experts to keep track of what's happening to identify problems and make decisions based on the information they're getting. I just want to pick apart a few things you said there. So when we're talking about our substations, just for our listeners, those are, you know, spots in our grid where we take higher voltage and step it down via transformers to a lower voltage, and then send that out on wires. That's what we call our feeders to our end customers. We know what's happening at that substation level, we can see whether the power is flowing or not whether switches are open or not. But once it gets past that we lose some of that visibility. That's kind of what I'm hearing from you Jenna Gillis 09:57 Yeah, exactly. And so that's why I'm saying like we still rely on those notifications from our customers to let us know where they're seeing the problems. And, you know, it comes into a system that, that we can look at in conjunction with that visibility that we have on the substations to help us understand what's going on. Trevor Freeman 10:12 Right. So obviously, it was such a, you know, an ordered and complex system, we're constantly in proving and renewing and upgrading. That's not new. That's not something that we're just starting. But as I've kind of hinted at in the opening there, we do need to change how we do things. So before we look into where we're going, how do we renew and upgrade today, what's our current process. Jenna Gillis 10:36 So we do have a robust asset management framework. So that's basically a program that tells us and we look at all of our asset information. And that's whether that's poles, wires, transformers, switches, breakers, basically anything we have out on the distribution system, and we look at and prioritize where we need to invest and where we need to renew, replace, install, upgrade, all of that kind of stuff. So basically, as we do that, right now, we go through, and we'll incorporate new technologies, like these remote control switches, like these sensors to bring information back into the control room to help us continue to evolve, meet our customer or system needs. So this, this process has worked really well in the past in terms of keeping pace with technology and the requirements of the grid and our customers. But right now, we're seeing that it's we're falling behind, it's too slow to parallel installation of these new technological devices, with these asset renewals or installation. So I mean, if you think about it, you know, a pull out with wires on it can last over 50 years, we can't wait until we're replacing that 50 years from now to go in and add these new technological advancements. So what that means is now we're looking at a hybrid ap proach. So of course, we're going to continue to parallel activities where it makes sense with these asset renewals and upgrades and replacements. But we also need to strategically start placing these devices in areas that we're going to gain benefit from, and I'm talking about benefit from a control room operator perspective, benefit from a safety or field crew perspective, but also where we can provide value to our customers in terms of, you know, expediting restoration efforts, or, you know, providing more flexibility into the system to allow more customer connections, whether that be, you know, new residential developments, or whether that's, you know, the next solar panel or battery or something like that. Trevor Freeman 12:25 Yeah, waiting for anybody who's familiar with kind of technological adoption curves and the pace of technological change, you talk about 50 years is the life of some of this equipment, the difference between technology and let's say, 1930, and 1980, wasn't a huge jump when it comes to poles and wires and transformers. But today, the difference of 50 years is night and day that we're not talking at all about the same technology. So we can't wait for that whole cycle to go through before we're getting some of the tech in today that we need today in order to upgrade the system. So that's helpful to understand what that looks like. So let's look forward then. And when we talk about where we want to go with grid modernization, how we want to change that, talk us through what we're trying to accomplish. Jenna Gillis 13:14 Yeah, so I think I'm gonna paint a little bit of a picture here in terms of how I think about grid modernization, because that's really helped me contextualize the way that we need to do things differently. So I think of grid modernization, that program in entirety as like a stacked or a layer pyramid. At the bottom, you have field devices. So you have equipment that's remotely controlled, or providing data in the field. So you know, we're talking about sensors, or meters or switches, things like that. That's your foundation. On top of that, you then need a way to get that information back to back to systems back to people. So then you need a communication infrastructure. So you need to be able to take that data and funnel it where it needs to go, which is the third layer data management, you need to store, organize, create access to that field data. And then finally, the fourth triangle right at the very top is your applications and analytics later. So now you've got the data coming from the field, you're bringing it back, and you're managing it. So now what are you going to do with that information. So these are the applications and analytics. So really the tools that digest that data and ultimately help make decisions. So that is what I envisioned kind of as the grid modernization pyramid. And you need each one of those layers to unlock the value from the layer below it. So you can't really have one without the other all the way up to the top. So what we need to start doing is thinking about these layers in a programmatic fashion. What we've done historically is looked at the requirements on a project by project or program by program basis. So basically, you would unlock each one of those layers for that specific project or program requirements. What we need to start doing now is that grid moderization is going to be the foundation for everything we do. So basically, every project, every program is going to require some level of information, data management, analytics, communication. So the way we're looking at that is this is now becoming a foundation to everything we do. So we need to be programmatic, roll this out so that regardless of what we're doing in the future, we have this foundation to rely on. And we're not building it piece by piece as we work through, you know, project life cycles. So really, what's different when I talk about grid modernization assets, and I'm talking about meters, or sensors or remote control devices, is the integrated nature. So we talked about that pyramid, you can't use these devices without any one of those layers, whereas you think of a traditional asset like a pole, you can, you know, load it up at a truck, and somebody can go and put it in the ground. So it's really the the true convergence. Now we're seeing what we, you know, our information technology, our IT systems, our operational technology, or OT systems, and then operations and asset management. So we really need to be looking at these things together, as one, making sure we're all aligned to unlock each one of these layers. Trevor Freeman 16:15 Yeah, it really highlights the, I guess, cascading impacts of projects and decisions and bringing on new technology across the entire distribution, business and how we do things and how we serve our customers. One is impacting the other in ways that hasn't really, truly been the case before. So that's that's a great way of of painting it. Thanks, Jenna. Let's talk about kind of the the why behind this, what are the benefits that we're going to see by taking this approach by taking this sort of accelerated upgraded process that we're doing? What are we going to gain from this. Jenna Gillis 16:54 So our overall grid modernization strategy is guided by five key objectives. So I'll go through each one of those and give you kind of a high level blurb on on what it is that we're trying to achieve with grid modernization. So the first one is enhancing reliability. So the more monitoring devices you have in the field to understand the state of the grid, the more remote capabilities you have in order to operate. And you know, isolate and restore, the better reliability have the ultimate goal is moving towards an automated process, where you have all of the foundation of the equipment, the communication channels and the audit, the analytics to make decisions, you can get outages restored much more quickly. The next one is what we call flexibility. So adaptive grid flexibility. So we want to make sure that the grid is dynamic to all of these changing energy... /episode/index/show/thinkenergy/id/32777862

Summer Rewind: Vision Quest: Modernizing Ontario’s Energy Future with the EDA 08/19/2024

Summer Rewind: Vision Quest: Modernizing Ontario’s Energy Future with the EDA Summer rewind: Ontario's electricity sector is evolving, as the province navigates the transition to cleaner energy amidst rising demand. In thinkenergy episode 135, we explore the grid's structure and key players, highlighting the crucial role of distributors (Local Distribution Companies or LDCs) in facilitating this transition. Guest Teresa Sarkesian, President and CEO of the Electricity Distributors Association (EDA), sheds light on LDCs' frontline efforts and contributions shaping the energy landscape. Related links Teresa Sarkesian on LinkedIn: Electricity Distributors Association: Green Button information: Electrification and energy transition panel report: Ontario Electricity Support Program: Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: Hydro Ottawa: To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: To subscribe using Spotify: To subscribe on Libsyn: --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: Follow along on Instagram: Stay in the know on Facebook: Keep up with the posts on X: Trevor Freeman Hey everyone. Well, it's officially summer, and the think energy team is taking a break to recharge over the next two months, but also to plan our content for the fall. So stay tuned for some great episodes in the fall. Not to worry, though, we still have our summer rewind to keep you engaged. This is where we pick out some of the great past episodes that we've done and repost them. So whether you're lucky enough to be sitting on a dock or going on a road trip or if you're just keeping up with your commute through the summer, it's a great time to revisit our past content. You will hear past episodes from my predecessor and the host chair, Dan Sagan, as well as a couple of mine from the past few months, and you're welcome to check out your own favorite past episodes as well. Wherever you get your podcasts. We hope you have an amazing summer, and we'll be back with new content in September, and until then, happy listening. Trevor Freeman 0:07 Hi, welcome to think energy, a podcast that dives into the fast-changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators and people on the frontlines of the energy transition. Join me Trevor Freeman, as I explore the traditional, unconventional and even up and coming facets of the energy industry. If you've got thoughts, feedback or ideas for topics that we should cover, we'd love to hear from you. Please reach out to us, at think energy at hydro ottawa.com Hi, everyone, welcome back. Now it's no secret that Ontario's electricity sector is transforming rapidly as it moves to both decarbonize the grid itself, you know, we have a very clean grid in Ontario, but it's not totally carbon free. And to support the growing demand for electricity as our customers across the province, take steps to electrify and change how they use energy. The show is all about exploring those changes, among other things, and today is no different. But before we dive into our conversation today, I think it would be helpful for me to spend just a few quick minutes on some basics about how our electricity grid is structured in Ontario, and who some of the key players are. Now I know some of our listeners will know this already, but it can be hard to keep track of all those key players. And Ontario's structure is a little different than some of the neighboring jurisdictions no two jurisdictions are exactly alike. So, a refresher is never a bad thing. Now the most basic description is that electricity is largely generated at central generation facilities. So, think nuclear power plants are your electric generating stations, some gas fired generating stations and large-scale wind and solar installations. We call these entities generators simple as that. That electricity is then transmitted across the province in an interconnected grid of high voltage transmission lines, which also connect to other jurisdictions such as neighboring provinces and states, and Ontario, Hydro One runs the transmission network. Now you've probably seen this transmission network. These would be the large metal towers that you see out in the middle of a field when you're driving along the highway or in rural areas that have electricity wires strung way up high in the air. The last stage before it gets to the end user is called distribution. So, this is where electricity is taken from those high voltage lines stepped down to a usable voltage for residential and commercial customers via transformers and substations, and then distributed over a network of overhead and underground wires, then these would be the wires that you would see at the top of those wooden or composite poles that are along the side of the road in your neighborhood. The entities that run this distribution part are called distributors, again, simple as that. So, there's a few other key players that are worth mentioning here. Energy Policy is primarily the jurisdiction of the provincial government, who sets the general direction and associated rules and regulations accordingly. The Ontario Energy Board or OEB is the regulatory body who governs what all those other players do and enacts the government mandate. And finally, at least for today's purposes, we have the system operator. It's called The Independent Electricity System Operator in Ontario, or IESO, who runs the system. So, if you're in Windsor, Ontario, or Ottawa, or North Bay, and you want to turn on your air conditioner, or plug your EV in to charge, the IESO is responsible for making sure there's enough power on the grid to handle that load. So, I hope everyone is still with me and feel free to pause and do some jumping jacks if that was a lot to take in. Our conversation today is going to be focused on the role of the distributor. So, for full disclosure, as you know, I work for hydro Ottawa who is one of those distributors, we serve most electricity customers in the City of Ottawa, and the neighboring village of Casselman and in Ontario, you will often hear distributors referred to as local distribution companies or LDCs. So forgive me if I slip into that acronym throughout the conversation today, that's really just the sort of common name that we refer to those distributors as. But I'll try to mix it up and make sure that, that I'm explaining that acronym throughout as well. So the distributor is really the front line, the customer facing entity of the entire electricity system. If you are an electricity customer, and you think about the electricity system, you are probably thinking about your distributor. Chances are you get your bill from a distributor, even though for most customers, most of what you pay on that bill doesn't actually go to the LDC. Some of it stays with your local distribution company, but most of it goes to the transmitter to the generator, to the IESO etc. When the power goes out, it's probably your LDC that you call and it's your LDC that will give you a restoration time. Sometimes outages are caused by issues up the line, so to speak in the transmission portion of the grid. But often the issue is a localized one. And it's your LDC that is identifying the problem and fixing it, whether that means rolling a truck to string new cable, or performing switching to work around the problem. And finally, it's your LDC that is really on the frontlines of the energy transition. While all parts of the grid must then have started to change, the LDCs are really working hand in hand with our customers to identify where and how fast and new demand is needed to bridge that gap between customers and policymakers to enable more and more renewable generation. And also to determine what new technologies or programs we need to pilot and scale up. And it's really the LDCs that are driving change in the way that electricity is managed at the individual customer level moving forward. So to help us make some sense of this, I'm happy to have Teresa Sarkesian on the show today. Teresa is the president and CEO of the electricity Distributors Association, which is a role that she's held since 2016. This is actually Teresa second time on the show the first being back in December 2021. So we're happy to have Teresa back, Teresa, welcome back to the show. Teresa Sarkesian 6:23 Thanks so much, Trevor. I'm really delighted to be back. Trevor Freeman 6:27 Yeah, we're glad to have you. So, like I said, you were back on our show in 2021. I don't know if it's because of how COVID has changed our lives or if this is just the way things go. But sometimes, you know, weeks seem like years. So 2021 is a long time ago. Let's start by refreshing our listeners on the role and mandate of the electricity Distributors Association. Teresa Sarkesian 6:49 Sure thing so the electricity Distributors Association, or the EDA our little acronym represents Ontario's public and private electric utilities that distribute electricity to 5.4 million homes, businesses and institutional customers across the province. And I should note that those 5.4 million customers really refers to build accounts so you have families that are behind a build account. So effectively the millions and millions of Ontarians and businesses that operate and live here are customers of our utilities. And as you know our members are on the front lines of power, and have developed a strong trust with their customers by providing safe, reliable and affordable service for over 100 years. The EDA itself provides analysis and networking and advocacy for our members to ensure that the energy policy direction and framework in Ontario is fair and balanced, supporting the financial viability of utilities to deliver service and ensuring affordability for customers. And long term, we are looking to ensure that our local distribution company members can become the premier energy solution providers to their customers, and that they're able to provide the value-added services that customers are already expecting from them but are going to grow with the energy transformation and electrification in the future. Trevor Freeman 8:09 Yeah, it's kind of like I said, when people think about the electricity sector, they're probably thinking about their distributor. And the EDA is kind of that common voice for those distribution companies. So, you first joined the EDA back in 2009, and have been the president and CEO since 2016. So, we'll look ahead and talk about the future in a minute. But before we do that, tell us about how things have changed so far during your tenure. How are things different from 2009 When you first joined the organization? Teresa Sarkesian 8:40 Yeah, and you know, this is almost like perfect timing, Trevor, because I've been at the association now for 15 years, I'm just marking my 15-year anniversary. So, feels really apropos to kind of reflect and look back. So, I want to break down my answer into two parts. So, I'm going to talk to you about some, I guess, just my own personal observations about the electricity system at large. And then I'm going to talk more about the changes in distribution. But some of the changes that I thought were really quite significant and profound, sort of when I joined the industry in 2009, I joined at a time when there was the Green Energy Act, and the province was looking to connect all kinds of renewable energy generation to the electricity grid. So that was fairly significant. Another thing that was happening with the province is that they closed down coal fired generation. That was pretty massive. In fact, I think, at the time, it was the largest kind of carbon reduction initiative in North America. And I think even to this date today, I think it still is something that Ontario really has to be proud of. Another thing that you know, at the time, I think that was you know, fairly significant in 2015 is just the expectation of what the demand would be. What was interesting, sort of like the past for 15 years, the demand from customers for electricity was actually flat or declining. And that's all changed. Now. 15 years later, we're, we're now forecasting, massive increases in in demand of energy, which could potentially be doubling in the future. And the other point I'd like to make is just the nuclear renaissance that we're having. I think when I joined the sector in 2009, I'll tell you, I think the public opinion of nuclear was actually quite low. And that's been completely turned around lots of geopolitical events around the world, I think, have driven that. And now that nuclear is having a huge Renaissance. And you're seeing, you know, lots of new investments in nuclear. And we're not talking about shutting down reactors anymore. We're talking about refurbishing and expanding. So those are some of the things that I've observed over the last 15 years that have really changed. And for local distribution companies, I think what I have seen is a growing expectation by both government and the regulators for electric utilities to do more to both support the grid reliability and meet growing expectation from customers. So, I started in the sector in 2009, it was right on the brink of implementation of smart meters, and time of use. And what was interesting is that was mandated, there were very few jurisdictions in the world that actually had mandated smart meters and time of use pricing. So again, Ontario is was one of the first. And so that was a big change for LDCs. To move from, you know, smart meters and having to bring in that technology and also support the technology of time of use. I did mention the Green Energy Act at the time, we suddenly had to connect 1000s and 1000s, of new solar and wind generation, as well. And that was all new. There were no protocols, there were no standards for that. So that was fairly significant as well. And when I kind of fast forward to I guess, more recently, there have been a lot of changes from government, I think they've really supported our industry, they understand the trust that we have, with our customers. And they've implemented, you know, a number of new changes in terms of rate structures, they've asked us to implement ultra low-rate pricing that can support overnight electric vehicle charging. And they've also asked us to introduce a green button digital platform that allows customers to download their energy data and share with third parties for you know, different assessments and tools for lowering energy costs. But it's all not, you know, unicorns and kittens, there's challenges to for our sector, grid resilience was, you know, not really, people talked about it in 2009, but not like they're talking about it now, because of climate change. And we are seeing more frequent storms, causing, you know, obviously, outages for the customer, and also significant damage to the distribution grid. And I know that hydro Ottawa has faced more than its fair share of very destructive storms over the past few years, we have Yes, I can't remember which Victoria Day weekend where we had, I didn't ever know how to say it the derecho or the derecho. So there, we weren't getting storms we've never even heard of before. And unfortunately, I think that is our new normal. So, grid resilience is something that we are very concerned about, and we need to make sure we've got the appropriate investments for that. So those are just a few of the highlights that, you know, when I came into the sector sort of things that were kind of ramping up, and then what's happening now, but I guess what I could say, the commonality is there's constant change in the sector. And what I'm seeing going forward is that change is going to be accelerated. Trevor Freeman 13:40 Yeah, I mean, it's, it's fascinating to listen to you lay it all out like that. Thinking back to 15 years ago, it's hard to even remember, you know, not having smart meters, having meters that really just ticked forward and measured your consumption over the course of a month, and someone would come and read that. And, you know, having declining or even flat demand profiles that aren't increasing is so different from the world that we are in today. But I think what you said there at the end is really important. We are in our industry, an organization that knows about change, we're constantly changing, which helps us as we look forward into your point, we're going to see that level of change and the pace of change accelerate. So, I think that sets us up pretty well. So, let's start to look forward, then I know that the EDA is about to launch a new vision paper. So, we're going to dive into some of the details. But maybe let's start by kind of a high-level summary of what is the vision that you are trying to lay out with this paper? Teresa Sarkesian 14:42 Okay, and no problem. So, I think what I want to start just give a little bit of background as to why we did this. We've done a couple of vision papers and implementation plans in the past. But you know, they were like seven, eight years ago and things have changed a lot even in Seven or eight years. So, what we've been seeing, obviously, I think the big change over the last few years has been the big focus on meeting Net Zero targets in 2050, that we are going to get to net zero in terms of our greenhouse gas emissions. Not only in Canada, but this is actually a bit of a global commitment, you know, for countries that have signed on to that objective. So, what happens when you set up, you know, those big audacious goals? You have all kinds of organizations and entities looking at how are we going to get there, how much it's going to cost? What do we need to do to get there? And so when we started reviewing some of these publications, both in Ontario, Canada, and actually in other jurisdictions, they were very good. They talked about what supply mix that we need the investment in transmission, but almost 100% of the papers, Trevor, if you can believe this, just neglected distribution, no one talked about distribution, they didn't talk about how distribution is going to have to change what the investments would be. And then we'll so we said it's going to be critical for us to identify the electric utility role and the energy transition, and how the sector will need to be grid ready to support electrification, economic development, grid resilience, and customer preferences. So we view that LDCs are going to be pivotal in enabling Ontario's low carbon economy, navigating the challenges posed by climate policies, electrification trends, and these evolving customer demands. And with Ontario's growing economy and the demands for housing intensify, LDCs must innovate to effectively meet these accelerating electricity needs and changing preferences. And right now, we've seen the ISO is predicting significant consumption growth from 144 terawatt hours in 2023, to 240 terawatt hours and 2050 not quite double, but it's getting close. And so this rapid growth demands urgent attention to adopt new strategies and to ensure that the local distribution companies can make the necessary investments in grid enhancements to expand the capacity and capability of the distribution system. So while reliability and affordability remain Paramount customers do expect additional value from their utility service. And, you know, we are seeing all sorts of things that are happening, you know, such as the need for swift electric vehicle charging installation, and other upgrades that will increase the electrical load. We see that LDCs are more frequently interacting with businesses that seek utility partners to achieve their energy management, sustainability and ESG goals. And in parallel, the LDC... /episode/index/show/thinkenergy/id/32608997

Summer Rewind: Accelerating Canada’s clean energy transition with Dunsky Energy + Climate Advisors 08/05/2024

Summer Rewind: Accelerating Canada’s clean energy transition with Dunsky Energy + Climate Advisors HYDRO_ThinkEnergy_Aug5_Audio Wed, Jul 31, 2024 1:07PM • 30:42 SUMMARY KEYWORDS energy, canada, side, country, council, utility, ultimately, philip, big, clean energy, single, transition, challenge, governments, perspective, climate, decarbonize, involved, work, electricity SPEAKERS Trevor Freeman, Dan Seguin, Philippe Dunsky Trevor Freeman 00:00 Everyone, well, it's officially summer and the think energy team is taking a break to recharge over the next two months, but also to plan our content for the fall. So stay tuned for some great episodes in the fall. Not to worry though, we still have our summer rewind to keep you engaged. This is where we pick out some of the great past episodes that we've done and repost them. So whether you're lucky enough to be sitting on a dock or going on a road trip, or if you're just keeping up with your commute through the summer, it's a great time to revisit our past content. You will hear past episodes from my predecessor and the host chair Dan Seguin as well as a couple of mine from the past few months. And you're welcome to check out your own favorite past episodes as well. Wherever you get your podcasts. We hope you have an amazing summer and we'll be back with new content in September. And until then, happy listening. Dan Seguin 00:06 This is think energy, the podcast that helps you better understand the fast changing world of energy through conversations with game changers, industry leaders, and influencers. So join me, Dan Seguin, as I explore both traditional and unconventional facets of the energy industry. Hey, everyone, welcome back. Right now, there are scientists, entrepreneurs, policymakers, indigenous and industry leaders, helping to shape the direction that Canada will take to accelerate a transition to clean energy. Everywhere you look, whether it's academia, municipal, provincial, or federal governments, there's another council or committee being formed to address the most pressing issues of our time, climate change, from transitioning to sustainable energy sources, electrifying transportation, and improving energy efficiency to protecting our natural environment and reducing carbon emissions. One thing is for certain our country is embracing the renewable revolution, like never before. But those with seats at the decision table know that it must be done responsibly, and affordable. As we know, every region of Canada is unique and presents its own set of challenges and opportunities when it comes to tackling climate change, and ways to implement clean energy. So here is today's big question. How did we get such a vast and diverse country like Canada to agree on a pathway forward to a cleaner, greener and more sustainable energy future? Joining us today is Philippe Dunsky of Dunsky Energy and Climate Advisors, a consultancy firm that Philippe founded. It supports government, utilities, corporations across North America to accelerate their transition to clean energy. Phillippe, is the co chair of Canada's new Canada electricity Advisory Council, the co chair of efficiency Canada, and the director of the greater Montreal Climate Fund. He also previously chaired the Quebec government electrification Working Group. Welcome to the show, Philippe. Let's start by asking you this. Having just gone over some of your accomplishments, where does this passion for clean energy and climate come from? Where did it start? Philippe Dunsky 02:44 So, so great to be here. By the way, thank you so much for having me. It started, I guess, I guess very early on. I'm Jewish background and grew up with, you know, endless stories about the Holocaust. And somehow that kind of morphed into just a general interest for world affairs and for big challenges, big societal challenges. And then as I was growing up, those became really focused on environmental issues. So that was the genesis. I became very, very interested in environmental issues. And then through that, and climate change in particular, as probably the greatest challenge of my generation, and for my generation. And then, I guess the other thing is, I've come to discover that I'm a pretty analytical guy. So I'm not a no great protester, I'm not a great to great movement leader, I tend to see a lot of gray, not so much black and white. And so that's how I ended up deciding to get involved in these issues. But, you know, in my own way through more of an analytical lens, Dan Seguin 03:55 Okay, you've served and are serving on numerous councils, committees and boards. Can you tell us what has been the biggest takeaway you've learned through each collaboration? And how has it changed you? Philippe Dunsky 04:11 Yeah, because each one does change you and changes your perspectives. Because ultimately, the biggest takeaway is that no matter how much I think I know this stuff and know this stuff. Well, and I've been working on energy issues for over 30 years now. And so, you know, I always end up thinking that I know the answer. What we discover is that, you know, there's not a single answer, there are many perspectives. And if you can combine knowledge with multiple perspectives, then you can come up with something that's hopefully going to be closer to that, you know, to that truth, or whatever you want to call it. My big learning is that every time you go into something like this, you go in with an open mind and an open heart. And if you do that, and you're listening to others perspectives, then you're bound to land on something that's a hell of a lot smarter. And then what you initially thought coming into it? Dan Seguin 05:02 Okay, cool. Now, you were appointed chair for a recently formed Canada electricity Advisory Council. Can you tell our listeners who's on it? What is the mandate? And just how big of an undertaking is this? Philippe Dunsky 05:19 Sure, I can start with the last question, by the way, that the undertaking, it's a really big issue, it's a really big challenge. On the other hand, the undertaking itself is time limited, it's a 12 month thing. So I'm a pumpkin and I turned into a pumpkin in May. It's been five months now. So I got another seven to go. From that perspective, that's the timing that we're looking at. Okay, Council itself is a group of 18 Canadians from across the country, every single, every single province, no exception. It's, it's extraordinary mix of individuals with an extraordinary mix of experience and perspective. So I'd say roughly half of council members are either current or former utility executives. The other half is a bit more of an eclectic mix of former regulators, we have people involved in the power production side of things, we have first nations leaders, so indigenous leaders, and a couple of others with different perspectives to bring to the table. But the really important thing here, I think, is that you're looking at the leadership level from every single province across the country. And that makes for really, really enlightening and challenging conversations as well. And then I guess you asked about the purpose or the mandate of the council. So I'll put it at a very, very fundamental level as a country, we're trying to largely decarbonize electricity by sometime in the middle of the 2030s. And we're looking to grow electricity, very substantially to decarbonize the rest of the economy. By 2050. That's that dual set of goals is at the heart of our mandate. And our mandate is to figure out what the feds can and must do. And at the same time, what can and must be done by others in the country, to help make this an easier journey, a more affordable journey. And ultimately, a more successful journey on the way there. Dan Seguin 07:22 Okay, great segue here. Now, with respect to Canada's goal to achieve a 100%, Net Zero electricity system by 2035, you stated, "Is it better to optimize than maximize? Can you maybe break that down for us? And can you give us some examples? Philippe Dunsky 07:41 Yeah, sure. I mean, you know, what I mean by that is, if all we do is say we want to decarbonize, there are many, many paths to do that. And, you know, we can say, hey, we're gonna, we're just gonna build, build, build, build, build until there's no tomorrow. And we could probably get there, doing nothing but that, but we'll get there in a less affordable way, than if we really think through the intricacies of what needs to be done. Yes, on adding, also on subtracting, so actually becoming more efficient in the way we use energy, relying more on consumers' involvement in the marketplace to achieve some of those goals. I just think there are quick ways to get to the goal, that ultimately, are going to cost too much and or create reliability issues. And if that happens, there'll be a backlash. And we'll never get to the goal. Alternatively, there, they're thoughtful ways that maybe aren't exactly the way we've always done things in the past, but that involve a lot more complexity and being able to wrestle with complexity and stuff. But ways that are focused on keeping this as affordable as possible, ultimately, for everyone across Canada, making sure that we do this in a way that's reliable, so we can always count on electricity being there. And in doing it in a way that actually involves some cooperation, as well. Dan Seguin 09:04 So the electricity Council fulfills the minister's mandate to establish a pan Canadian grid Council. How viable is a pan Canadian electricity grid? Or are you seeing your movement in regional interconnections? Philippe Dunsky 09:22 Yeah, so it definitely looks regional. Let me be really clear about that. And I know the original Originally, the name for the council was supposed to be the pan Canadian grid Council, as you pointed out, you'll also notice it, it was not it does not have that name. And there's a reason for that. And, and I will say, you know, and I've said this publicly many times, I don't believe that that's the right answer. We definitely need a lot more cooperation. at the regional level. There are a lot of opportunities for provinces to exchange more to continue exchanging with the US by the way, and this isn't, you know, we're not caught within, within our borders. So we have to do more on the cooperation side to keep costs down again, as low as possible to make this as smart and thoughtful and as achievable as possible. But that doesn't involve, you know, I love the old Coast to Coast Railway analogy. It's nice, it's working for railways. We're not talking about a single grid that goes coast to coast that's just not in the cards. Dan Seguin 10:28 Now, for those who are not aware, can you tell us about your firm, its purpose, and what makes your approach unique, and particularly effective? Philippe Dunsky 10:40 Sure, I mean, I'm thrilled talking about my firm. So these days, I spend so much time talking about look Council, which is kind of like my evenings and nighttime job, or evenings and weekend job. But my day job is running my firm, my firm is a group of over 50 professionals. Now, I think we're about 55 now that are dedicated exclusively to supporting clients in their clean energy transitions. And our clients typically are utilities and governments, increasingly large corporate clients as well, across Canada and across the US. So ultimately we work with utilities and governments that are in the throes of this energy transition, that are trying to figure it out. They're trying to find a way to help their customers navigate through it and a way for themselves to navigate through it, to define what the business case is for them and what their proper role is in it. And, and then we also have helped them in some of the nitty gritty. So, you know do you get customers involved on the demand side management side to reduce the pressure on right on the big build out? And all the capital is involved there? You know, what do we need to do to electrify vehicles, for example. So we've developed for some places, charging, charging infrastructure plans and charging infrastructure, business, business plans, strategies, investment plans, we work with, with our, with our customers in helping helping to decarbonize buildings through whether it's direct electrification, or hybrid heating systems without just the natural gas, depending on the on the need, we work with to decarbonize industrial loads, as well. And oftentimes, we're working with our utility customers to help them help their industrial customers decarbonize. So all of those things, and more and of course, planning out the whole transformation of the electricity system on the supply side, is a big part of it. That's a lot of what we do. It's hard to put in a single sentence. But the interesting thing, I guess, for us is, you know, ultimately, we're a consulting shop that is exclusively focused on the clean energy transition, we do nothing other than that. And, and I think that makes us pretty darn good at it. Dan Seguin 13:02 That's perfect. Phillippe, your company emphasizes support in four focus areas, buildings, mobility, Industry and Energy. How were those identified? And can you maybe provide some specific projects or initiatives that have made a significant difference in the sector's? Philippe Dunsky 13:25 Yeah, sure. And those sectors are, you know, 80 to 90%, of the energy equation, right. So they've grown over time, in a very deliberate manner, we started out working on the building side of the equation. So you know, what we call DSM or in Ontario, you call it CDM. Just to be different. But so we started out working on that. And then over time, we added mobility, especially electric mobility to our portfolio of expertise, and then built out from there, including on the generation and TND side, in terms of some examples. I mean, I'll be honest with you, we do well over 100 projects a year now. So there are a lot of different ones with a pretty large variety. But for example, I actually just came back from meeting with one of our clients, a large, large electric utility, where we've helped them to revamp their whole CDM approach. So that's, you know, from top to bottom, on the strategy side, on the regulatory side, and then on what the programs actually look like and how they operate and who they involve. In Ontario, we actually completed something I think is absolutely fascinating. I really enjoyed reading it. And that was a study of the potential of Drs. So distributed energy resources in Ontario to essentially keep the lights on, you know, we found 1000s of megawatts of exploitable resources there that you don't need to build because they're already there on the customer side of the meter. So stuff like that. We've worked with a lot of states in the US including California and New York designing, designing measure is to help their customers finance, the transition on their side, we've done a lot of work with, with utility executives helping them think through the strategy side of this, how am I going to actually the change management? How may I change my own utility to go from what it was in that steady state environment of the past 75 years to something that is a completely different beast in a very much more dynamic world. And it's focused on customer service and, and focused on transitioning the energy system as a whole. So, again, a pretty broad array of, of projects, but all of them. Absolutely. Absolutely exciting. And, and fascinating for me to be involved in and learn from. Dan Seguin 15:45 Okay, now, wondering if you can speak to the importance of responsible and sustainable practices in the clean energy sector? And how has your company prioritized these principles in his work? Philippe Dunsky 16:00 Yeah, sure. I mean, I mean, look, the world right now is looking to the energy sector to lead and to transform itself. And as we do that, you know, leaders have to have to walk the talk. So, you know, I'm, I'm very proud that most, if not all of my clients are doing that right now within their own operations. And my firm does that in our operations. I try to do that, in my own life, I've been driving nav for seven years. Now, it's a great way for me to, to, to lead by example, but also, quite frankly, to get a head and on the experience curve, and actually understand from personal experience, all right, what are the challenges of of EV ownership and what needs to happen to make it a more seamless process? So you know, that's on the personal side, my company, we're actually a B Corp. So we went through a process to be certified by an independent organization that looks at all of our practices, from soup to nuts. And in our score, our B Corp score has increased. Year over year, I think we started out somewhere about 80 Something points, and now we're at 119. So you know, it's just a process of continuous improvement, just like, just like all of our clients have to have to do. Dan Seguin 17:12 Okay, cool. Now, we all know, there's always more every country can be doing to combat climate change. But it's complex. In your opinion, Philippe, how does Canada compare? Is it on the right track, and focusing its effort on the right initiatives? Philippe Dunsky 17:34 Yeah, I think it's, I think Canada is, is definitely moving in the right direction. I think there have been a lot of very important policies brought forward over the past several years that I think, bring us forward. Are they all done exactly the way I would like them to be done? No, if I had a magic wand, would I do it a little bit differently? Probably, but directionally there. Actually, I think we're heading there. You know, that being said, it's a long and winding road. Right. And it will be for the next decade. So there will be setbacks, and there will be things that we're doing that are suboptimal. And that's a little bit part of life. So my job and the role I've kind of given myself and my firm is to help make that path as straight and narrow as it reasonably can be. But you know, recognizing that this is a big learning process and, and mistakes you're gonna make for sure. Dan Seguin 18:31 Now, Philippe, what are some of the biggest challenges or even threats to achieving a clean energy future in the timeline set out by scientists and the government? How is your company positioned to address them? Philippe Dunsky 18:46 The biggest challenges and threats and I'll decouple those questions, okay. Because I think that, from my perspective, there are enormous challenges. There's first and foremost, a challenge of time, right? Because what we're talking about if we're talking about, you know, getting to net zero or something like it by 2050. I mean, that's a single generation. So we're talking about literally transforming the backbone of modern economies in a single generation. That is, number one, because frankly, that's never been done before. We've done it within sectors, right, we've done we went from, from horse drawn carriages, to to you know, horseless horseless carriages. And you know, we've, we dumped manufacturer, gas and went, went to natural gas, and we've done individual changes like that before. We've never done all at the same time dealing with that and getting it done. The single generation is a race. And so I do think that time is probably the number one challenge number two challenge. And, you know, if you really take a take a step back here and think about what we're talking about it, it's largely from an economic standpoint, we're largely moving from optics to capex, and there's we're largely it moving from a context where whether it's utilities, or business owners or homeowners, today, we pay our bills, you know, we're buying fossil fuels, right, we're... /episode/index/show/thinkenergy/id/32367867

Summer Rewind: Climate Communication: Motivating Change with Re.Climate 07/22/2024

Summer Rewind: Climate Communication: Motivating Change with Re.Climate Summer rewind: What role do communicators play in motivating change? Specifically, how can they move their audiences to take action against climate change? In thinkenergy episode 122, we delve into the world of climate communication with Amber Bennett, Deputy Director of Re.Climate. Explore the driving forces, opportunities, and challenges of inspiring climate action—from bridging research to practise to empowering change. Listen in for an insightful conversation on shaping a sustainable future. Related links Amber Bennet on LinkedIn: Re.Climate: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: To subscribe using Spotify: To subscribe on Libsyn: --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: Check out our cool pics on More to Learn on Keep up with the Tweets at Transcript Trevor Freemon Everyone, well, it's officially summer. And it's been about four months since I took over the mic as the host of the think energy podcast, which is kind of hard to believe. It's been really fun having great conversations with great people in the energy sector. I now mostly know my way around the recording equipments and the software, and really feel like we're kind of just getting started and looking forward to where we go from here. That said, the think energy team is taking a break to recharge over the next few months, but also to plan our content for the fall. So stay tuned for some great episodes in the fall. Not to worry though, we still have our summer rewind to keep you engaged. This is where we pick out some of the great past episodes that we've done and repost them. So whether you're lucky enough to be sitting on a dock or going on a road trip, or if you're just keeping up with your commute through the summer, it's a great time to revisit our past content. You will hear past episodes from my predecessor and the host chair Dan second, as well as a couple of mine from the past few months. And you're welcome to check out your own favorite past episodes as well, wherever you get your podcasts. We hope you have an amazing summer and we'll be back with new content in September. And until then, happy listening. Dan Seguin 00:06 This is ThinkEnergy, the podcast that helps you better understand the fast changing world of energy through conversations with game changers, industry leaders, and influencers. So join me, Dan Seguin, as I explore both traditional and unconventional facets of the energy industry. Hey, everyone, welcome back. Did you scroll through the news this morning? How many of those articles that you skim covered a topic related to climate change? I guess it was probably a few. It seems. Every couple of weeks there's a new story dominating the headlines about forest fires, hurricanes, floods, heatwaves, and more, both here in Canada and abroad. We are seeing firsthand the effects of climate change and As consumers, we are receiving information about it. Everywhere we look. Have you ever thought about how you are being communicated to? How is climate change presented? What wording was used? And why? And are their calls to action? How does it make you feel? think not only about news articles you read, but also about documentaries, podcasts, Hollywood movies, right down to your everyday life. Think about the newsletter you receive from your municipality. The assembly instruction on the last piece of furniture you purchase, or this section on your favorite clothing brand, website about their sustainable practice, communications surrounding climate change are pretty much everywhere and the need to be. In June of 2021, the Canadian government introduced the Canadian net zero emission Accountability Act, which puts into legislation Canada's commitment to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. Different companies across the country are making their commitment, much like we did in 2022, when we committed to leading the way to a Smart Energy Future by becoming net zero by 2030. The push on to stop the damaging pollution emitted into the environment on a daily basis, namely caused by burning fossil fuels. Scientists are urging that this is crunch time. So if you haven't already, now is the time to hone in on how and what you are communicating to your customers. So here is today's big question. What role do communicators play in motivating change within their audiences to take action against climate change? Our guest today is Amber Bennett, Deputy Director of Re Climate, Canada's first climate communications and Engagement Center. This new organization launched in 2022 brings together Canada's leading climate communication academics and practitioners, and aims to help communicators create strategies that inspire the public to support climate action. Amber is one of Canada's top climate communication strategists and capacity builder who works with groups across the country bridging gaps between research and practice. She led the groundbreaking Alberta narrative project and supported much of the foundational work to pilot and build reclaim it. Amber, thank you for joining us today. Amber Bennett 03:54 Thank you for having me. Dan Seguin 03:56 Amber, maybe you can start by telling us a bit about yourself and Re Climate How did you get into climate communications? How did Re Climate come to be and what does it aim to achieve? Amber Bennett 04:09 Okay, I'll try to hold all of those questions at once. Well, I am based in Calgary, Alberta, which may seem like an unlikely place for some for the executive director of a Canadian organization or Canadian center focused on climate communications and engagement at Carleton University. But that's where I live with my family. And what to say? Yeah, I mean, I think I've been circling around climate communications for a very, very long time. You know, the the mind has a funny way of making sense of things in retrospect, but I started with a Bachelor of Science and then I moved on to a public relations degree and then I worked with the mayor of Calgary on the one of the I forget which numbered cop, but it was a Copenhagen. And I think that was really the first time I began to think about what, what is climate change and had a certain kind of exposure to the, to the, you know what the challenge was and what not. And when I saw I kind of went on, and I did a master's degree. And it was when I had needed to choose a topic for my master's degree when there was the catastrophic flooding here in Calgary. And there is this, like, amazing paradox where the, you know, Calgary Stampede, which is the epitome, I would say, of the, you know, kind of old boys club. And when that happened, when the floods happened, their motto was come hell or high water come hell or high water, they were going to, you know, produce the show. And at the same time, one of the readings I was doing as a part of my master's program was also titled come hell or high water. And it was really about the science of climate change, and why it is making it so difficult. Why is it so difficult for humans to kind of wrap our heads around it. So fast forward, I completed a master's, and then did a series of really interesting projects. I did some work with a group out of the UK called Climate outreach, which is focused on climate communications and engagement as well. And then started working with a group of people here in Canada to set up a similar center or similar organization that would focus on supporting climate communicators, helping to kind of bring together the research that was happening, as well as the practice. And so that's really why Re Climate it is set up to do, we're really dedicated towards advancing the practice of climate communications and engagement through research, training, offering resources, pulling resources together, strategy, and developing strategy with other types of practitioners, as well as convening networks of both scholars, as well as those people who are kind of out there in the real world doing campaigning and advocacy work and trying to, you know, communicate with citizens and whatnot. So, that's kind of where we're at. Dan Seguin 07:34 Now, Amber, it sounds like Re Climate, is a very diversified organization that brings together experts in social science, Public Affairs, and science. What kind of professionals work together in this environment? And what does it each bring to the table? Amber Bennett 07:55 Love this question. So Re Climate brings together I think I've said it research and practice. And so you have those practitioners who may be doing public engagement campaigns, they may be working for utilities, they may be working in local governments or other kinds of government, they might also be working in advocacy organizations. And so they often don't have the time, or I would argue the luxury of going into, you know, latest academic journals, or even, you know, kind of other thought leaders who are publishing in the field. Why? Because they're busy, they're doing the work. And so, you know, that kind of takes a lot of time to kind of go in and look at the research, track it down, make sense of it? They're also, I would argue, very few who have the time to do an evaluation, like after they've done something, what did we learn from it? You know, What, did we make a difference? You know, what kind of impact are we having, and similarly, just getting together with other folks, right, and talking about it and sharing what they're learning. So that's kind of on the practitioner's side. And so, you know, when we say we bring or convene networks of people together, we're really trying to do that, you know, we're trying to provide resources, synthesize, you know, research, both, perhaps, you know, it's public polling, or maybe it's social science, you know, what's happening in in, that's relevant, but also bringing people together to share with each other and learn with each other. So that's kind of that practitioner side. And, you know, there's also, I would say, sometimes a culture where people feel like they're competing with each other, you know, certainly within the charitable sector. So kind of, I think, for those folks who are coming in, who are kind of in the field, having that support and someone who's doing In the work on their behalf to kind of make sense of synthesize, pull it in together like yours, your five tips here, the things you need to do. That's extremely helpful. And then on the flip side, I think for researchers, you know, they're, they're kind of passionate, there's a reason why they're there thinking or trying to understand, you know, how to better engage people, or what's the right framing, or what are the values or whatever it is, because they're passionate about it. So by being able to kind of bridge from the practitioner world into a more academic or into a research field, we're able to just give people real world challenges. It's like, here's why practitioners are actually struggling with, you're an expert in this, please talk to us about it, or please, you know, this is the kind of information that they need. So, you know, kind of the practitioners, I would say, Bring the complexity of the real world, right, that we're dealing with real people, resource constraints, you know, various kinds of issues and whatnot, whereas researchers bring the kind of precision of being able to look at something with a whole body of understanding behind them to be able to kind of see, well, here's what may be operating within this situation, here's what we know about it. And here are some other kinds of interventions or approaches that we might be able to take. I don't know if that exactly answers your question. Maybe the scientists part, I would say they bring the public trust. Right. So whenever we're polling, you know, consistently, scientists come up on top as having high levels of public trust on climate and energy transition. And so I think that they bring that kind of authenticity. And, you know, they're not there, they're often unpolitical, right? They're not seem to be benefiting, you know, personally from talking about it. So they're really effective messengers. Dan Seguin 11:57 Wondering if you can share some insight into what the average Canadian's knowledge on climate change is? How much do they know about the main causes and the path forward? Amber Bennett 12:14 Well, I would say that Canadians probably know a lot about climate change. But what we measure, it's a little bit different. So when, and I would encourage folks to take a look at some of the reports that we have published on ReClimate.ca The one that I'm, you know, I kind of go back to was published this year, or maybe it was last year. But within these reports, we basically look across 65, or more, either private or publicly available surveys, or public polls or whatnot, and we kind of do it a roll up of okay, so it's not just one survey that has said, this is multiple surveys that are showing kind of trends and themes in in where the Canadian beliefs or attitudes or or mindsets are. So when you do that, and when we looked across, you know, 65, or so what you can see is, is that, even though you have the majority of Canadians that would say yes, climate change is real, and it is happening, almost half of them attribute both natural and manmade causes, you know, attribute the cause of climate change due to natural causes as well as as manmade. And so why is that important, is because when we get into the conversations around solutions, then without the kind of foundational understanding that burning fossil fuels creates pollution, which creates a heat trapping blanket, which is heating our planet, and causing all of these extreme weather events and natural disasters that we're seeing. Without that kind of clear understanding that burning fossil fuels is the cause of climate change. And when you get into the solutions, and what people actually have to do about it, the conversations a bit more, there's a lot of confusion, or there's a lot of room for confusion, which is kind of what we're seeing and I can talk a little bit more about that. So you know, I spend a lot of time in focus groups, and this kind of conversation comes up. So when we talk about solutions in the path forward, you talk about climate change, and you start to have discussions around what you are doing, you know, recycling will often come up, plastics will often come up. There's a whole kind of suite of things that people are doing, but very few people are able to name a particular policy or real intervention that you know, that will address some of the root causes. And we people on this podcast may not be like, Hey, why really. But you know, there are a lot of different people and for many climate change, even though they may be living within the impacts are the, you know, experiencing in their daily lives, they have many other kinds of concerns and priorities that are happening at the same time. So what I would say is that Canadians believe that climate change is happening, there is at least half that are uncertain, or would attribute it to both natural causes, and manmade causes. This kind of understanding of burning fossil fuels, the trapping blanket, you know, that's not well understood by many. And so they're kind of subsequently stopping burning fossil fuels, as a path forward isn't clear, as it could be, or, or should be at this point in time. And maybe the other thing I if you, if you'll let me, the other thing I would say is, is that, you know, Canadians consistently report, when you ask them very high levels of concern about climate change, right? Most people can see forest fires, you know, that's how we are making sense of what climate changes. It is through these kinds of experiences, either directly, or our experiences of seeing, you know, extreme weather and natural disasters. So people are expressing very high levels of concern. But if you ask, unprompted, what are you know, what are the issues that you're most concerned about? It often will address climate change as mentioned Much, much farther down on the list. Right. So, affordability and access to health care, cost of living, housing, there are many other issues that people are faced with and dealing with in their day to day lives. Dan Seguin 17:18 Okay, see the term movable middle mentioned in reports and on the reclaimed site, what is the movable middle? And why is it so important? Amber Bennett 17:34 Great question. And I feel compelled to say that I think that term movable metal is used differently by different people. I think within the context of, you know, the work that we do, it kind of comes out of, you know, some of the themes that I was talking about in the last in in the last question or last answer. It's this idea that, you know, people are kind of undecided. Or they're conflicted about an issue. So they could move either one way or the other, but they're not at the moment. oppositional? Right. So if you think about, you know, a broader population, there is a segment, you know, of Canadians, whose identities are really built around the idea that they don't believe in climate change. They're not going to support, you know, climate action and whatnot. There's also on the other side, a whole group of Canadians whose identity is built around me. I'm a climate activist, and I'm a climate advocate. And you know, and I'm an environmentalist, and so they're on the other side, but most of us just kind of live in the middle. Some are more well informed than others. But for the most part, people are concerned, right in the middle. They have they, you know, when they ask, yes, we want the government to act, we are highly supportive of it. But when it comes down to it, it's this tension around the fact that because they may not be well informed, or not thinking about this, they have many competing priorities. You're kind of undecided, or sometimes they're just conflicted about an issue. Right? Because on the one hand, as an example, yeah, I think we absolutely need renewable energy. We need lots of, you know, solar panels, I just don't want them in my house, or we need lots of, you know, solar, renewable solar farms. I just don't want them all over the landscape that I cherish from my childhood. So there are many things that you know are underneath that are operating underneath for people that kind of create some conflict for them. So people, when we talk About the movable metal, really, I think what's important is to acknowledge that most people are concerned. They want when they support action, but they're undecided, potentially about one particular aspect or issue of it. Or there's some other kind of thing that's happening for them that's creating a conflict. Or they're kind of uninformed. So, you know, I think that you know, why an example? Or rather, I'll back up that uninformed piece is particularly important right now, as we see more and more kinds of organized misinformation and disinformation. Right. So as an example, when I'm in focus groups, I can predict with very, you know, a lot of certainty, what are some of the kinds of key narratives that are coming to the surface where people are kind of undecided? One of them might be, well, EV batteries are actually worse, you know, for the environment than, you know, driving a car, or there's no way that we're going to be able to electrify everything the grids can't support. Or it may be that solar panels actually create more emissions when you produce them than they save in their lifetime. So these kinds of things that are very dominant are kind of recurring pieces of information. And when people who are not thinking about this a lot or deeply, as much as maybe you were, I... /episode/index/show/thinkenergy/id/32143907

Summer Rewind: Decarbonizing Ontario’s electricity grid with the IESO 07/08/2024

Summer Rewind: Decarbonizing Ontario’s electricity grid with the IESO Summer rewind: As demand for electricity increases, the need to diversify supply also rises. In Episode 120 of thinkenergy, Lesley Gallinger, CEO of Ontario's Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO), unpacks what’s driving the transformation of the province’s power system, the potential opportunities, and the obstacles standing in the way. From hydrogen innovation to resource procurement, listen in to learn how the IESO is helping Ontario navigate to a cleaner, reliable, and affordable energy future. Related links ● Lesley Gallinger on LinkedIn: ● Lesley Gallinger on Twitter/X: ● IESO website: ● Hydrogen Innovation Fund: https://www.ieso.ca/en/Get-Involved/Innovation/Hydrogen-Innov ation-Fund/Overview ● Powering Ontario’s Growth report: ● Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: To subscribe using Spotify: To subscribe on Libsyn: --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: Check out our cool pics on https://www.instagram.com/hydroottawa More to Learn on Keep up with the Tweets at Transcript: Trevir Freeman: Everyone, well, it's officially summer. And it's been about four months since I took over the mic as the host of the think energy podcast, which is kind of hard to believe. It's been really fun having great conversations with great people in the energy sector. I now mostly know my way around the recording equipments and the software, and really feel like we're kind of just getting started and looking forward to where we go from here. That said, the think energy team is taking a break to recharge over the next few months, but also to plan our content for the fall. So, stay tuned for some great episodes in the fall. Not to worry though, we still have our summer rewind to keep you engaged. This is where we pick out some of the great past episodes that we've done and repost them. So, whether you're lucky enough to be sitting on a dock or going on a road trip, or if you're just keeping up with your commute through the summer, it's a great time to revisit our past content. You will hear past episodes from my predecessor and the host chair Dan second, as well as a couple of mine from the past few months. And you're welcome to check out your own favorite past episodes as well wherever you get your podcasts. We hope you have an amazing summer and we'll be back with new content in September. And until then, happy listening. Daniel Seguin: This is Think Energy, the podcast that helps you better understand the fast changing world of energy through conversations with game changers, industry leaders and influencers. So join me, Dan Seguin, as I explore both traditional and unconventional facets of the energy industry. Hey everyone, welcome back. In 1902 electrical pioneers met for the first time in Berlin now Kitchener, Ontario to discuss wiring Ontario's customers together to form a provincial electricity grid. Ontario's electricity grid, like all grids around the world was designed as a one way street, to generate, transmit, and deliver electricity to customers. It's no secret that nowadays new technologies are shaking up the way we produce and use electricity. Back then, these pioneers likely couldn't have imagined that the electricity grid would become a two way interactive system capable of supporting variable supply from renewable energy or accommodating electric vehicles, energy storage, home generation, and a host of other innovations. As the demand for electricity grows, Ontario's supply is diversifying, evolving and transforming at a speed we haven't seen in this industry. One thing is for certain, it's going to be one electrifying ride. On today's show, we're diving into the heart of Ontario's power system and shining a light on the organization that manages the province electricity sector. As we mentioned before, we are at the forefront of a power revolution. Of course, we need someone driving the ship to provide guidance on how Ontario's power system adopts a cleaner and more interactive machine. So here's today's big question. What is driving the transformation of Ontario's power system? And what are the potential opportunities and challenges? Joining us today is Lesley Gallinger, president and chief executive officer of the Ontario Independent Electricity System Operator. Under her leadership, the IESO oversees the safe and reliable operation of Ontario's bulk electricity system, ensuring affordable electricity is available when and where people need it. Lesley, so great to have you join us today. Now, your knowledge and experience of the electricity industry is extensive. Can you talk to us a bit about what drew you to a career in energy sector? And what led you to your current role? _____________________________________________ Lesley Gallinger: Well, thank you for that, Dan. It's great to be here, and I have spent the majority of my career in the electricity sector after spending the first third in a different sector. I certainly benefited from working all across North America and in Europe, for some very sophisticated multinational organizations with very talented team members. However, I always had this interest in electricity. And just for a funny story, my first grade school in Ontario was Sir Adam Beck, so I wonder if that was a bit of foreshadowing. But in reality, I had friends and colleagues in the sector who spoke quite passionately about the impact they were making with the work they were doing. And I was attracted to that. And sure I had some skills that I thought would be transferable. And the role that I have now embodies all of that, as we at the IESO are helping inform and execute on energy policy on electricity policy, specifically that will support Ontarians as we transition to an electrified and decarbonized future. I honestly couldn't imagine a better role to be in at this moment. Daniel Seguin: At a high level Lesley, what is the Independent Electricity System Operator and what is it responsible for with respect to Ontario's power system? Lesley Gallinger: The IESO works at the heart of Ontario's electricity system, ensuring that electricity is available where and when it is needed. We monitor Ontario's demand in real time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, balancing supply and demand and directing the flow of electricity across the provinces transmission lines. We also oversee the electricity market, which includes putting mechanisms in place to increase competition and ensure cost effective supply. And finally, we also plan the electricity system by working with indigenous communities, with municipalities and stakeholders to forecast demand and secure enough supply to meet Ontario's needs as far as 20 years out. Daniel Seguin: Okay, very interesting. Finally, looking forward to your answer on this one here. Can you walk us through how you oversee and manage the electricity systems such as determining the type of supply required to meet demand for electricity in the province? In the short, medium, and long term? Lesley Gallinger: Yeah, thanks that that is a good and big meaty question. So we've spoken a lot about where we are now. So after having years of surplus electricity, Ontario is entering a period of growing electricity needs and demand is expected to increase by an average of 2% annually over the next two decades due to electrification and economic growth in various sectors, including residential, agricultural, and mining. One way that the IESO helps meet these growing needs is by securing new supply. In the short term, we have the annual capacity auction that we conduct that allows existing resources to compete. This is cost effective and allows the IESO to adapt to changing supply and demand conditions on a year by year basis. We also look at three to five year commitments for other resources, this timeframe provides more certainty while ensuring it doesn't get locked into commitments that no longer reflect those changing needs of electrification. And finally, in the long term, we look 20 years out to secure resources that require significant upfront investments in order to give suppliers the confidence they need to make those investments. So it's a bit of a layer cake with those three timeframes. Daniel Seguin: Great segway here. Okay. What do you see as the IESOs role in the future planning of the evolving electricity grid and your role in supporting the changing energy needs of the decarbonized economy? Lesley Gallinger: As Ontario's electricity system planner, we certainly have the long view. Our role is to ensure that Ontario's current and future energy needs are met both reliably and affordably. Our corporate strategy calls out three main ways in which we do this we ensure system reliability while supporting cost effectiveness, we're driving business transformation within the IESO and also driving and guiding the sector's future by working closely with indigenous communities, municipalities and stakeholders. On the decarbonisation front, our main role is to enable technologies that will help us decarbonize. There's lots of emerging energy resources that can help us build a zero emissions electricity grid and the IESO ensures that these resources can all participate in Ontario's electricity system and markets. We're procuring new resources under our flexible resource adequacy framework. We recently announced the procurement of over 800 megawatts of energy storage, which is the largest energy procurement energy storage procurement in Canada to date, that combined with 250 megawatts of the Oneida battery storage project, the IESO, with these projects, is taking steps to integrate this valuable and flexible resource. And in last December's publication of pathways to decarbonisation, we explored ways in which Ontario can move forward to an emissions-free electricity system. The Ministry of Energy consulted on our pathways report, and recently on July 10, very recently, announced a series of actions in its report powering Ontario's growth. And those actions include collaborating with Bruce Power and Ontario Power Generation on pre development work to to consider potential new nuclear generation reporting back on the design of our second long term procurement, which will acquire new non-emitting resources supporting a Ministry of Energy consultation on a post 2024 Conservation Demand Management Framework and assessing additional transmission needs to support new and growing generation and demand in the province. So quite a list of workforce ahead that we're very excited to undertake. And as our system operator for the province, we're certainly at the center of all of this. There'll be a continuing need for coordination with the broader electricity sector in order to plan an orderly transition to a decarbonize grid, there will also be an increased need to revisit how we plan the electricity system. The IESO is looking forward to working with the electrification and energy transition panel to identify ways to adapt and evolve existing frameworks in order to increase transparency and ensure communities and stakeholders are more aware of what we're doing and why. This work, the work of the EETP also takes a broader economy wide view, which reflects how the electricity sector is becoming increasingly dependent on other sectors like industry and transportation. So you know, in short, a lot of work and some very exciting work ahead. Daniel Seguin: Follow up question here for you. Now, some Ontarians are concerned about moving to variable renewable energy sources like wind and solar, while others are concerned about continuing use of natural gas. What have you uncovered in your work about these issues? And what would you like residents of Ontario to know? Lesley Gallinger: Yeah great question Dan, every type of generation has its own strengths and drawbacks based on its unique attributes, which is why Ontario maintains a diverse supply mix that can adapt to changing system conditions quickly. Renewables such as wind and solar are not emitting when they generate electricity, but they're also intermittent, meaning how much electricity they produce can change rapidly in response to weather conditions. And to help with this, the IESO is looking into hybrid facilities that combine renewables with energy storage. By 2026 we'll also have about 1300 megawatts of energy storage on the grid, which will help more efficiently integrate renewables. We're also going to start designing our second long term procurement which will focus on acquiring non-emitting resources and we'll be engaging on this with stakeholders and communities as we go. Natural gas, for example, has the main advantage that it can respond quickly to change in demand and system conditions, making it an important resource for us as we seek to maintain reliability. Ontario's demand fluctuates constantly throughout the day, and having access to natural gas can help us respond to sudden changes and maintain a balance across the system. It's also very important to recognize and something I'd like to emphasize for your listeners that overall emissions from Ontario's electricity sector are extremely low, the sector accounts for about 3% of the provinces total emissions. While this may increase slightly in the future, the continued existence of natural gas on the grid is an important resource to help us transition and it'll enable the near term electrification of other sectors which in total will drive down Ontario's emissions. Daniel Seguin: Okay Lesley, how will the efficiency upgrades at existing natural gas facilities contribute to meeting the growing demand? And what is the plan for these facilities as emerging technologies mature and the reliance on natural gas decreases? Lesley Gallinger: Yes, and as I mentioned in my earlier remarks, Ontario's definitely entering a period of increased demand and so with many existing contracts expiring, and nuclear plants undergoing refurbishment or scheduled to be decommissioned, coupled with increasing electrification of other sectors, the province is going to need more power in the immediate future and the natural gas expansions can help with this. In our pathways to decarbonisation report, we looked at the questions the minister posed to us, we looked at a moratorium scenario that would phase out natural gas over time as newer non-emitting resources come online, and in the report we concluded that we could be less reliant on natural gas in Ontario by the year 2035 and completely phased out by 2050. Efforts were made to align this report with clean electricity regulations, and that recognizes that the contribution of natural gas may be restricted over time, but for the meantime, we have you know, the important transitional resource needs, the natural gas fulfills. Daniel Seguin: Okay. In May of 2023, the IESO announced that it was moving forward with the largest procurement of energy storage in Canada. What can you tell us about these storage projects and their benefits? Lesley Gallinger: Yeah, this was a very exciting announcement for us the energy storage projects we announced in May were for grid connected battery storage systems, which will be an important step towards the transition to a non-emitting supply mix, and will support grid reliability. The procurement was the culmination of the work we've done over the last several years to understand the potential of battery storage to provide supply and reliability services to the grid. The biggest advantage of energy storage is that it can charge during off peak hours when the provincial electricity demand is low and then inject energy back into the grid during peaks when demand is high, which makes it very flexible and a resource that can help us optimize the efficiency of other resource types. And we also see battery storage as a key enabler of decarbonisation. It will help us to integrate more renewables such as wind and solar onto the system, but also get more out of our current nuclear and hydro fleet. By charging during these off peak hours energy storage can use up any surplus green power from Ontario's existing nuclear and hydro facilities. Daniel Seguin: Now, how does this procurement help ensure system reliability during nuclear refurbishment and support the overall energy transformation in Ontario, Lesley Gallinger: The procurement will help with the transition away from natural gas and it's certainly about maintaining reliability at a time when multiple refurbishments are underway. In particular, the Pickering generating station is scheduled to go out of service mid decade and so right around that time, those energy storage projects are expected to be online. Certainly the timelines of the procurements were aligned understanding what the system conditions would be at that time, Lesley, I'd like to dig into your fascinating pathway to decarbonisation report just a bit. Ontario has one of the cleanest electricity system in North America, contributing only 3% to the provinces greenhouse gas emissions, that doesn't sound like a lot. So why is it important to eliminate the remaining 3% of emissions from the grid? Yeah, another another really interesting question and the subject of a lot of conversations we've been having we know that electricity use is going to increase in the coming years driven by an economic growth and electrification across other sectors. Transportation is becoming increasingly electrified as our industrial processes such as steel smelting, and as the pace of electrification speeds up the efforts and investments being made by businesses and households to electrify will increase society's reliance on electricity as a fuel and electricity is only as clean as the resources we use to make it. So that 3%, if we don't tackle that remaining 3%, we will see an increased reliance on less clean generating sources. I mean tackling climate change is certainly an economy wide effort and clean electricity is a fundamental enabler of those climate change solutions. Daniel Seguin: Thanks for that, Lesley. Now, I have a follow up question for you. The IESO presents two scenarios to address decarbonisation, what are they and what key assumptions and drivers were discovered with your analysis? Lesley Gallinger: So our first scenario was the moratorium scenario where the IESO so looked at restricting the procurement of additional natural gas. And this assessment showed that a moratorium would be feasible beginning in 2027, and that Ontario could be less reliant on natural gas by 2035. At that point, the system would not require additional emitting generation to ensure reliability provided that other forms of non-emitting supply could be added to the system in time to keep pace with demand growth. The second scenario is our pathways to decarbonisation scenario, this scenario assumed aggressive electrification of the transportation and industrial sectors, and that attaining a completely decarbonized grid would be possible by 2050, while balancing reliability and costs, so you can see a lot of variables came to play in that second scenario. Daniel Seguin: Perfect. Thanks, Lesley. Now, what are your thoughts on where Canada stands on its road to meet the 2035 and 2050 targets? Lesley Gallinger: Yeah, I think that's, you know, that's what we're all looking towards and bridging the work of today with the needs of a futurized decarbonized world will be challenging and complex, a collaborative approach across all sectors of the economy will certainly be necessary to achieve this. From Ontario's perspective, we're in a strong starting position, our electricity system is already close to 90% emissions free, most of the generation coming from Hydro and Nuclear resources. And in our pathways report, we identify that for Ontario, at least, a moratorium on natural gas could be possible by 2035,... /episode/index/show/thinkenergy/id/32047242

Current affairs with Francis Bradley, Electricity Canada’s President and CEO 06/24/2024

Current affairs with Francis Bradley, Electricity Canada’s President and CEO Electricity Canada’s President and CEO, Francis Bradley, joins thinkenergy in episode 140. Hear about the shift to sustainable electricity, including the difficulties navigating provincial and federal policies, climate change directives, and funding gaps. Plus how Electricity Canada evolved from a technical exchange club into a national advocate for sustainable energy. From challenges to leading the charge, learn how governments and private sectors are working towards a clean, efficient electricity system. Related links: Francis Bradley on LinkedIn: Electricity Canada: The state of the Canadian electricity industry 2024 Getting to Yes report: Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: Hydro Ottawa: To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: To subscribe using Spotify: To subscribe on Libsyn: / --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: Follow along on Instagram: Stay in the know on Facebook: Keep up with the posts on X: Transcript: Trevor Freeman 00:07 Welcome to think energy, a podcast that dives into the fast changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators, and people on the frontlines of the energy transition. Join me Trevor Freeman, as I explore the traditional, unconventional and up and coming facets of the energy industry. If you have any thoughts, feedback or ideas for topics we should cover, please reach out to us at think energy at hydro ottawa.com. Hi, everyone, welcome back. On the show before we have talked about how energy is primarily a provincial jurisdiction in Canada, so that means that provinces and provincial governments set energy policy provincial grids are structured both in a regulatory sense as well as a physical infrastructure sense. at the provincial level, we've gone into some detail about Ontario's grid and talked about how it's kind of a distributed grid meeting most electricity customers in Ontario get their electricity from a local distribution company. Not every province is the same in any of those senses. Some are a little bit more vertically integrated, meaning there are you know, maybe a single entity that gets you all the way from generation to distribution. There's different regulatory frameworks. The point is there's a lot of diversity across the country. Now, as much as that is a provincial jurisdiction, there is a role for the federal government to play here at that national level. There are some national policy directions that are important and that impacts energy policy. Climate change is a great example. So the federal government has jurisdiction to set targets and come up with strategies to address climate change for the country. Things that the federal government is doing currently is enacting a clean electricity standard with the goals of decarbonizing electricity generation in the country, so making sure that we stop using fossil fuels to generate electricity on a large scale. The federal government also supports decarbonisation efforts for buildings and for transportation, and they put money into those things. And those efforts impact electricity grids and impact markets. The federal government also has a role to play when it comes to major projects and providing approvals for those projects to move forward. And that includes energy projects. So new generation or new transmission, you know, things that are using land or moving across land, there's a role for the federal government to play there. So enter electricity Canada, the national voice for electricity utilities in Canada. Now, we've talked before about the sort of provincial equivalent that advocates on behalf of energy utilities. This is the national voice here for electricity, utilities, electricity, Canada has been around for over 130 years now. And their focus, at least in the last while has been on federal advocacy. I'm not going to tell you too much about electricity, Canada, because my guest today is going to talk a little bit about that. But just as a primer. So they have recently published their 2024 state of the industry report, which looks at the need to accelerate some of these major initiatives in the electricity sector to keep up with the energy transition that, as we've talked about many times is already underway. It's already happening. And we are just trying to keep up really. So my guest today is actually making his second appearance on the podcast as Francis Bradley, who is the president and CEO of electricity Canada, and has held a number of different roles within electricity Canada as well prior to becoming the president CEO. He also has a number of key positions on national committees and working groups, which are focused on infrastructure, energy and electricity and other related topics. And most interestingly, he also hosts his own podcast, the flux capacitor, which I highly recommend you check out. Francis, welcome back to the show. Francis Bradley 04:01 Delighted to be here. Thanks for the invitation, Trevor. Trevor Freeman 04:03 So I know you've kind of given us the background before but electricity Canada has been around for over 130 years now, which is older than our kind of modern, interconnected grid, at least here in Canada. Can you just remind us of the role and the mandate that your organization plays in the electricity sector? Francis Bradley 04:20 Sure. Absolutely. In fact, somewhere we have a photograph of like the first meeting of what at the time was the Canadian electrical Association at Niagara Falls in 1891. Trevor Freeman 04:32 Wow. Francis Bradley 04:32 But yeah, you know, where, where we're at today. So basically, you know, if you turn a light switch on pretty much anywhere in Canada, any province, any territory, everything it took to generate, transmit and distribute the electricity to turn that light on was probably done by by one of one of our 42 members. They're in every single province, every single territory to use the official the official definition you know, Our mandate is to be the national voice for sustainable electricity for our members and the customers they serve. We do this through advocacy through sharing best practices, and, and education of stakeholders and the government. But yeah, our our members are basically the, you know, the 40 odd, biggest companies that generate transmit distributed coast to coast to coast. Trevor Freeman 05:22 And has that mandate changed over the course of the 130 years, or is it pretty consistent? Francis Bradley 05:27 No, it's It's actually that's that's an interesting question. It has changed a lot. And it's changed over the time since I've been at the association even and then aimless changed, that this is the third name. I'm on since since I joined the organization. Yeah, when it was first established. As you say, there was a letter A long time ago, 133 years, it was basically a little club for these people that were in this nascent industry who, who would, you know, swap stories about, about what they're doing and how it's working. And even at the time, there was still, you know, debates about should we be doing AC or DC and, you know, the whole, the whole, you know, battle between, between Westinghouse and, and, and, and the other folks, but so, you know, it was initially a technical information exchange organization, when I joined the organization, it was still very much technically focused, would do a big annual conference, we actually had a technical research division, and we do a couple of million dollars of research a year, back then. We then evolved, we, we evolved from the Canadian electrical association to the Canadian electricity Association. And our mandate began to shift away from Duke First off, where we stopped doing technical research and moved away from technical detailed technical information exchange, and increasingly our mandate began to focus on advocacy and and what the what the industry needs and what they what the members require, from an advocacy standpoint. And then in the 1990s, mid 1990s, we moved up into Ottawa because prior to that we'd been in Montreal, we've been in Montreal since the 1930s. Before that, we were in Toronto. So in the 90s, given that the focus had shifted pretty significantly to advocacy, and the principal government that we were seeking to advocate with was the federal government, the office moved up to Ottawa. And then three years ago, the name of the organization was changed from the Canadian electricity Association, to simply electricity, Canada. Trevor Freeman 07:42 So that's that switch from technical to the more advocacy and policy work. It's really interesting and actually kind of ties into this. This next question, I want to ask you, we've talked on the show before about, you know, how the Ontario electricity sector is structured. And it's complex, to say the least, but that's one of many in Canada, different provinces have different regulatory structures. Energy Policy is primarily provincial jurisdiction. But as you mentioned, the federal government has a say in that as well, especially when it comes to climate change recently. So I'm curious, how do you navigate all those differences and kind of speak with a common voice when you're dealing with so many different regulatory bodies? So many different governmental bodies? What's How do you find that common voice? Francis Bradley 08:31 Yeah, well, and you know, that that is that is that the fundamental challenge of, frankly, any organization in Canada that's attempting to, to operate at a national level, in a in a sort of domain that's principally principally provincial, but it's kind of even more so with electricity because of the differences in different jurisdictions. And, you know, you've noted that Ontario is complex in terms of the industry structure, it was more complex. When I when I first started in the sector, there were 300 and more than 350 local distribution companies, you know, so there's been a little bit of consolidation, Trevor Freeman 09:11 we have a paltry 60 something now. Francis Bradley 09:13 Yeah, well, that's right. Yeah, we're down into only double digits. But at the same time, you know, we also saw, you know, municipal municipal amalgamations that's taken place that have driven some of that, but, you know, so we've seen an evolution here in Ontario. But, you know, there are no two jurisdictions in this country that are the same. So you know, there isn't a like an electricity system in Canada, each province and territory is different, different types of ownership. You know, in some, it's like a private, privately run companies and in other jurisdictions, it's a Crown Corporation. In some like Ontario, it's a hybrid of a mix of different types of ownership. But, you know, there's there are there are crowns, there are municipally owned there are privately owned companies as part of the value chain. And so you know, It results in a pretty disparate system, both in terms of how the sector is structured, and also how its regulated. Because the regulations are different in each and every one of those jurisdictions. And so, you know, this presents us with a huge problem, frankly, and we see it now, in particular, with respect to all of the politics around climate change, because electricity is a provincial responsibility, but we have one level of government, the federal government, providing direction in this space. And then we have another level of government, that the provincial level, you know, reacting to what those national objectives are, we've got multiple regulators across the country offering their own interpretations on what can and cannot be done in this space. And it proves to be a problem, you know, with respect to the challenge to build the infrastructure that's going to be needed to meet our, our, our aspirations, our future aspirations, this complexity makes it very difficult to get things moving and get things done. And, you know, in addition to that, honestly, in the past year, you know, if you look at the relationship between federal government, the federal government and provincial governments, in some parts of this country, it's starting to smell and feel like just raw geopolitics, right. You know, all sides, frankly, on some of these files have have demonstrated the sort of dogmatic posturing that you'd expect between countries, not necessarily between provinces, and a central government and in a confederation. But, you know, the thing is, and I keep going back to this, if you sort of strip out the posturing that we see, the fact is, we actually agree on much more than than the areas where we disagree. And here's an example. You know, if you look at the, the,the provincial opposition in a number of provinces to the Government of Canada's clean electricity regulations, you would think that, you know, we're on completely different pages here. But, you know, if you ignore some of the, you know, saber rattling, and the point scoring, you actually can see that there is general agreement provincially. And federally, that electrification is going to be, you know, the long term solution to our climate crisis. In fact, the only thing that's in dispute is sort of the deadline and the methods that we're getting there. So, you know, there, there are expressions in some provincial capitals, about the clean electricity regulations as the method and you know, and dispute as to whether or not it should be 2035, or a different time frame, but everybody is on the same page of, you know, an aspiration to have a non omitting sort of a clean system throughout the economy by 2050. And so, you know, that's the starting point that we work from, is that, oh, yes, there are certainly disparate views on some of the methods and some of the policies, but objectively, we are all attempting to head essentially in the same direction. We're all heading towards, like this net zero future. It's just a question of, how are we going to get there and, and with the time you're going to be, Trevor Freeman 13:18 it's interesting to hear you say that, because that's, you know, a couple episodes back, I talked to David Caletto, from abacus, and he was talking about just the general populations opinion on things, and it mirrors that exactly. So it's not just our sort of various jurisdictions and levels of government that kind of agree, where we need to get to, they just don't know how we're gonna get there. They don't agree and how we're gonna get there. Francis Bradley 13:40 Yep. Trevor Freeman 13:41 Your average Canadian also agrees with that. Canadians feel that a an electrified energy sector energy system is better than a fossil fuel one. Francis Bradley 13:50 Yep. Trevor Freeman 13:51 We just don't agree on how we're going to get there. So yeah, that's great. Great to hear. And that leaves you guys to sort of thread that needle and find the common points and amplify that I imagine. Francis Bradley 14:00 Absolutely. And, you know, and, and attempt to come up with solutions. You know, given that our principal role is, is is in advocacy, you know, that that means that we're in the public policy, loop solutions business, and trying to attempt to find ways to to, as you say, thread that thread that needle, but also, you know, figure out ways that that we can make sure that we have policies that are supportive of that future that, you know, as you said, even even the polling work that the David Caletto discussed with you. They agree that that's the destination as well. So, like, what's one of the public policy specific initiatives apart from the overall objective that we should be seeking to, you know, seeking to pursue? Trevor Freeman 14:51 So if I could pick on one of those specific issues, you know, keeping on this theme of regional differences and regional challenges, we have different relationships with the fossil fuel industry in Canada. And that includes both our electricity generation, some of our provinces have predominantly carbon free generation and some don't. And in terms of our economy, so I mean, West fossil fuel is weaved into the economy and a pretty integrated way. How can we navigate this move to cleaner electricity, collectively as a country, knowing that different areas of the country have to do different things to get there, and it's going to impact them in different ways? Francis Bradley 15:31 Yeah, and it isn't surprising that different parts of the country have a different approach to this, and they're coming from a different starting point. You know, it's kind of the luck of the draw, when, you know, when, when the geography prior to, you know, it prior to prior to anything like this, it was all determined by geography, if you happen to be in a jurisdiction today, that has a lot of water and a lot of different elevations so that the water is falling, you know, you're starting it certainly in a in a in a better place. That, you know, that the challenge overall is to is to really try and figure out how we we make this work across the country? You know, you're you're absolutely right, there are some parts of this country that have historically been very reliant on fossil fuels for the production of electricity. Why? Well, because they didn't have any falling water, or they're relatively flat. And so you know, that that was the certainly the case. And it continues to be the case and the challenge for some jurisdictions, so, you know, take the example of the draft clean electricity regulations that, you know, we've been, we've been talking about, and we're spending a lot of time focused on they, they hit different jurisdictions very differently, this objective to try and reach a netzero grid by 2035 is not a huge stretch, if you happen to be, you know, in in, in Quebec, or in British Columbia, or in Manitoba, it's a lift, but it's not a huge lift. You know, however, if you're, if you're elsewhere, it, it can be quite challenging. So the problem that we have there is, but you know, when the government of Canada began putting together their work on the clean electricity regulations, they use modeling that looked at the national average, and, you know, nationally, they were 84%, non emitting as a country. That's great. Trevor Freeman 17:31 Right. Francis Bradley 17:32 But, you know, they really should have taken a hard look at what the differences were between different jurisdictions in the country. And they should have done their modeling that was much more local. You know, Canada is a big, diverse country. And, you know, you hinted at that. So, you know, exactly nowhere in Canada is average. Right, and so we shouldn't be modeling nowhere. Because then that simply doesn't work. You know, and, and the, the simple illustration, I will often say is, if you've got two lobsters, and one of them is in the freezer, and the other one is in the pod on your stove, on average, the temperature is pretty good for the lobsters. But it isn't for either of them, right? Yeah. So, you know, listen, why does this matter? Well, if we get the modeling wrong, and if we don't understand the differences between the different regions of the country, we're going to be making decisions on how to allocate because, you know, we talk about 2050, and what is Net Zero 2050 Looks like, looks like it's going to be, you know, trillions of dollars worth of investments are going to be required. And if they're leaning on models that are not right, that becomes problematic. It's a huge bet that we're making, you know, if the models we base our decision making on and where we're going to be putting our investments aren't accurate. If the regulations are wrong, you know, these clean electricity... /episode/index/show/thinkenergy/id/31839237

Energy Policy Deep Dive with Nicholas Rivers (Part 2) 06/10/2024

Energy Policy Deep Dive with Nicholas Rivers (Part 2) Get to the bottom of how policy is ushering along the energy transition. In part two of the series, Associate Professor Nicholas Rivers shares how energy policies are helping shape the actions taken to address climate change. From decarbonizing buildings and transportation to the hard-to-tackle parts of Canada’s economy and its major industries. Plus policy’s role in supporting distributed energy and resources. Dive back into the conversation in episode 139 of thinkenergy. Related links ● Listen to part one: ● More about Nicholas Rivers: ● uOttawa Institute of the Environment: ● The Canadian Climate Institute: ● Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: ● Hydro Ottawa: To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: To subscribe using Spotify: To subscribe on Libsyn: --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: Follow along on Instagram: Stay in the know on Facebook: Keep up with the posts on X: Transcrpit: Trevor Freeman 00:07 Welcome to think energy, a podcast that dives into the fast changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators and people on the frontlines of the energy transition. Join me Trevor Freeman, as I explore the traditional, unconventional and up and coming facets of the energy industry. If you have any thoughts, feedback or ideas for topics we should cover, please reach out to us at think energy at hydro ottawa.com. Hi, everyone, welcome back. Okay, so this is part two of my conversation with Nicholas rivers about policy, and specifically how policy is and will in the future, shaping the different solutions and different actions that we can take to address climate change and to usher along the energy transition that has already started. As a refresher, Nicholas rivers is a Professor of Public Policy and International Affairs from the University of Ottawa. And his area of focus is really the sort of research into an evaluation of environmental policies. So this is a great conversation. And if you haven't listened to the previous episode with Nicolas, I really encourage you to do that it kind of lays the groundwork and really helps feed into this part of the conversation. On today's episode, we're going to talk about decarbonizing buildings, decarbonizing transportation, about some of those hard to tackle parts of our economy, kind of those major industries, as well as the role of policy and supporting distributed energy resources. So solar panels and batteries and things like that. So it's really a great conversation, start with the previous episode, if you haven't already. And then thanks for joining us here for this one. And happy listening. Okay, so we've talked about generation at the grid level, but let's talk about what we call distributed energy resources. And for our listeners, just a reminder, this is things like rooftop solar behind the meter storage, so having batteries at homes or businesses, which we are going to need a lot more of in the future. And we're going to see a lot more of on our grid in the future. What policy tools are out there that could help ramp up the implementation of these resources? Is it as simple as you know, incentives to lower the upfront cost? Nicholas Rivers 02:21 Okay, good question. Maybe I'll just start out by giving some broader perspective about why we why we might want to go down the distributed energy route. So as you mentioned, a distributed energy resources are things like rooftop solar, right on the kind of residential building or a battery pack in the garage of your residential building. And this is a different approach than the way we normally approach the electricity sector, where our generation and storage infrastructure to the extent we have any is centralized, right. So in a centralized system, if it's solar, it would be a big utility scale solar project in a field somewhere, or now we're starting to see the ISO just approved a bunch of battery storage projects that are going to be you know, big centralized resources, really big batteries, or it could be pumped hydro, or you know, compressed air storage that that are not in someone's garage, they're, you know, these big sites that are that are well away from people's homes typically. So why would we want to change the paradigm and, and go towards this kind of decentralized type of approach where the where the resources are in people's homes or on people's homes? I'd say there was a couple of reasons we might want to go that route. One is that the distributed resources if they're in people's homes, well, they're close to the demand. Right? So if people you know, ultimately, the reason we have electricity generation is to meet people's and industries demands for electricity. And putting those resources right at the source of demand means that we don't need so many wires to connect the resources to the to the demand centers, and potentially that there's less congestion on the wires and, and less losses getting from the source of supply to the source of demand. So that's one reason. Another big reason I think, that will become more important in some areas of the world and more important as we scale up decarbonisation is land use, and then, you know, we got all these rooftops that are just sitting there. And putting solar panels on those, basically wasted surfaces is a way of conserving land as opposed to to putting new solar panels in a field that has other uses. So I see that as being a potentially really important reason why we might go down that decentralized route. It's important to say that land use constraints are not binding in Ontario today for for, especially for zero carbon resources, right? There's we're lucky in Ontario that we've got a fair amount of land per person. And we've also not got that many solar or wind or battery resources currently. And so the pressure that we're putting on our land from those types of centralized resources are pretty small. But certainly as we try to go further on that decarbonisation route, thinking about land constraints is going to be important. I would say that there is a downside to going the decentralized route. And that's that it's more costly. So generating electricity at a home, is storage of storing electricity at home is typically quite a bit more expensive than doing it at a utility scale, in a in a kind of centralized manner. And that's just because, you know, a solar panel cost what a solar panel costs. So you're getting, I think, the same basic solar panel, solar module, and a centralized system, compared to a decentralized system. But all the side costs, the cost of planning and installing, and all the racking that has to go for solar panels, same with batteries, is a lot more expensive, when it's done kind of on these boutique, individual roof projects, compared to what it's done in a centralized approach. And so what we're gonna do as we think about, you know, do we go down this more decentralized route or more centralized route? So we've got to think, are these land benefits and the benefits we get from having the resources close to the demand? Are they outweighing the extra cost that we're paying from, from going this more decentralized route? Trevor Freeman 02:25 Yeah, so it's kind of an economies of scale question of obviously, investing in the infrastructure for a large scale solar installation gives you that, you know, more bang for your buck on a kilowatt hour basis, then each individual rooftop project, but I guess there's that aspect of, you know, customer control and customer preference of, you know, I like the idea of having my own power generated on my roof, it gives me some control, it gives me some redundancy. It also kind of protects and let me know what your thoughts on this it. It locks me into cost for energy, at least for a portion of my energy for the life of that equipment, rather than sort of being at the whim of rising utility costs over time. Is that a fair assessment? Nicholas Rivers 07:15 Yeah, I think that's right. Solar panels and batteries, both have a free long lifetime. So once you've paid for them, you know, what you paid, and you're going to be able to amortize them over the length of the investment. Of course, that assumes that you're going to be living in the same house for the 20 or 30 years of the investment. Trevor Freeman 07:31 Exactly. Yeah. Nicholas Rivers 07:32 So I think there is still a risk there. But I do agree with you that it does put more control in individuals hands more, it gives people an ability to kind of choose their own destiny with respect to energy, it allows them to make a zero carbon investment that, you know, they maybe feel really strongly about, and that isn't being made on their behalf at the central level. So I think you're right that it does give more autonomy to households. Trevor Freeman 07:58 Yeah. And the current way that we I guess, sort of funder incentivize, if you will, on rooftop solar, for example, is just through the rates, so you're offsetting your rates. And that is how you get your payback on your panels. I know you and I have chatted previously about the model in Australia. Can you tell us a little bit about how they've approached this? Nicholas Rivers 08:20 Yeah. So, South Australia also uses this net metering approach. So basically, net metering means when you're consuming electricity, you can think of like an old analog meter, the meters running one direction. And then when you generate electricity, and return it to the grid, when you're not using as much as you're generating, the analog meter runs the opposite direction. Of course, these meters aren't analog anymore. They're digital, but they're allowing you to kind of reverse the meter at times when you're generating. Trevor Freeman 08:50 Yep. Nicholas Rivers 08:51 South Australia has been a real leader in getting solar on people's rooftops. Now, you might think, oh, it's super sunny in South Australia, and it is super sunny in South Australia. So it makes sense to have solar in people's rooftops. But there are lots of areas in the world that are super sunny, that have had not nearly the success that South Australia has had in putting solar on rooftops. And I would think one of the big reasons is, is program design. So they have designed a program that makes it really easy to access the program and access the incentives that are part of the program, and that lets household navigate it pretty seamlessly. So my understanding of the program is it's an incentive, which is the typical way we we kind of provide incentives for people to to undertake these novel technologies. It provides households with a you know, an upfront payment for for putting solar on the roofs. But I think that the real trick is that it's not provided to the household. And there's not an onerous application process that happens. It's provided to the to the companies that install solar panels on people's roofs and they pass through the incentive. Have to the household. So all of the paperwork and the planning is undertaken by the company. And the household, basically, just, as my understanding just says, Yeah, I want some solar panels on my roof. And, you know, tomorrow the solar panels are on the roof. And they don't have to go through the kind of extensive paperwork and the qualifying and the waiting for the, the incentive to be paid. It's all done upfront. And it's all done with a minimum of paperwork. Trevor Freeman 10:23 Yeah, so from a homeowner perspective, in Canada versus in South Australia, South Australia is just seeking a much cheaper cost for solar, they don't have to jump through the hoops. That's all kind of done taken on by the government and by the the industry. Nicholas Rivers 10:39 Yeah, and we do have incentives for solar here. In some provinces anyway, and there have been incentives federally, but they're there, they're more onerous to apply for. And they put the homeowner in the position of having to pay for the system upfront, and then waiting for the rebate. And it's a big outlay for homeowners and the rebate is uncertain, right? You can put the paperwork in. And of course, you think you're gonna get it back. But there's always that chance that something went wrong, and you didn't do it quite right. You don't get the rebate. Yeah, there's a risk there. So I think this this kind of upfront payments program that's processed by the company is as a real, you know, something we could learn from in Canada. Trevor Freeman 11:16 Right. So that's potentially a key role. And this may be applies to other programs, as well of, of government have policies to take on that administrative burden take on that risk, if you will, away from the end user to make it seamless and streamlined for the end user and easier to do Nicholas Rivers 11:33 People have better things to do than think about energy. And so I think that Trevor Freeman 11:38 Or fill out paperwork, Nicholas Rivers 11:39 yeah, fill out paperwork, and just, you know, they don't want to spend their time, you know, trying to figure out if the incentive is going to cover their net metering benefits they wants to be they want to be added be as easy as possible. Trevor Freeman 11:52 Okay. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, moving along, then to transportation. This is something of course, that Canadians will be pretty familiar with. We've seen a big move toward electrifying personal vehicles, there are more EVs out there today than ever before, you know, going back into even recent memory, it seemed like a rare thing to see an EV on the road. And now it's not at all, but there's still a long way to go. As much as we've got a lot more, we still are overwhelmingly using fossil fuels for our personal transportation. What kinds of approaches will help speed that transition up? We have a federal rebate when it comes to buying electric vehicle. Is that enough? Or are there other tools that we can use to speed up that transition? Nicholas Rivers 12:36 Yeah, we're at about 11% of new cars that are sold are electric these days, and about one and a half percent of our fleet, because it takes our fleet a long time to turnover, right. So even if we get to 100% sales, we could still be waiting another 20 years before we get to 100% of our fleet be electric. So this is not going to be something that resolves itself really quickly. Because it does take a long time to turnover and longtime for car manufacturers to change the kind of vehicles they're making. I'm convinced we're on the transition, and that it is underway no matter what we do in this sector, that that these cars will be eventually be as cheap or cheaper than internal combustion engine cars, and will deliver the range that we want and the performance that we want. We're not there yet. So So what do we do in the meantime, I would say one of the things we should be doing as governments is fixing kind of the chicken and the egg problem of electric vehicles and governments are very active in this area. But the chicken and egg problem is who wants to build a charging station if there's no electric vehicles, and who wants to buy an electric vehicle if there's no charging stations. And so I think government has been playing an active role there, although arguably, it's still behind where we want it to be. People still experienced troubles with charging electric vehicles. And reliability of chargers is an issue. It turns out that the economics of operating a charging station don't look very good. And so perhaps there needs to be more of a public role in figuring out how to get these systems up and running more of the time. I'm not exactly sure what that would look like. But, but I do think the problem isn't going to solve itself entirely on its own, especially in more remote or Northern or rural areas. This probably along a lot of role for government support for charging. In terms of a policy approach. I really like the zero emission vehicle standard. This is just a standard that says okay, manufacturers, it's targeted. The manufacturer is not a retailer or not customers. And it says manufacturers you have to sell a certain proportion of the fleet you sell is zero by zero emission by this year and a bigger percentage by this year. And that's something that Quebec and BC and California and a number of other places have implemented zero emission vehicle standard, and the Canadian federal government has announced that it's going to go the same route. Trevor Freeman 15:05 Gotcha. Nicholas Rivers 15:06 And so what that says is, in 2026, in Canada, major vehicle manufacturers will have to sell 20% of their fleets as electric vehicles. Were at about 11% today. And that number will ramp up every year until it hits 100% by 2035. Now, again, I think this transition is happening anyway. So I think that that will help speed up the transition. But at it, it's not dramatically different from kind of what we expect, even without that kind of policy. And so I do think that's a that's a really nice policy, because it gives automakers a target, it gives them some certainty. And it helps to ensure that they make vehicles available to Canadians where they want them. Trevor Freeman 15:48 Yeah, I think, I mean, we've all heard those stories of people that wanted to buy an electric vehicle on it wasn't ready, or the price point wasn't there. And I think by requiring more stock, requiring those targets to be hit, it's going to help move people along in the direction that a lot of people already want to go. And we're seeing that as those numbers tick up. Nicholas Rivers 16:08 Yeah. Let me say a little bit more about this policy, because I think it's cool. It's one of those examples, which is a regulatory policy, which has a market based or carbon pricing kind of component to it. So it's regulatory, right? I just described that manufacturers have to hit, let's say, a 20% target in the year 2026. So the rule is, if you sell a lot of vehicles in Canada, 20% of them have to be electric by 2026. But then it's got this kind of hybrid component, not a hybrid car hybrid policy. So the it's kind of, it's got a carbon price kind of built in, which says, Hey, if you can't do it, well, you can trade with some other company that can. So maybe it's going to be gonna make up some names here, maybe it's going to be that company X says, oh, you know, we're really, you know, we really don't want to make the transition quite so quickly, we're going to sell internal combustion engine cars for a few more years. And Company Y says, Well, we're actually way ahead of that curve, it's going to be able to sell some of its credits, Company Y is going to sell some credits to Company X. And so Company X could keep doing what it's doing. But pay a penalty, that company y can get a benefit from being ahead of the curve. Trevor Freeman 17:17 Gotcha. And to the consumer, the overall stock of options is still where the government wants it to be. There's still enough electric vehicles out there that we can purchase. Nicholas Rivers 17:27 That's right. I think I mean, the the availability is less of a concern now than it was when supply chains were all snared up during the pandemic. I think if you went out and you had the money, and you were willing to, you wanted to go buy an electric car, you would get one... /episode/index/show/thinkenergy/id/31652462

Energy Policy Deep Dive with Nicholas Rivers (Part 1) 05/27/2024

Energy Policy Deep Dive with Nicholas Rivers (Part 1) In this first of a two-part series, we unpack the vital role of policy in driving the energy transition with Nicholas Rivers, Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and the Institute of the Environment at the University of Ottawa. Join us as we explore the layers of policy implementation, the interplay of social and technological solutions, and the challenge of designing policies that balance data with public opinion and emotion. Related links More about Nicholas Rivers: uOttawa Institute of the Environment: The Canadian Climate Institute: Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: Hydro Ottawa: To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: To subscribe using Spotify: To subscribe on Libsyn: --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: Follow along on Instagram: Stay in the know on Facebook: Keep up with the posts on X: Transcript: Energy Policy Deep Dive with Nicholas Rivers (Part 1) Fri, May 24, 2024 11:55AM • 52:17 SUMMARY KEYWORDS emissions, policy, carbon, price, work, canada, carbon pricing, technology, government, cost, climate change, electricity, big, emitters, action, ontario, regulations, podcast, climate, energy SPEAKERS Nicholas Rivers, Trevor Freeman Trevor Freeman 00:07 Welcome to think energy, a podcast that dives into the fast changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators, and people on the frontlines of the energy transition. Join me Trevor Freeman, as I explore the traditional, unconventional and up and coming facets of the energy industry. If you have any thoughts, feedback or ideas for topics we should cover, please reach out to us at think energy at hydro ottawa.com. Hi, everyone. Welcome back. We've talked a lot on the podcast about how climate change is a big complex problem. And the entity transition that is already underway is also a big complex undertaking. These things require complex solutions to address them, it's not a single thing that's going to solve this for us. You know, we often think about solutions as being some kind of technology, either an existing technology or something that we're going to innovate on or invent in the future. And we talk about a lot of those on the podcasts, everything from heat pumps, to renewable generation to grid modernization. But technology doesn't just exist and grow in a bubble. And we can't just rely on technological solutions on their own to solve climate change or to help continue the energy transition. There is also a need for other approaches, for example, Social approaches, you know, we need to educate people on what climate change is and how it works and what we need to do to change it. We need to motivate people, we need to rile up people to create that desire for change, and create the political and social will to go behind that. What are the key drivers to help advance all of these different moving parts, if you will, is policy our policy solutions, you can really think of policy as the foundation or the bedrock upon which all these other things are built. And when we talk about policy, we're talking about all different levels. So from the federal government, to provincial governments, who are municipal governments, and you know, this is the Canadian context, we're in Canada speaking about this. So if you're listening from a different country, you know, slot in your various levels of government there. Our policy solutions are what push or pull certain actions. And I'm sure we're all familiar with the sort of carrot and stick analogy. Carrots being those things dangled in front of us to help us move towards some more desirable action or desirable state sticks being you know, the sort of prod or push that are going to, you know, help push us into something or away from something else. These policy solutions are really designed to make a desirable action easier and more likely, and to make an undesirable action harder and less likely. So in the context of climate change, for example, the desirable action might be the adoption of cleaner technologies, like EVs or renewable generation, or speeding up the development and adoption of new technologies, where the undesirable action might be just the status quo like doing things, the way we've always done them, we know we need to change that's an important piece, or the undesirable action might be just the continued use of fossil fuels, we need to move away from that that's the undesirable action that's not going to help us solve climate change. And so we're going to talk about policy today. And I'll talk about our guests in a minute. But I think it's important to also remember this next piece, and that is that policy is tough. It is tough to know what will work and what won't work. It's tough to know what the thing is, that's going to really create the desired action you want, that people are going to get behind. policy can be uncomfortable, as I've said, policy prioritizes certain actions over others. And we've talked about this before Canadians and more broadly, people, we are not homogenous in the way that we think or care about things we don't always care equally about the same things. We all have different pressures and drivers in our lives. We all have different contexts in our lives, and so naturally, our priorities aren't always going to line up. And when you have a policy that is designed to prioritize certain actions over others, some portion of the population is going to disagree that that's the right priority. And in practical terms, it's usually a bunch of different portions of the population that agree or disagree in varying amounts. Policy is often designed and applied in what you might call a scientific way. So certain policy tools have expected outcomes that can be measured. There are, you know, metrics that go behind these things. But policy is often received by the general public in a very decidedly non-scientific way. In fact, we typically receive policy in a more emotional way, how we feel about some new policy really is what drives our opinion and our action around that policy. And that's more so than maybe the data will drive our opinion in our actions. In fact, the way that we look at that data is often influenced by sort of our emotion around how we feel about something. And I'm not saying that's wrong. That's kind of just human nature. And we all do it no matter what your I guess political leaning is where you fall in the spectrum. We all do this with, with policy, with the direction that our government is taking. But knowing that is helpful, and it lets us check in with ourselves against that, you know, are we really looking at things just based on the merits based on the data, or what is the emotion that we're feeling about certain things, I think that's important. So with that preamble, my guest today is here to help us pull apart the suite of policy tools that are already playing a role in helping us decarbonize and tackle climate change and some of the things that might be upcoming, or other options that are out there. And I'm gonna say off the bat that there's a lot to talk about here. This is quite a long conversation. So we're actually going to split this into two pieces. We'll have part one and part two, and kind of break it up into two different episodes so that they're a little bit easier to get through. But I'll say in advance, I appreciate you sticking through. I think this is an important topic of conversation and, and my guest today knows a lot about it. So I'm happy to have Nicholas Rivers on the podcast today. Nicholas Rivers is a Professor of Public and International Affairs from the University of Ottawa. His research focuses on the economic evaluation of environmental policies. He is a member of the Canadian climate Institute and served as a co editor of the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, and was previously a Canada Research Chair in climate and energy policy. Nick regularly provides advice on energy and climate policies to federal and provincial governments, as well as nongovernmental organizations. So Nicholas, welcome to the show. Nicholas Rivers 07:32 Thanks for having me on, Trevor. Trevor Freeman 07:34 So let's start with a little bit of background, can you give us a sense of how you got to where you are today, and really specifically how you came to be passionate about environmental policy? Nicholas Rivers 07:44 Okay, well, this is something where, you know, maybe it's easy to look back and paint a linear trajectory. But certainly, this is not, this was not the aim. From a young age, I didn't have career goals, I would say leaving high school had no idea. I had been pretty good at math and, you know, a tinkerer. I liked playing with capsula, which was this cool, mechanical toy, and Lego, and that kind of thing. And so I did engineering, without really an end goal in mind. I did mechanical engineering. And at that time, you know, when I was in my late teens, early 20s, I started reading books about kind of nascent books about climate change books about energy, I had friends that were really active in the kind of energy and environmental movements, and started to realize that that's maybe where I wanted to focus, my energy, my own energy. And so in my mechanical engineering degree, I wanted to start working on renewable energy, which was really at the beginning at the time, this was the late 1990s. So at the time, there was one wind turbine in Ontario. I went to visit it during my mechanical engineering degree, the Pickering one, right. It was up. No, it was up on the Europe like you're on the Peninsula, Brisbane and so Okay, gotcha, right by the British nuclear station. It was a test one, it wasn't a big commercial wind facility. So I was just like, digging around trying to find interesting stuff. And wind turbines look really interesting because they were big, and they were in moved and they you could see something they were doing. I didn't end up working in wind facilities. I ended up getting some jobs and hydrogen worked with Ballard and Hydrogenics as a co-op engineer. So that was my kind of foot in the in the renewable world. And I have to say, I didn't really like it all that much. I was doing, you know, I was in the field that I kind of wanted to be in the engineering field. And it's working on renewables, but the jobs I was doing didn't appeal to me. So they were really kind of small bits of the renewable energy picture and I was reading the books at the time by Amory Levin's and if you come across him or Paul Hodgkin and they were talking about big system transformations. And that's what I wanted to get into. And here I was figuring out the right radius to bend a pipe that transferred humidity from one stream to another. And it just wasn't jiving with the big picture that I was interested in. And so I ended up going back to university after my undergraduate degree, to study resource and environmental management with Mark Jackered, at Simon Fraser University. And Mark is one of the people that's been really central in thinking about energy policy and environmental policy in Canada over the last, I guess, like four decades now. And I think exposure to the way he was thinking and the way I was taught to think in that program really got me interested in and working on energy and environmental policy on a kind of as a career, and expose me to the possibility that you could work on this right, as a high school student leaving high school, you don't think that there's jobs working on energy policy, so it wasn't something I had in mind from for a long time. I'll also say, I grew up in a family that I don't know if they were environmentalist, but certainly fought a lot about the environment, you know, bird watching, and hiking, and that kind of thing. I was outside a lot when I was young, and I still like to be outside all the time. So I think there's, I've always had that kind of affinity for the environment. But this was a way that I could kind of blend some of my math skills or some of my interests and tinkering with, with some of those kinds of environmental affinity. Trevor Freeman 11:31 Yeah, I mean, this is definitely not an episode where I need to give my backstory, but there's so much of what you said that, that I relate to from drawing a connection between playing with Lego as a kid and ending up in engineering school, that's totally my pathway as well, and being you know, good at math, getting into engineering school, and then realizing, hey, there might be something else out here through a project. And so I did my fourth year design project, just on a whim on a green roof for one of our university buildings Nicholas Rivers 11:59 Ah cool. Trevor Freeman 12:00 I would say that's kind of a point where it pushed me into this more sustainability focused career. So great to hear that. Thanks for sharing that. And certainly, I can appreciate the lack of linearity and a lot of careers in this space, and really the Nicholas Rivers 12:14 Exactly, yeah Trevor Freeman 12:15 everything. So. Okay, so the topic here, we're talking about today's policy. So I want to have you help us understand what is the history of decarbonisation policy in Canada? You know, we're at a point today, and we'll talk about maybe where we need to go moving forward. But what has come before this? When did we start seeing policies focused on reducing carbon in Canada, give us a bit of a crash course on our history so far. Nicholas Rivers 12:45 Sure, I'll do my best. It's not that new. Right. We've known about this for a long time. In fact, I teach a course on climate. And, you know, in digging around for that course, we have studied climate change for over a century. The first, I think, relatively modern looking predictions about climate change came in the 1800s, the late 1800s. And so we have had a pretty good sense of where we're going for a long time. The first real government assessment of the severity of climate change came in the 1960s. This was a US government and national assessment, National Science Assessment. And it pretty much got the contours of the problem right, in the sense that we haven't, haven't changed our understanding of the science of climate change all that dramatically since the 1960s. The projections from that time still hold out today. In Canada, we didn't act quickly after the 1960s reports in the US, although we certainly followed them. The first thing Canada did, I would say, was hold a big international conference on climate change in the late 1980s, in Toronto. And this is a period, you know, when we were holding a number of these big international conferences on sustainable development, for example, or on climate for the first time, and Canada did its part in Toronto in '88 by holding this conference called the World Conference On The Changing Atmosphere. And at that conference, it was recognized that we can't keep going the way we are on climate. It's not sustainable, we're going to end up with more of a warmer world than we want. And we promised at the time, to reduce emissions by 20%. From those levels in the 80s. By the beginning of the century, by the beginning of a new millennium, which we didn't do. We didn't do it. Of course, yeah, this is gonna be a kind of recurring theme. It didn't do much in the way of policy, you know. So I think something we've learned is that just saying, we're going to do something doesn't amount all that much. But we've done that a number of times, and we started doing it in the 1980s. We didn't really start following up with proper policies, and by proper policies, I mean, policies that compel emitters, anyone who emits emissions to change their behavior in some way, either by replacing a technology or, or changing their actions. Until I would say the middle of the first century, or the first decade after the new millennium, so around 2005. And at the time, it wasn't the federal government that was really in the driver's seat on climate policy. It was the provincial governments. And so we saw at the time, British Columbia's government started experimenting with a carbon tax. We saw Alberta's government implement some restrictions on industrial emissions, we saw the Quebec government implement some, some transport industrial policies. We saw Ontario phase out coal fired power starting in 2007. And so it was really the provincial governments that were in the driver's seat, the federal government, you know, it was starting to tinker. But the federal government didn't really begin to take a really strong position, policy wise on climate change until around 2015. And that was the point when the federal government convened the provinces to get agreement that they should all move forward on implementing carbon pricing. All the provinces agreed except for one at the time. And so they all brought in a carbon price, either it was the federal carbon price that was imposed, or the provinces imposed their own carbon price. And that was the beginning really, of a whole slew of other policies and regulations. So since that 2015 period, I would say the federal government has really been more in the driver's seat on climate policy, and has implemented things like regulations on methane emissions, as has required the phase out of coal fired power, which is actually by 2030 of the requirement, but it's actually proceeding quite a bit quicker than the federal requirement. It's also got this carbon price in place, it's bringing in policies to require a complete cleaning of the electricity grid, a cap on oil and gas emissions and regulations on zero emission vehicles. And so really kind of multifaceted regulations coupled with this carbon price. And increasingly over the last couple of years, we're also seeing them coupled with pretty big subsidies for structural transformation of the economy. So you're seeing this play out in Ontario with battery plant investments, for example. And so I would say that's the policy kind of history, we're seeing a pretty slow start. We've known about the problem a lot longer than we've been acting on the problem. We saw ramp up provincially, after the millennium, and that we've seen the transition from the provinces to the federal government taking leadership on this file for the last decade or so. Trevor Freeman 18:01 And as you said, like, slower than fast, but more to come. We're not done where we are today is not where we need to be. Yeah. So there's lots to talk about. Nicholas Rivers 18:11 Yeah, exactly. Good point. So we, we've our admissions, not surprisingly, in the absence of any policies kept on growing up until about 2005, when we started bringing in policy. Until that point, it was like, received wisdom, that anytime the economy grew, which it mostly does every year, greenhouse gas emissions would grow with it. And that that held for a long time, like maybe even a century leading up to around 2005. And then policy really started to break that chain. And so we've seen a decoupling of economic growth and greenhouse gas emissions in Canada, as well as most other rich countries over the past decade and a half or so. But emissions aren't falling fast. In fact, they hardly even fall. They're falling from where they would have been, but they're not, they're more or less flat lines in Canada are beginning a very slow decline. Yeah. And we've got a maybe it's worth saying, one of the things that we've learned from the climate scientists is that emissions have to go to zero. There's not, you know, we can't solve this problem with modest cuts in emissions, which is where we're at right now that you can think of this as like filling up... /episode/index/show/thinkenergy/id/31455727

Heat Pump Check In with Shawn Carr 05/13/2024

Heat Pump Check In with Shawn Carr Heat pumps are proving as one method to combat climate change and decarbonize Canada—because they can operate at 300% efficiency (or greater!), while a standard furnace runs between 93–94%. In this episode of thinkenergy, Hydro Ottawa’s Shawn Carr, Manager, Customer Experience, chats his experience using a heat pump in his home. From the upfront costs to how it works and its role in reducing carbon emissions. Listen in for practical benefits of heat pumps and their future in our homes and businesses. Related links ● Shawn Carr, LinkedIn: ● Air Source Heat Pump Toolkit: ● Building Decarbonization Alliance heat pump report: ● Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: ● Hydro Ottawa: To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: To subscribe using Spotify: To subscribe on Libsyn: --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video on YouTube: Follow along on Instagram: Stay in the know on Facebook: Keep up with the posts on X: Transcript: HYDRO_16749_ThinkEnergy_Podcast_May_13_Audio_Final Fri, May 10, 2024 12:03PM • 37:12 SUMMARY KEYWORDS heat pump, electrification, heat, air conditioner, electrify, technology, energy, people, backup, costs, emissions, work, trevor, installed, cold climate, project, ottawa, gas furnace, temperature, ev SPEAKERS Shawn Carr, Trevor Freeman Trevor Freeman 00:07 Hi, welcome to think energy, a podcast that dives into the fast changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators and people on the frontlines of the energy transition. Join me Trevor Freeman as I explore the traditional, unconventional and even up and coming facets of the energy industry. If you've got thoughts, feedback or ideas for topics that we should cover, we'd love to hear from you. Please reach out to us, at thinkenergy@hydro ottawa.com Hi everyone, welcome back. On today's show, we're going to do something a little bit different. We're going to check back in with a previous guests. Just over a year ago, Dan, my predecessor in the host chair, interviewed Sean Carr hydro Ottawa's manager of customer experience about residential heat pumps, and in particular about his own experience with a heat pump installation for his own home. At the time, his heat pump was only about five months old. So now that he's been through another full winter with his heat pump, I thought it would be good to check back in and see how things are going. But before we do that, let me give a quick refresher on heat pumps. Now for those of you energy nerds or people in the sector, you may not need a refresher. But even those of you who aren't too sure what a heat pump is, are probably familiar with the technology. A heat pump is just a device that moves heat from one place to another. The most common example of this that you would be familiar with is a home air conditioner or a refrigerator. Both of those devices take heat, either from the air in your home or from the inside of your refrigerator and move it elsewhere. So over an air conditioner and moves the heat outside and for a refrigerator and moves the heat to the back of the refrigerator onto those coils that gather dust in you might every five years clean off. And they do this in order to make that space colder. A heat pump does exactly the same thing, except it takes heat from the outside air and moves it inside your home in order to make your home warmer. Heat pumps even look a lot like air conditioners, depending on the model. If you walk down the side of my house right now, you wouldn't even know that I have a heat pump. And not just an air conditioner because it looks exactly the same. Now you're probably thinking that's great, except when I want to heat my home, it's typically a cold day in the winter, and there is no heat in the air. But that's not exactly true, there is still some heat energy in the air. And thanks to the wonders of science, a heat pump can extract that heat from the air and move it into your home in the same way that when it's 35 degrees outside. And that's celsius for any nonmetric listeners out there. An air conditioner or heat pump can cool your home. I won't get into all the technical details here. But let's just say if you're not familiar with the ideal gas law, it is doing all the heavy lifting here. And I typically try to make this show not to engineering me but every once in a while I have to throw out a great formula like that. Okay, so now that we remember the basics about what a heat pump is, the next question is why are we talking about them again on the show? Well, if that's what you're thinking, I hate to say it, but this won't be the last time we talk about heat pumps either. In fact, this is the kind of thing that we'll probably revisit a number of times in the future. And that's because heat pumps are such an important technology for decarbonizing the way we heat our buildings, especially residential buildings, and even our water because yes, there are heat pump hot water heaters out there as well. Heat pumps don't use any fuel to create heat, they don't burn anything to create heat, they simply use electricity to move heat. And that makes him super clean. So there are no emissions at all from a heat pump itself, just the emissions that might have been created where that electricity was generated. And they are super efficient. You might have heard people talk about how furnaces are, you know, 93, or 94% efficient, or sometimes even 95, or 96% efficient. So that means for every unit of energy you put into that furnace, you get about, you know, 93 94, or whatever percent of that energy out as heat, you have to put more energy in, then you get out. Heat pumps, on the other hand, use a different scale, something called the coefficient of performance or COP. But it's essentially the same thing. And they can often run around 300% efficiency, and sometimes even higher. So for every unit of energy you're putting in, you get three units of energy out, which is awesome, you're getting more energy out than you're putting in that makes them really efficient. And if we're going to actually tackle the problems that lead to climate change, if we're actually going to decarbonize our society, and I really believe we are because I'm optimistic that way. Then almost every single one of us will eventually have a heat pump heating the space we live in, likely the space we work in as well and heating the water that we use as hot water. Okay, so now that we're back up to speed on heat pumps, let's check in with Shawn to hear how his journey has been going. Sean, welcome to the show. Shawn Carr 05:12 Thanks, Trevor. It's great to be here. Trevor Freeman 05:15 Okay, so let's get into it. Let's talk about your experience with a heat pump. Remind us again, what kind of heating system you had in your house and replaced and what did you put in? Shawn Carr 05:25 Sure, Trevor. So I went from a high efficiency condensing gas furnace to a cold climate heat pump. And I elected to go with electric heat as my backup heat source. And a backup heat source is typically required in our cold climate. And the two most common backup heat options are typically a natural gas furnace, or an electric resistance coil that goes inside your ductwork. So I went with the electric electric resistance coil option. Trevor Freeman 06:02 Okay, so you totally removed gas from your heating solutions in your house. And for context, can you remind us what is the size of your home and talk us through the economics of your heat pump? What did it cost you? And what remains? What did you qualify for. Shawn Carr 06:19 So I live in rural Ottawa, our home is approximately 2100 square feet. It's a single storey bungalow, but does have a basement. It was built in 2008. And we were the first homeowners. And so it's relatively modern construction, given that it's only about 15 years old now. In regards to the project costs. So looking back at things, our total project costs for the cold climate heat pump, along with that electric backup system, and I elected to go with some additional controls and bells and whistles. And the project ended up costing us around $17,000, before taxes and rebates. And so maybe just to talk through the rebates a little bit I did receive a $5,000 rebate through enter cans greener Homes program. And I took advantage of a zero interest loan through the greener homes loan program as well, which allows me to pay back that project cost over a 10 year period. With zero interest. Unfortunately, the Enter Ken greener Homes program is no longer accepting applications, it's been pretty successful. But I was obviously fortunate enough to be able to take advantage of that program. So that ended up bringing our total project costs down for the heat pump and backup system to around $12,000. Before Tax, I can say that I do know a handful of people that have gone through and installed heat pumps recently. And I am seeing that the project costs are actually coming down, which is great. My father is actually having a heat pump installed today. In fact, so I'm looking forward to hearing how that project goes. But it's great to see that more installers and companies are now starting to talk to customers about heat pumps. And that's going to make the transition become more feasible than ever for more people. And I do think that being said, if we do want to get to a point where there is mass market adoption, we do need to get the heat pump and backup heat system costs down to a point where they are comparable to a furnace air conditioner replacement project, for example, because people still think in terms of sticker price. And so I do think there's still a bit of work to be done here. But as installers get more comfortable with these heat pumps and manufacturing starts to scale up, I do think we'll see prices come down further. Trevor Freeman 08:52 Yeah, I mean, it's great to see that we're already seeing movement on that. But as you know, I mean, you and I both fall into that early adopter category and things tend to be more expensive and it will be great when we can get those costs down. So you've been living with your heat pump for over a year now kind of two two winters to cooling or heating season. Sorry. Let's talk about your initial thoughts. Let's start with comfort. How has your comfort been in your home? Shawn Carr 09:20 Yeah, that's I mean, that's a great place to start. And you know, I will say that we've actually we've noticed some comfort improvements since putting in the cold climate heat pump particularly in our basement actually because we always found that the basement was several degrees colder than it was upstairs the thermostat in our house is on the main floor obviously but since we've gotten the the heat pump installed, we've noticed that the temperature difference between upstairs and downstairs it's actually much smaller. The Delta is much smaller now than it was prior to the heat pump when we were heating with a gas furnace and I think the main reason for that is heat pumps are really designed to run low and slow, they provide a greater volume of air over a longer period of time that that air is being delivered at a lower temperature. But as a result of that we found a more uniform temperature throughout the house just because of how the heat pump was running so much more frequently. Trevor Freeman 10:22 Great. What about the experience of actually getting installed? I mean, once you made your decision to do this, how was it working with the contractors and getting it installed? Shawn Carr 10:32 It actually went pretty smoothly. I mean, first of all, we used a contractor that had experience with heat pumps and came recommended. So I think, you know, my advice to anyone who's considering getting one is, you know, get a few quotes, make sure they have experience with heat pumps and electrification or, and are actually recommending this technology. In our case, the total install took about two and a half days. So that includes obviously all the electrical work and running new refrigerant lines to the outside of the house replacing taking the old furnace out and putting the air handler in and installing the backup heat, I think just in terms of space, like the construction footprint essentially was about the same as it was before. So it didn't require more space in our utility room. Basically, we just went from a gas furnace to having a big box that looked very much the same in the same location. And of course, the unit outside looks and sounds very much like a traditional air conditioner. And that's because a heat pump is simply an air conditioner with a reversing valve. So the install was straightforward. Yeah, I would recommend it to anyone. Trevor Freeman 11:37 Great. Now,I mean, it's interesting, you talk about it being like an air conditioner. We often think about heat pumps as this technology of the future, this thing that we're all eventually going to have in our homes. Is it this futuristic piece of technology that's hard to operate? Or what is it like kind of, you know, setting it and letting it run? Shawn Carr 11:54 Yeah, so the operation is really straightforward. I think the best way I would describe it is you basically, it's a set and forget system, I think the one thing that we did learn about having a heat pump is we don't adjust the temperature, like the thermostat temperature settings, as much as we did before, when we had a gas furnace, I used to get in the habit of dropping the temperature several degrees overnight, and then having the setpoint higher in the morning prior to getting up. But what we've found is, in particular, with the heat pump, it takes a lot longer for that heat pump, and it has to run a lot longer and a lot harder to reach that temperature setpoint. Again, so in the morning, so what we found is the most comfortable approach was really just to pick a temperature that we were comfortable with and just let it do its thing. The one other thing I think that I will say is I you know, we did have a smart thermostat before we elected to go with a heat pump. And as a result of going with the heat pump, I actually had to use a proprietary Fujitsu thermostat because I had a Fujitsu system. So I lost maybe a little bit of the flexibility that I had with the previous smart thermostat where I could just talk to Alexa or Google and have it adjust the temperature. That way I don't have that flexibility anymore, but because we've really sort of set the temperature and we just forget it and we leave the setpoint pretty much the same all the time, 24/7 I haven't necessarily missed having that technology. And it's not to say that with all heat pumps, you're going to have to use a proprietary thermostat, many of them are compatible with the smart thermostats that are out there that just happened to be the case with the system that I elected to go with. Trevor Freeman 13:43 Okay, so speaking of temperature, you know, you and I both live in Ottawa, it gets pretty cold. How did it run through the past two winters that you've had it? Shawn Carr 13:53 Yeah. So this winter, which I think was considered to be, you know, a milder winter on record here in the City of Ottawa, where we live, I'm very happy to report that my backup heat actually never came on. So I was able to just rely on the heat pump and the heat pump only as our only source of heating for our home this past winter. And so it did have a look, and I think we never did get below minus 20 Celsius here in Ottawa this winter, though, I think the coldest day was around, minus 19. But even at those low temperatures, I did not require my backup heat to supplement the heat for our home. I did go back and look at the previous winter, which I know was much colder and I fortunately put some controls on the heat pump that sort of tells me when's the heat pump running, when's the backup heat running, how much electricity is it using and so on. So I did go back and look at all that data and the prior winter. The backup heat only came on five days throughout the entire winter and those were days where the temperature overnight dropped somewhere between minus 17 Celsius and minus 33 Celsius. So those are really cold nights. And looking back, I think, on those days, the heat pump required the backup heat to kick in, and it would probably run for a couple of days, a couple of hours, sorry, on each of those five days. So you know, when the backup heat is running, my energy costs are obviously higher on those days. But I'm very, you know, pleased to report that over two winters, the cold climate heat pump overall has really done the job. And I haven't really had to rely on the backup heat that much. Trevor Freeman 15:36 What about the noise levels of the unit? Is it a noisy unit to run? Or what does it sound like? Shawn Carr 15:42 No, I mean, if you're used to having an air conditioner, I would say that the noise levels have been comparable to what they were with my previous air conditioning system. So I don't think you will notice the difference. Trevor Freeman 15:54 Great. So if you could kind of sum it up, you know, what's the biggest benefit to putting in the heat pump? Shawn Carr 16:00 What have you noticed? Well, for me, I think I'd say the biggest benefit is high efficiency, low emissions heating. So reducing emissions was my main driver for moving forward with this project. So the environmental benefits are, you know, really what motivated me to move to a heat pump in the first place. And what I'll say is I've also seen some energy savings as well. So it really has been a win-win project for me and I and I imagine that that will be the same for others who are, you know, on the fence as to whether this is the right technology for them or not. Trevor Freeman 16:36 Yeah, so you talked about the upfront costs of the heat pump, but something that does, you know, concern some people or that people have questions about is, what is this going to cost me to run? So tell us about what your utility costs have been since switching from natural gas heating over to your heat pump? Shawn Carr 16:56 Yeah, sure. So I'm a bit of a data nerd. So I've been obviously, you know, tracking all my monthly electricity use and gas use and have been keeping track of our overall energy costs. And so I did go back and looked at our energy costs for the two years prior to the heat pump install, and then looked at our energy costs for the 15 months after I put in the heat pump, which did include two winters, as you mentioned earlier, so my total electricity consumption increased by 62%, over that 15 month period, on average after installing the heat pump, but my gas consumption actually decreased by 65%. And my total energy costs actually dropped by 7%. So I've actually seen cost savings since proceeding with the project. And the other thing I'll just share with your listeners, is I elected to maintain my gas connection. And if I had not done that, the savings would have been obviously even greater. Trevor Freeman 18:03 Yeah, that's great to hear. Any big lessons learned from going through this process and from your first year, first two years rather, of living with it? Shawn Carr 18:12 Well, I think in our situation in my project, because I elected to go with electric resistance heating is my backup source, I'd say the... /episode/index/show/thinkenergy/id/31232847

Modernizing the Electricity Grid with the Advanced Distribution Management System 04/29/2024

Modernizing the Electricity Grid with the Advanced Distribution Management System If electrification is the future of energy, the grid must become more efficient and more reliable. All across Canada, from province to province to right here at home in Ottawa. Jenna Gillis, Manager of Distribution System Integration at Hydro Ottawa, joins thinkenergy to discuss the process. Listen to episode 136, as she shares how Ottawa’s electricity grid is being updated with an Advanced Distribution Management System (ADMS) and what this means for you, your family, and residents throughout the region. Related links EV Everywhere Pilot Project: Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: Hydro Ottawa: To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: To subscribe using Spotify: To subscribe on Libsyn: --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: Follow along on Instagram: Stay in the know on Facebook: Keep up with the posts on X: Transcript: Transcript Ep 136 Fri, Apr 26, 2024 9:47AM • 55:30 SUMMARY KEYWORDS talked, grid modernization, grid, information, customers, devices, data, change, system, energy, asset, technology, call, great, operators, Ontario, working, dynamic, sense, distribution SPEAKERS Trevor Freeman, Jenna Gillis Trevor Freeman 00:07 Hi, welcome to think energy, a podcast that dives into the fast-changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators and people on the frontlines of the energy transition. Join me Trevor Freeman, as I explore the traditional, unconventional and even up and coming facets of the energy industry. If you've got thoughts, feedback or ideas for topics that we should cover, we'd love to hear from you. Please reach out to us, I think energy at hydro ottawa.com. Hi, everyone, welcome back. I'm pretty excited about today's topic, because we're going to be tackling something a little bit technical. And that's always fun. And today is going to be the first of what might end up being a few different episodes looking at this term called grid modernization. So today, we're going to do just a high-level overview. And then over the next few months, there'll be a couple of different episodes that will dive deeper into some of the specific aspects of grid modernization. So that term grid modernization can be a little bit daunting, but that's okay. Our goal here is to pull apart these topics to better understand what they are and how they impact all of us, you know, from those of us working in the energy sector, all the way to the end users of our product, if you will, our electricity customers. So, let's start by a bit of a primer. And I think it'll be helpful to start by talking about what the grid is. So, the electrical power grid has been called the world's largest machine, and the greatest engineering achievement of the 20th century. And for good reason, thinking of it as a machine is a great metaphor, because just like a car, or a sewing machine or a snow blower, there are a lot of parts. And if any one of those parts breaks or isn't working as it's supposed to be, that will impact the overall function of the machine. And the same is true for the grid. And the parts we're talking about here are the holes, the conductors or wires, the transformers, the switches, as well as the many different sensors and meters and communication devices that help the humans in the mix, monitor and control things. The difference though, is that you know, even for a complex machine, like a car, there are hundreds or maybe even a couple 1000 parts. But the electricity grid, even if we just look at let's say hydro Ottawa as territory, there are hundreds of 1000s of parts. And if we scale that up to Ontario's grid, we're talking about millions and millions of individual parts all working together, so that when you turn your lights on at home, electricity that was generated hundreds or 1000s of kilometers away, flows into your device and makes it work. That's pretty impressive. And if any one of those millions of parts breaks, there's an impact somewhere on the grid. If multiple things break, or if there's something really critical that isn't working. That's a major problem. And we've seen these major problems. We've seen large scale outages. And you know, we tend to focus on Ontario's grid on this show, because that's what we call home. But our grid is connected to our neighboring grids, who are connected to their neighbors to form really an interconnected North American grid across Canada and the United States. It really is a modern engineering marvel. And, you know, we didn't just get here by chance. This was kind of designed, you know, back at the early days of the 20th century in the early 1900s. Electrical pioneers met for the first time in what is now Kitchener, Ontario to discuss what it would look like to wire Ontario's customers together to form a provincial electricity grid. Our predecessor company, the Ottawa hydroelectric commission, connected to that provincial grid in 1916. So, what we know as the Ottawa grid and our service territory is over 100 years old today. Before that, across Ontario, reliable and continuous power in the region was kind of uncommon, and really dependent on whether someone in the area like a major business or a wealthy individual had invested in a localized electricity grid for their own needs. An interconnected provincial grid was designed and implemented with a goal of making electricity available to all Ontarians regardless of where they lived. And that kind of evolution of the grid in Ontario is similar to how it worked in other parts of North America and indeed the world. That's kind of how grids came about in the last century. Ontario's electricity grid, however, like all grids around the world, was really designed as a one-way street. So, the idea was to generate and then transmit, and then deliver that electricity to customers in that order. Back then, those pioneers really couldn't have imagined an electricity grid that would need to support two-way interactive things like small scale distributed renewable energy, you know, solar panels on roofs or electric vehicles, or energy storage, and a whole host of other things that, you know, want to do more than just draw power from the grid. As we've talked about the ongoing energy transition, and electrification, which is being driven by the pressures of climate change, is really driving a societal shift to bring the electricity system into the 21st century, and to make sure it's powered with clean, renewable electricity. So, our grid is starting to undergo this major transformation. And we won't be able to do that effectively or affordably by just using the same strategies and technologies and the same pace that we've been doing it at over the last 100 plus years. We need to take it to the next level; we need to rethink what we're doing to upgrade the grid and how we're doing it. And that's really what grid modernization is, it's not saying we don't have a modern grid, it's realizing that the grid of 10 years from now needs to be different in a much bigger way than it's different from how it was 10 years ago, that pace of change needs to happen quicker. And we need to bring on new functionality. It's not just you know, incremental change anymore. To help us make some sense of this. I'm really happy to have Jenna Gillis to chat with today. Jenna is the manager of distribution system integration at hydro Ottawa and is leading this major project that we're calling at a high-level grid modernization, or more specifically, our advanced distribution management system, or ADMS. Jenna has been with hydro Ottawa for 16 years and has held a number of different roles on the operations and systems side of our business and really knows how our grid operates, how it's been operating, how the humans in the mix control things. And what's necessary to get us to that next stage that we've been talking about. Jenna, welcome to the show. Jenna Gillis 07:04 Great. Thanks, Trevor. excited to talk to about this today. Trevor Freeman 07:07 Yeah, I'm excited to. So, let's start at kind of a high level here and help our listeners understand how we currently operate our grid today. So, paint the picture for those of us who don't kind of get to see what happens behind the scenes. How do we control things today? Jenna Gillis 07:23 Yeah, for sure. So, what people might not realize that we actually have people sitting in a control room centralized control room that looks at our system 24/7 365. So, we've got people monitoring the system all the time. And they look at the grid state, and they help direct field activities. They look at triaging outages as they become aware of them. And right now, we've got visibility to our control room to all of our substations, so all of our, you know, high level devices, but only down to about 8% of the feeders and not actually all the way out to our customer level. So, what does that mean? That means that we still rely on customers calling us or reporting online when they experience an outage. And all of that information does make its way back into our control room operators. And it goes into a system we call the outage management system, which helps us track and identify where we might be seeing issues out on the grid. So, the operators then use that information to help make decisions in terms of controlling the grid where they need to open up closed devices where they need to send field crews to restore power. So, on top of that, most of these activities are done by field crews. So, the system operators are in direct contact with our crews out in the field and providing direction on where to go, what devices to you know, have them physically open or close in the field. And we've got about 10% of our system right now that has remote capabilities. So that means that the operators can choose to open or close those devices, basically at a click of a button back in the office sitting at a computer. So, most of what we do today really is human based and does take an expert control operator to be monitoring the systems and making the decisions. Trevor Freeman 09:08 Yeah, so we've got this like really complex system. It's, you know, state of the art system, if you will, that requires, like you say experts to keep track of what's happening to identify problems and make decisions based on the information they're getting. I just want to pick apart a few things you said there. So, when we're talking about our substations, just for our listeners, those are, you know, spots in our grid where we take higher voltage and step it down via transformers to a lower voltage, and then send that out on wires. That's what we call our feeders to our end customers. We know what's happening at that substation level, we can see whether the power is flowing or not whether switches are open or not. But once it gets past that we lose some of that visibility. That's kind of what I'm hearing from you Jenna Gillis 09:57 Yeah, exactly. And so that's why I'm saying like we still rely on those notifications from our customers to let us know where they're seeing the problems. And, you know, it comes into a system that, that we can look at in conjunction with that visibility that we have on the substations to help us understand what's going on. Trevor Freeman 10:12 Right. So obviously, it was such a, you know, an ordered and complex system, we're constantly in proving and renewing and upgrading. That's not new. That's not something that we're just starting. But as I've kind of hinted at in the opening there, we do need to change how we do things. So, before we look into where we're going, how do we renew and upgrade today, what's our current process. Jenna Gillis 10:36 So, we do have a robust asset management framework. So that's basically a program that tells us and we look at all of our asset information. And that's whether that's poles, wires, transformers, switches, breakers, basically anything we have out on the distribution system, and we look at and prioritize where we need to invest and where we need to renew, replace, install, upgrade, all of that kind of stuff. So basically, as we do that, right now, we go through, and we'll incorporate new technologies, like these remote-control switches, like these sensors to bring information back into the control room to help us continue to evolve, meet our customer or system needs. So, this, this process has worked really well in the past in terms of keeping pace with technology and the requirements of the grid and our customers. But right now, we're seeing that it's we're falling behind, it's too slow to parallel installation of these new technological devices, with these asset renewals or installation. So, I mean, if you think about it, you know, a pull out with wires on it can last over 50 years, we can't wait until we're replacing those 50 years from now to go in and add these new technological advancements. So, what that means is now we're looking at a hybrid approach. So of course, we're going to continue to parallel activities where it makes sense with these asset renewals and upgrades and replacements. But we also need to strategically start placing these devices in areas that we're going to gain benefit from, and I'm talking about benefit from a control room operator perspective, benefit from a safety or field crew perspective, but also where we can provide value to our customers in terms of, you know, expediting restoration efforts, or, you know, providing more flexibility into the system to allow more customer connections, whether that be, you know, new residential developments, or whether that's, you know, the next solar panel or battery or something like that. Trevor Freeman 12:25 Yeah, waiting for anybody who's familiar with kind of technological adoption curves and the pace of technological change, you talk about 50 years is the life of some of this equipment, the difference between technology and let's say, 1930, and 1980, wasn't a huge jump when it comes to poles and wires and transformers. But today, the difference of 50 years is night and day that we're not talking at all about the same technology. So, we can't wait for that whole cycle to go through before we're getting some of the tech in today that we need today in order to upgrade the system. So that's helpful to understand what that looks like. So, let's look forward then. And when we talk about where we want to go with grid modernization, how we want to change that, talk us through what we're trying to accomplish. Jenna Gillis 13:14 Yeah, so I think I'm going to paint a little bit of a picture here in terms of how I think about grid modernization, because that's really helped me contextualize the way that we need to do things differently. So, I think of grid modernization, that program in entirety as like a stacked or a layer pyramid. At the bottom, you have field devices. So, you have equipment that's remotely controlled, or providing data in the field. So, you know, we're talking about sensors, or meters or switches, things like that. That's your foundation. On top of that, you then need a way to get that information back-to-back to systems back to people. So, then you need a communication infrastructure. So, you need to be able to take that data and funnel it where it needs to go, which is the third layer data management, you need to store, organize, create access to that field data. And then finally, the fourth triangle right at the very top is your applications and analytics later. So now you've got the data coming from the field, you're bringing it back, and you're managing it. So now what are you going to do with that information. So, these are the applications and analytics. So really the tools that digest that data and ultimately help make decisions. So that is what I envisioned kind of as the grid modernization pyramid. And you need each one of those layers to unlock the value from the layer below it. So, you can't really have one without the other all the way up to the top. So, what we need to start doing is thinking about these layers in a programmatic fashion. What we've done historically is looked at the requirements on a project by project or program by program basis. So basically, you would unlock each one of those layers for that specific project or program requirements. What we need to start doing now is that grid modernization is going to be the foundation for everything we do. So basically, every project, every program is going to require some level of information, data management, analytics, communication. So, the way we're looking at that is this is now becoming a foundation to everything we do. So, we need to be programmatic, roll this out so that regardless of what we're doing in the future, we have this foundation to rely on. And we're not building it piece by piece as we work through, you know, project life cycles. So really, what's different when I talk about grid modernization assets, and I'm talking about meters, or sensors or remote-control devices, is the integrated nature. So, we talked about that pyramid, you can't use these devices without any one of those layers, whereas you think of a traditional asset like a pole, you can, you know, load it up at a truck, and somebody can go and put it in the ground. So, it's really the true convergence. Now we're seeing what we, you know, our information technology, our IT systems, our operational technology, or OT systems, and then operations and asset management. So, we really need to be looking at these things together, as one, making sure we're all aligned to unlock each one of these layers. Trevor Freeman 16:15 Yeah, it really highlights the, I guess, cascading impacts of projects and decisions and bringing on new technology across the entire distribution, business and how we do things and how we serve our customers. One is impacting the other in ways that hasn't really, truly been the case before. So that's a great way of painting it. Thanks, Jenna. Let's talk about kind of the why behind this, what are the benefits that we're going to see by taking this approach by taking this sort of accelerated upgraded process that we're doing? What are we going to gain from this? Jenna Gillis 16:54 So, our overall grid modernization strategy is guided by five key objectives. So, I'll go through each one of those and give you kind of a high-level blurb on what it is that we're trying to achieve with grid modernization. So, the first one is enhancing reliability. So, the more monitoring devices you have in the field to understand the state of the grid, the more remote capabilities you have in order to operate. And you know, isolate and restore, the better reliability has the ultimate goal is moving towards an automated process, where you have all of the foundation of the equipment, the communication channels and the audit, the analytics to make decisions, you can get outages restored much more quickly. The next one is what we call flexibility. So adaptive grid flexibility. So, we want to make sure that the grid is dynamic to all of these changing energy demands that we're seeing come online, so things like heat pumps, or electric vehicles, or solar generation or battery, we want to provide more options for the connections and be able to have the grid respond dynamically to these changing conditions. Next one we have is fortified resilience and robust security. So, resilience is really about the ability to do to withstand disruptions. And I'm talking about that from, you know, a physical asset perspective, but maybe also a technology perspective, as well, we want to make sure that we have a good diversity, to be able to recover from disruptions. So, we know there will always be disruptions, as we've... /episode/index/show/thinkenergy/id/31001618

Vision Quest: Modernizing Ontario’s Energy Future with the EDA 04/15/2024

Vision Quest: Modernizing Ontario’s Energy Future with the EDA Ontario's electricity sector is evolving, as the province navigates the transition to cleaner energy amidst rising demand. In thinkenergy episode 135, we explore the grid's structure and key players, highlighting the crucial role of distributors (Local Distribution Companies or LDCs) in facilitating this transition. Guest Teresa Sarkesian, President and CEO of the Electricity Distributors Association (EDA), sheds light on LDCs' frontline efforts and pivotal contributions shaping the energy landscape. Related links Teresa Sarkesian on LinkedIn: Electricity Distributors Association: Green Button information: Electrification and energy transition panel report: Ontario Electricity Support Program: Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: Hydro Ottawa: To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: To subscribe using Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7wFz7rdR8Gq3f2WOafjxpl To subscribe on Libsyn: Subscribe so you don't miss a video: Follow along on Instagram: Stay in the know on Facebook: Keep up with the posts on X: ... Transcript: Trevor Freeman 0:07 Hi, welcome to think energy, a podcast that dives into the fast-changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators and people on the frontlines of the energy transition. Join me Trevor Freeman, as I explore the traditional, unconventional and even up and coming facets of the energy industry. If you've got thoughts, feedback or ideas for topics that we should cover, we'd love to hear from you. Please reach out to us, at think energy at hydro ottawa.com Hi, everyone, welcome back. Now it's no secret that Ontario's electricity sector is transforming rapidly as it moves to both decarbonize the grid itself, you know, we have a very clean grid in Ontario, but it's not totally carbon free. And to support the growing demand for electricity as our customers across the province, take steps to electrify and change how they use energy. The show is all about exploring those changes, among other things, and today is no different. But before we dive into our conversation today, I think it would be helpful for me to spend just a few quick minutes on some basics about how our electricity grid is structured in Ontario, and who some of the key players are. Now I know some of our listeners will know this already, but it can be hard to keep track of all those key players. And Ontario's structure is a little different than some of the neighboring jurisdictions no two jurisdictions are exactly alike. So, a refresher is never a bad thing. Now the most basic description is that electricity is largely generated at central generation facilities. So, think nuclear power plants are your electric generating stations, some gas fired generating stations and large-scale wind and solar installations. We call these entities generators simple as that. That electricity is then transmitted across the province in an interconnected grid of high voltage transmission lines, which also connect to other jurisdictions such as neighboring provinces and states, and Ontario, Hydro One runs the transmission network. Now you've probably seen this transmission network. These would be the large metal towers that you see out in the middle of a field when you're driving along the highway or in rural areas that have electricity wires strung way up high in the air. The last stage before it gets to the end user is called distribution. So, this is where electricity is taken from those high voltage lines stepped down to a usable voltage for residential and commercial customers via transformers and substations, and then distributed over a network of overhead and underground wires, then these would be the wires that you would see at the top of those wooden or composite poles that are along the side of the road in your neighborhood. The entities that run this distribution part are called distributors, again, simple as that. So, there's a few other key players that are worth mentioning here. Energy Policy is primarily the jurisdiction of the provincial government, who sets the general direction and associated rules and regulations accordingly. The Ontario Energy Board or OEB is the regulatory body who governs what all those other players do and enacts the government mandate. And finally, at least for today's purposes, we have the system operator. It's called The Independent Electricity System Operator in Ontario, or IESO, who runs the system. So, if you're in Windsor, Ontario, or Ottawa, or North Bay, and you want to turn on your air conditioner, or plug your EV in to charge, the IESO is responsible for making sure there's enough power on the grid to handle that load. So, I hope everyone is still with me and feel free to pause and do some jumping jacks if that was a lot to take in. Our conversation today is going to be focused on the role of the distributor. So, for full disclosure, as you know, I work for hydro Ottawa who is one of those distributors, we serve most electricity customers in the City of Ottawa, and the neighboring village of Casselman and in Ontario, you will often hear distributors referred to as local distribution companies or LDCs. So, forgive me if I slip into that acronym throughout the conversation today, that's really just the sort of common name that we refer to those distributors as. But I'll try to mix it up and make sure that, that I'm explaining that acronym throughout as well. So, the distributor is really the front line, the customer facing entity of the entire electricity system. If you are an electricity customer, and you think about the electricity system, you are probably thinking about your distributor. Chances are you get your bill from a distributor, even though for most customers, most of what you pay on that bill doesn't actually go to the LDC. Some of it stays with your local distribution company, but most of it goes to the transmitter to the generator, to the IESO etc. When the power goes out, it's probably your LDC that you call and it's your LDC that will give you a restoration time. Sometimes outages are caused by issues up the line, so to speak in the transmission portion of the grid. But often the issue is a localized one. And it's your LDC that is identifying the problem and fixing it, whether that means rolling a truck to string new cable, or performing switching to work around the problem. And finally, it's your LDC that is really on the frontlines of the energy transition. While all parts of the grid must then have started to change, the LDCs are really working hand in hand with our customers to identify where and how fast and new demand is needed to bridge that gap between customers and policymakers to enable more and more renewable generation. And also to determine what new technologies or programs we need to pilot and scale up. And it's really the LDCs that are driving change in the way that electricity is managed at the individual customer level moving forward. So, to help us make some sense of this, I'm happy to have Teresa Sarkesian on the show today. Teresa is the president and CEO of the electricity Distributors Association, which is a role that she's held since 2016. This is actually Teresa second time on the show the first being back in December 2021. So we're happy to have Teresa back, Teresa, welcome back to the show. Teresa Sarkesian 6:23 Thanks so much, Trevor. I'm really delighted to be back. Trevor Freeman 6:27 Yeah, we're glad to have you. So, like I said, you were back on our show in 2021. I don't know if it's because of how COVID has changed our lives or if this is just the way things go. But sometimes, you know, weeks seem like years. So, 2021 is a long time ago. Let's start by refreshing our listeners on the role and mandate of the electricity Distributors Association. Teresa Sarkesian 6:49 Sure, thing so the electricity Distributors Association, or the EDA our little acronym represents Ontario's public and private electric utilities that distribute electricity to 5.4 million homes, businesses and institutional customers across the province. And I should note that those 5.4 million customers really refers to build accounts so you have families that are behind a build account. So effectively the millions and millions of Ontarians and businesses that operate and live here are customers of our utilities. And as you know our members are on the front lines of power, and have developed a strong trust with their customers by providing safe, reliable and affordable service for over 100 years. The EDA itself provides analysis and networking and advocacy for our members to ensure that the energy policy direction and framework in Ontario is fair and balanced, supporting the financial viability of utilities to deliver service and ensuring affordability for customers. And long term, we are looking to ensure that our local distribution company members can become the premier energy solution providers to their customers, and that they're able to provide the value-added services that customers are already expecting from them but are going to grow with the energy transformation and electrification in the future. Trevor Freeman 8:09 Yeah, it's kind of like I said, when people think about the electricity sector, they're probably thinking about their distributor. And the EDA is kind of that common voice for those distribution companies. So, you first joined the EDA back in 2009, and have been the president and CEO since 2016. So, we'll look ahead and talk about the future in a minute. But before we do that, tell us about how things have changed so far during your tenure. How are things different from 2009 When you first joined the organization? Teresa Sarkesian 8:40 Yeah, and you know, this is almost like perfect timing, Trevor, because I've been at the association now for 15 years, I'm just marking my 15-year anniversary. So, feels really apropos to kind of reflect and look back. So, I want to break down my answer into two parts. So, I'm going to talk to you about some, I guess, just my own personal observations about the electricity system at large. And then I'm going to talk more about the changes in distribution. But some of the changes that I thought were really quite significant and profound, sort of when I joined the industry in 2009, I joined at a time when there was the Green Energy Act, and the province was looking to connect all kinds of renewable energy generation to the electricity grid. So that was fairly significant. Another thing that was happening with the province is that they closed down coal fired generation. That was pretty massive. In fact, I think, at the time, it was the largest kind of carbon reduction initiative in North America. And I think even to this date today, I think it still is something that Ontario really has to be proud of. Another thing that you know, at the time, I think that was you know, fairly significant in 2015 is just the expectation of what the demand would be. What was interesting, sort of like the past for 15 years, the demand from customers for electricity was actually flat or declining. And that's all changed. Now. 15 years later, we're, we're now forecasting, massive increases in in demand of energy, which could potentially be doubling in the future. And the other point I'd like to make is just the nuclear renaissance that we're having. I think when I joined the sector in 2009, I'll tell you, I think the public opinion of nuclear was actually quite low. And that's been completely turned around lots of geopolitical events around the world, I think, have driven that. And now that nuclear is having a huge Renaissance. And you're seeing, you know, lots of new investments in nuclear. And we're not talking about shutting down reactors anymore. We're talking about refurbishing and expanding. So those are some of the things that I've observed over the last 15 years that have really changed. And for local distribution companies, I think what I have seen is a growing expectation by both government and the regulators for electric utilities to do more to both support the grid reliability and meet growing expectation from customers. So, I started in the sector in 2009, it was right on the brink of implementation of smart meters, and time of use. And what was interesting is that was mandated, there were very few jurisdictions in the world that actually had mandated smart meters and time of use pricing. So again, Ontario is was one of the first. And so that was a big change for LDCs. To move from, you know, smart meters and having to bring in that technology and also support the technology of time of use. I did mention the Green Energy Act at the time, we suddenly had to connect 1000s and 1000s, of new solar and wind generation, as well. And that was all new. There were no protocols, there were no standards for that. So that was fairly significant as well. And when I kind of fast forward to I guess, more recently, there have been a lot of changes from government, I think they've really supported our industry, they understand the trust that we have, with our customers. And they've implemented, you know, a number of new changes in terms of rate structures, they've asked us to implement ultra low-rate pricing that can support overnight electric vehicle charging. And they've also asked us to introduce a green button digital platform that allows customers to download their energy data and share with third parties for you know, different assessments and tools for lowering energy costs. But it's all not, you know, unicorns and kittens, there's challenges to for our sector, grid resilience was, you know, not really, people talked about it in 2009, but not like they're talking about it now, because of climate change. And we are seeing more frequent storms, causing, you know, obviously, outages for the customer, and also significant damage to the distribution grid. And I know that hydro Ottawa has faced more than its fair share of very destructive storms over the past few years, we have Yes, I can't remember which Victoria Day weekend where we had, I didn't ever know how to say it the derecho or the derecho. So there, we weren't getting storms we've never even heard of before. And unfortunately, I think that is our new normal. So, grid resilience is something that we are very concerned about, and we need to make sure we've got the appropriate investments for that. So those are just a few of the highlights that, you know, when I came into the sector sort of things that were kind of ramping up, and then what's happening now, but I guess what I could say, the commonality is there's constant change in the sector. And what I'm seeing going forward is that change is going to be accelerated. Trevor Freeman 13:40 Yeah, I mean, it's, it's fascinating to listen to you lay it all out like that. Thinking back to 15 years ago, it's hard to even remember, you know, not having smart meters, having meters that really just ticked forward and measured your consumption over the course of a month, and someone would come and read that. And, you know, having declining or even flat demand profiles that aren't increasing is so different from the world that we are in today. But I think what you said there at the end is really important. We are in our industry, an organization that knows about change, we're constantly changing, which helps us as we look forward into your point, we're going to see that level of change and the pace of change accelerate. So, I think that sets us up pretty well. So, let's start to look forward, then I know that the EDA is about to launch a new vision paper. So, we're going to dive into some of the details. But maybe let's start by kind of a high-level summary of what is the vision that you are trying to lay out with this paper? Teresa Sarkesian 14:42 Okay, and no problem. So, I think what I want to start just give a little bit of background as to why we did this. We've done a couple of vision papers and implementation plans in the past. But you know, they were like seven, eight years ago and things have changed a lot even in Seven or eight years. So, what we've been seeing, obviously, I think the big change over the last few years has been the big focus on meeting Net Zero targets in 2050, that we are going to get to net zero in terms of our greenhouse gas emissions. Not only in Canada, but this is actually a bit of a global commitment, you know, for countries that have signed on to that objective. So, what happens when you set up, you know, those big audacious goals? You have all kinds of organizations and entities looking at how are we going to get there, how much it's going to cost? What do we need to do to get there? And so, when we started reviewing some of these publications, both in Ontario, Canada, and actually in other jurisdictions, they were very good. They talked about what supply mix that we need the investment in transmission, but almost 100% of the papers, Trevor, if you can believe this, just neglected distribution, no one talked about distribution, they didn't talk about how distribution is going to have to change what the investments would be. And then we'll so we said it's going to be critical for us to identify the electric utility role and the energy transition, and how the sector will need to be grid ready to support electrification, economic development, grid resilience, and customer preferences. So, we view that LDCs are going to be pivotal in enabling Ontario's low carbon economy, navigating the challenges posed by climate policies, electrification trends, and these evolving customer demands. And with Ontario's growing economy and the demands for housing intensify, LDCs must innovate to effectively meet these accelerating electricity needs and changing preferences. And right now, we've seen the ISO is predicting significant consumption growth from 144 terawatt hours in 2023, to 240 terawatt hours and 2050 not quite double, but it's getting close. And so, this rapid growth demands urgent attention to adopt new strategies and to ensure that the local distribution companies can make the necessary investments in grid enhancements to expand the capacity and capability of the distribution system. So, while reliability and affordability remain Paramount customers do expect additional value from their utility service. And, you know, we are seeing all sorts of things that are happening, you know, such as the need for swift electric vehicle charging installation, and other upgrades that will increase the electrical load. We see that LDCs are more frequently interacting with businesses that seek utility partners to achieve their energy management, sustainability and ESG goals. And in parallel, the LDC must prepare to respond to increase climate change induced extreme weather events. So, recognizing the essential role of LDCs in the energy transition, we've worked in collaboration with industry experts to outline a vision of the role of utilities, so they can enable economic development, housing growth and electrification. And the report identifies urgent and practical steps that LDCs in partnership with the government, and its agencies must take in the near term to achieve the benefits of this transition. So, what you'll see in the paper is recommendations related to the need for clear policy direction on regulatory frameworks to support LDCs in becoming grid ready, and with a continued focus on affordability and enabling a customer choice and opportunity. And we also discuss issues like workforce needs. And we also emphasize the role of human capital in enabling technological advancements. So that's very high level what it is, and I will get into it a... /episode/index/show/thinkenergy/id/30798593

What the data tells us 04/01/2024

What the data tells us Decarbonization, the energy transition, and combating the climate crisis are critical to the future of Canadians (and the planet). But we all have different priorities and opinions. In episode 134 of thinkenergy, David Coletto, founder and CEO of Abacus Data, unpacks some of the key issues Canadians face today. Abacus Data is a Canadian market and public opinion research agency, delivering insights to guide policy decisions, messaging, and how to foster collective dialogue about pressing challenges. Related links Abacus Data: David Coletto on LinkedIn: David Coletto on X: Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: To subscribe using Spotify: To subscribe on Libsyn: --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video on Follow along on Stay in the know on Keep up with the posts on --- Transcript: Trevor Freeman 00:07 Hi, welcome to thinkenergy podcast that dives into the fast changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators and people on the frontlines of the energy transition. Join me, Trevor Freeman, as I explore the traditional, unconventional and even up and coming facets of the energy industry. If you've got thoughts, feedback or ideas for topics that we should cover, we'd love to hear from you. Please reach out to us at think energy at hydro ottawa.com. Hey, everyone, welcome back. On this show, we often hear from energy experts, whether that's talking about a specific technology or up and coming solutions, or speaking with people that represent organizations who are playing a key role in the energy space. And while that's great, and we could obviously learn a lot from that. It's also important that as we're having those conversations we're doing so with a good understanding of the context around us. By now, I hope we are all very familiar with the concept of knowledge bubbles, because I'm passionate about decarbonisation about the energy transition. And especially because I work in the energy sector. I speak to and hear from a lot of like minded individuals, we share common drivers and use a lot of the same factors to make our decisions. For example, when my own personal heating system, you know, a standard gas furnace was nearing the end of its life about four years ago, switching to a less carbon intensive option was really important to me, and that factored heavily in my decision. Even when my furnace ended up dying in the middle of January, before I had a chance to do all my research and forcing me to make a really quick decision. But I know that not everyone thinks that way. And nor do they have the luxury to think that way. For most folks getting something affordable and quick that provides heat and as easy to use is the most important thing. fuel sources low on the list. And my first appearance on the show when our previous house, Dan asked me why I was interested in taking over his hosting duties. I noted that while I was encouraged that there does seem to be a general consensus around climate change being a real thing. Finally, at least for the majority of Canadians, we as a society are far from aligned on the exact strategies and tools that we need to deploy in order to do something about it. You know, nor is climate change, the only thing going on in the lives of everyday Canadians. There's an affordability problem, there's a housing crisis, we're worried about having an effective health care system. And seeing parts of that, you know, not work so well. The list of things that matter to Canadians is long. And we as a society are not homogeneous in our thinking. So that is why I think today's conversation is really important. David Coletto, holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Calgary, and is the founder and chair and CEO of abacus data, a Canadian market and public opinion research agency. So David and Abacus have really made it their mission to help all of us better understand what Canadians are thinking and feeling about kind of everything. It's this insight that helps drive policy decisions, messaging, and ultimately how we can best have a collective conversation about our path forward. David, welcome to the show. David Coletto 03:28 Hey, Trevor, thanks for having me. Great to be here. Trevor Freeman 03:30 Great. Let's start with the basics. You've described yourself as infinitely curious, passionate and eternally optimistic? First of all, that's a pretty fantastic start to a bio. But help me fill in the blanks here. How did you come to start abacus? How do you maintain that curiosity, passion and optimism? David Coletto 03:48 So yeah, everyone asked this question like, when did you want to become a pollster? Like, was this something you always wanted to do? And it's funny because it is, I don't know the exact moment. I don't think there was like a light bulb that said, I want to do this. But I think over the course of high school, and then, you know, as I thought about what I wanted to do, after high school, I was really always interested in two things. One is politics. And then two was stats, I was that kid who like, I'm aging myself here a little bit, but I would be no, my parent, my parents, I grew up in Toronto would get the Toronto Star and I would, you know, every morning, open and up during the baseball season and look at the box scores and just be like devouring stats around baseball. And so I think as a pollster, I started in politics and an interest in politics. And, you know, a lot of what I do, looking at the political world, is basically the box scores for politics, you know, who's up who's down how Canadians feel about those political leaders. But that expanded beyond that, over the last 20 years, and I've come to just be someone who's just really interested in and curious about why people do what they do. Why do they think what they think? And I have this amazing job where I get to ask 1000s of Canadians hundreds of questions every week, from anything from politics, all the way to how they feel about work, how they make decisions, on, you know, where they eat out for dinner to stupid stuff that, you know, feels a little fluffy and not that important around, you know, what are they going to do on Valentine's Day? And that, I think, is what keeps me motivated. The optimist in me, I don't know where that comes from. I don't know if it's part genetic art, just, you know, outlook. But I'm always somebody that sometimes drives my team crazy, who will take a situation that's not always positive and say, okay, but what's the upside? And how do we? How do we get over that? And I think as somebody who is, especially over the last number of years, who has been kind of seeing people's reaction to the world around them in a very negative way, I think you almost have to be an optimist to be able to do that. Because it's been a really tough time. And most people's responses to questions these days are negative when it comes to pretty much everything that's going on in the world. Trevor Freeman 06:15 That transition, I guess, or that following from politics to other issues. I'm curious how that is guided for you and for your organization? Do you follow where the conversations are going? Or do you have a bit of a strategy of, you know, we want to, we want to test this theory, or we want to test this hypothesis, talk us through how you decide what information you're going after? David Coletto 06:36 I think we're always interested in just helping our clients. Anyone who is consuming our content was interested in why the world works, the way it does, is providing some insight into it. Right? Again, I think we have this, this really unique opportunity as a market research company to tell Canadians what other Canadians are thinking. And I think by understanding each other, I believe, we can find a way to get to whatever goal we want. For some, it's about putting yourself like research puts yourself into other people's shoes for a moment and understanding the world from their perspective, the perceptions that they have, which I think are so important to understanding why they do or think anything else. And being able to pinpoint the thing, or the perspective that comes to shape how other people see things. And so that's what I'm really fascinated by, like digging deeper, and trying to get at the why is the most fascinating and interesting part of my job. And the polls, you know, we always say we started, I started my career, looking at things from a political angle. But politics is only a very tiny portion of the things that we do. And I always like to remind, you know, every audience, whether it's a CEO, who is much more focused on like their profit and loss sheets and try to increase the revenue to the political leaders that I have the privilege of talking to, from time to time, is that every person, I think has three cells, they're at once a consumer, they're at once, especially if they're in the in the labor market, a worker but even if they're retired, or haven't yet entered that labor market, what the work that they did, is still important to who they are, or the work they want to do is important to who they are. And then lastly, they're also voters, or they can be voters. And so those three are interconnected. And that's why I think it's really valuable to see them as those three things and understanding how their views on politics informs the choices they make as consumers and and then how they are able to behave as consumers may also influence the choices they make for where they work, or the demand they have from their workplace, and and the political world as well. Trevor Freeman 08:59 Yeah, totally. I think that's a great lens to put on things not just for you in the kind of let's call it data business, not for those in the sort of political business or political world, if you will, you know, we think about that and the energy side of things, obviously, our lens is through energy and how what people are doing with it and using it and the decisions are making, but that's not how people look at the decisions in their lives. They don't look at it through that lens. So being able to step outside your bubble, as I kind of mentioned, is really helpful and I think could help all of us no matter the sector we're in so great way to frame that. David Coletto 09:33 Yeah, and I'm often that like, spark or stimulus that like a leader would bring in to a team and say, okay, David, give us the broad perspective on things because so often, when you like Trevor get to spend most of your time thinking about energy and, and and the policy and how do you deliver it and then all the shifts that might be happening, you're very much an expert, and you develop an expertise, but I am not really an expert. Hi kind of a mini expert on everything, but also bring this really broad perspective that I can, I can tie things together to say the other reason why people are resistant to buying, for example, if I'm an electric vehicle, it's not because they're fundamentally opposed to an energy transition, it's because they're just worried that they're not gonna able to charge it. So if the infrastructure is not there, how do we expect them to be comfortable doing that, or, you know, if you're talking to Albertans, who are the most resistant to moving away from oil and gas and embracing kind of an electrification of the world fundamental because most of their livelihoods are based on an industry that requires extracting oil from the ground and processing it? So when you start to understand the why, like, why do people get to these perspectives, or ultimately, their behaviors, it's often tied to something a little bit deeper. And that gives you, I think, a way to then figure out how to talk to them? How do you persuade them? And how do you most importantly, I think, relate to them? Totally. Trevor Freeman 10:55 So on that note, you know, data, what you guys are doing, it's useful for decision making, it's useful for informing policy. I guess what I'm trying to ask is, where's that line between pushing a narrative versus understanding what narrative is out there? You know, obviously, you're hired to go get data to help inform different organizations or political entities making their decisions? Is there a line there between getting data and pushing data or pushing a narrative? David Coletto 11:26 Yeah, I'm often, you know, either often criticized, if anything, because people believe that the polls that we put out in the public domain, for example, are actually influencing public opinion itself. And the evidence of that is minimal. I mean, I don't think there's millions of Canadians who could name abacus data? Or know what the heck we do? Or, or, or have you ever read one of our polls, but I don't, you know, deny that that research at any level of an organization or in the broader kind of conversation we have about society doesn't have an influence. And so when I say like, my vision for abacus is to be the most sought after influential polling firm in Canada. And what I mean by influential is not that we are at ourselves, influencing the direction of policy, but that we're that the quality of our research, and the insights we derive from that research, influences decisions in a positive way. Like, my fundamental goal is to help leaders make better decisions. And I think if your decisions are data driven, if they're evidence based, if they're rooted in understanding your audience, then you can make better, more confident decisions. And so that's what I mean, when I'd say I want to be influential, I don't care. You know, if everybody in the entire country knows who I am, and they want to hear what I have to say, my opinion matters very little. Now, my opinion about what I think the research I do matters, I think is useful. And every researcher brings a unique perspective to the research they do. And I like, I admit, I've got biases, I view the world a certain way. I'm an optimist. And so I'm constantly trying to find the upside of a lot of the stuff that we look at. But I don't believe that, you know, for research to be effective, it's not just, you know, let's go do a bunch of research and write it down on a piece of paper, and it was handed out. I think, and I think where Abacus has been really successful, is that being seen as an effective communicator of what that research means? And helping organizations leaders that whoever action it, do something with it that helps achieve their goals? Trevor Freeman 13:43 Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, so obviously, one of the reasons I want you on here is to talk about energy, climate change, decarbonisation, et cetera. Before we dive too deep into some of the specific research you've done, let's talk kind of high level about some of the evolving trends that you may have seen over the last number of years when it comes to Canadians perspectives on those items, you know, help us understand where we've been going these last couple of years and where we are today? David Coletto 14:12 Well, I think let's start with a step back and look at the broad kind of mindset that I think is important to understand then how people's views of these issues evolve over time. I think we have seen over the course of five years, a rapid shift in the mindset of the general public that has been informed and influenced by a whole ton of external events. Right. So pre pandemic, I think headed, you know, the end of 2019 going into 2020, the public in Canada, Ontario, and Ottawa was very much and I think I'm cautiously optimistic kind of friend, right? Things were okay. The economy was doing okay. Interest rates were very low relative to where they are today. And then the pandemic happened and you had this immediate flip in the mindset to one where most people at least in those first four months of the pandemic, the mindset was fear, didn't know what this meant, we were told to stay home, we didn't know how bad it was going to get, or whether we were gonna get infected, and what it meant for our family, our jobs, you name it. Soon after that, though, I think it became clear that okay, we can control it, we know a little bit more about this virus. And we entered into a kind of a roller coaster of fear and relief, fear and relief, as those case numbers went up and down. Coming out of the pandemic, though, and I think the defining mindset up today, which is really important to understand, to then understand why people will be resistant to certain public policy choices on climate or may not be ready to fully embrace the transition is that most Canadians right now, and I say most, I mean, like 80 to 90% of them, I believe, have a mindset that's very much tied to scarcity. And that is, that is a real shift. And what that means is that a lot of the things that people have come to expect that they can get in their lives are either more expensive, or harder to find or get, or they fear losing what they already have. And those are often tied to issues like housing, the general cost of living and health care. And so that mindset then causes us to view public policy decisions, broader economic forces, and our day to day lives through a very different lens than one where I described as there's plenty of everything, right. And having a good mindset means I can take risks, I can perhaps pay a little bit more, even if the perception is that I pay more, even if it's not true, in order to achieve other kinds of goals. But when I'm the perception of struggling everyday just to get the kind of life I want, or the one in three Canadians who feel like they've completely fallen behind, that is going to make it much harder for me to be persuaded to do things that feel like a big change or feel like they're going to disrupt my life more than it already is. Now, if we expand that, and then we say, okay, so how do we overlay that onto views around the broader issues around climate change, energy transition? I think what's clear in the long term trends is the vast majority, 90 plus percent of Canadians believe climate change is real and is caused by human behavior. overwhelming majorities believe that we, that's actually a crisis that we have to do something about. And in the shorter term, the last I would say, 12 to 18 months as a result of you and me, Trevor, I don't know about you I grew up in, you know, in Ontario, I never once in my entire life, stepped out on a June morning, and saw smoky skies, and you know, take my dog for a walk and bring her home and she smells like smoke. That was never part of my experience. My wife grew up in Alberta, much more likely to happen in Western Canada over time. So I think there's also become a realization that's firmed up that if we don't do something about this, that it's going to have not just theoretical consequences for the earth, but actual implications for my life, I won't be able to do certain things, my health might be compromised, the value of my property might be at risk, I may not be able to ensure, and so that I think has created far more desire or demand to see action. But what's muted it, at least in the short term, is that scarcity mindset where people have basically said, including young people, which is the most fascinating thing is, people often assume younger Canadians are more likely to, you know, say climate change is a priority for the first time in probably ever that I've tracked this, we now have younger Canadians, if you're under 30, you're the least likely to say climate change is one of your top three priorities. Interesting. And that's because other issues, like housing, like economic security, like the cost of living, have overtaken them. And so short... /episode/index/show/thinkenergy/id/30584163

The future workforce: starting a career in energy 03/18/2024

The future workforce: starting a career in energy The energy transition will define the sector for decades. And smart, passionate people are needed across the industry—leaders and innovative thinkers to chart the path forward. In his first episode hosting thinkenergy, Trevor Freeman gives the future workforce a voice, chatting with two engineering interns about what a career in energy means to them. Listen in as Alana Jones from Envari Energy Solutions and Priscilla Lacerda from Hydro Ottawa share their experiences. Related links Hydro Ottawa: Envari Energy Solutions: Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: Alana Jones on LinkedIn: n/a Priscilla Lacerda on LinkedIn: To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thinkenergy/id1465129405 To subscribe using Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7wFz7rdR8Gq3f2WOafjxpl To subscribe on Libsyn: --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: YouTube Follow along on Stay in the know on Facebook Keep up with the posts on X ----- Transcript: Trevor Freeman 00:07 Hi, welcome to thinkenergy podcast that dives into the fast changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators and people on the frontlines of the energy transition. Join me, Trevor Freeman, as I explore the traditional, unconventional and even up and coming facets of the energy industry. If you've got thoughts, feedback or ideas for topics that we should cover, we'd love to hear from you. Please reach out to us at thinkenergy@ hydroottawa.com. Hi, everyone, this is Trevor Freeman here. This is my first official show without the training wheels. Just as a reminder, your regular host, Dan, is hanging up the lapel mic, actually, it's a big giant microphone - go bigger go home, I guess. And I'm stepping in to try and fill his shoes. The consistent thing though, is that the goal of the show continues to be to explore the fast changing world of energy through conversations with smart people doing cool things. Today on the show, we're going to talk about the energy workforce of the future. So this show is featured a number of conversations about the energy transition, which is arguably already underway. And this massive shift will really be the defining feature of this sector for at least the next couple of decades. Like any other massive project or societal change, in order to do it properly. We need great people. We need smart, passionate people in all areas of the sector to help us move forward into uncharted territory. A career in energy is really an exciting, dynamic pathway and a great way to contribute to meaningful change. But obviously, I'm a little biased, so I wanted to talk to two people who are earlier in their journey. It's great timing for this conversation because March is both National Engineering Month here in Canada, and we've just celebrated International Women's Day. Joining me today are two smart, young engineering interns working in the energy space. Alana Jones has had a number of roles with Hydro Ottawa, and currently works for Envari Energy Solutions, a Hydro Ottawa affiliate. Priscilla Lacerda joined Hydro Ottawa as an intern last year, Alana and Priscilla, welcome to the show. Alana Jones 02:10 Hi, Trevor. Thanks for having us. Priscilla Lacerda 02:12 Hi, Trevor. Thank you. Trevor Freeman 02:14 Alright, let's get started by learning a little bit about you both. Priscilla, why don't we start with you? Could you tell us a little bit about where you went to school and what you studied and really how you ended up working in the energy sector? Priscilla Lacerda 02:25 Sure. So I'm originally from Brazil and completed my studies there. I have a Bachelor in Electrical Engineering and an MBA Diploma in Business Management. While I was at the university, I tended to work in an affiliated company and spent around six and a half years there. Eventually, I decided to immigrate to Canada. And because I used to work in energy fields in my home country, I researched a lot about Hydro Ottawa and ended up being selected to work as an engineering intern last year. Trevor Freeman 02:54 That's great. Well, I'm glad that we got you to join us from Brazil. And I think your experience in you know, both in Brazil's energy sector as well as here in Canada is going to be really beneficial both for you and for us. Alana, maybe the same question for you. Tell us a little bit about how you got started in the energy sector. Alana Jones 03:12 Yeah, so I studied chemical engineering. I come from a large mining community. And that was the initial plan to work as a metallurgical engineer. However, once I graduated, I was a young 20 year old looking for a more exciting city than Sudbury Ontario had to offer. So I relocated to Ottawa. My brother was here, and I've always loved this city. I realized pretty quickly, however, that it was a lot harder to find a role in chemical engineering than it was in Sudbury. So I started working in restaurants and pubs to pay the bills. Plus, it was fun, the money was great. But fast forward five years, and I knew that I needed to actually use my degree and find a career. So I really liked Ottawa, I knew I wanted to stay here. I just didn't really know how to make that happen. So I contemplated Teachers College. And then one day on the radio, I heard about an exciting opportunity. It was a program that Algonquin College was running to get more women into the trades. They were calling on women with engineering science or math degrees to take their fast tracked electrical engineering technologists program. So the perks were wonderful. They offered free laptops, work boots, and what I found most appealing was an opportunity for a Co-Op with a local utility. So I ended up doing my four month Co-Op with Hydro One. And it was a great way to break into the industry and actually see the utility business and how it was run. And that same year I graduated from the program at Algonquin I got hired on as any it with Hydro Ottawa, so I feel like everything just worked out really well. Trevor Freeman 04:41 Awesome. It's great to hear about the different kinds of unique pathways that people take to get to where they are on them. That's not unique to the energy sector but still interesting to hear. So let's dive a little bit deeper into what you guys do today. Alana will stick with you. Help us understand what it is you do in your role and you know, tie that back to how that relates to your engineering studies? Alana Jones 05:02 Sure, my current role is with the Envari electrical team. My main focus is electric vehicle infrastructure projects and energy studies for buildings. As you know, there's a massive push for electrification of vehicles. And the government has mandated that all vehicles sold as of 2035 will be electric. So we see huge numbers of people wanting to get a head start on having that infrastructure available to support their future EV needs. We work with government agencies, many car dealerships, condo, apartment buildings, airports, even companies looking to convert their full fleets over. So my role is to perform the initial assessment on a building to determine if they have enough electric capacity to install any EV chargers at all, and what their options are as far as installation size and what that would look like with respect to their building layout. Our team helps provide guidance on the type of charger and system that would be most suitable for their needs. And there really are so many options, whether it's fast charging, or rapid charging, or if they want to allow public use or private so you get into a whole list of options that clients often need guidance on. And sometimes we actually see that buildings don't have enough capacity to support their electric vehicle infrastructure needs. And as one example, if the transformers are too small to support additional power loads, in that case, we can recommend a service upgrade to get them where they need to be for future electrification. Sometimes, that means designing a surface upgrade before charger installation to ensure that the building will have enough power to support the needs. And that means sizing the service accurately as well to reflect the current and projected needs. So these are expensive upgrades we're talking about. And they should last decades to come. The last thing you want to do as an engineer is install something too small, to find out 10 years down the road that the building needs more power, or if you oversize a service, it ends up just costing much more than it needs to. And I guess the last part of my role is the actual implementation of these chargers. So once any service upgrade is done if it's needed, the group can begin managing the installation, so sourcing the chargers and electrical contractor to do the work. And a big part of my role is making sure all parties are kept in the loop and the project remains on time and budget so that it can be as simple as possible for the client. Trevor Freeman 07:09 Great. Thanks for that. We'll come back to that in a minute. But Priscilla, over to you, kind of the same question. Tell us about what you do specifically and kind of how that relates to your engineering experience. Priscilla Lacerda 07:21 Yeah, so basically, I prepare and maintain a portfolio of business performance measures for our electricity distribution division. Alongside my supervisor, we identify opportunities to improve internal and external processes, and also analyze financial data. As you are well aware of, as a utility, we are regulated by the Ontario Energy Board. So it's imperative to keep our processes and analysis well documented. And that's the importance of my role and department and how it relates to my engineering studies. Trevor Freeman 07:51 Great. I mean, those are just two examples that you guys both gave about, you know, the number of different roles within the utility sector. And it's a, you know, a pretty wide range of things that have to happen in order for us to deliver the service that we do and make sure that we're providing value for our customers. So thanks for that. Maybe kind of a follow up question on that. Anything that surprised you so far in your role here at Hydro Ottawa, and Envari, for you, Alana. Alana Jones 08:20 Um, I would say the most surprising thing I've found is that everyone really wants you to succeed. I've been really, really lucky in my various roles, having managers and supervisors with a ton of experience to be able to coach me and support me in whatever ways they can. Our group at Envari is so diverse in their knowledge and backgrounds. So they offer, each person offers a specific skill set that they're willing to share with everyone. And anytime I need help or support, there's always someone willing to take that time out of their own busy schedule to support me. And I really love that. I mean, sometimes we spend more time with our co-workers than our own families. So I think it's important to have a nice working environment and to feel supported. And I've been lucky enough to have had that experience throughout my career. Trevor Freeman 09:02 Great. That's awesome to hear. Priscilla, what about you? Priscilla Lacerda 09:04 To be honest with you, in my specific case, because most of my experience was in my home country, one surprise that I had was that here in Canada, each province regulates its electrical system separately, and has their own model. While in Brazil, all the utilities are nationally regulated by one energy board. Trevor Freeman 09:22 Yeah, it's certainly a complex landscape that I think, you know, folks outside of the sector don't always appreciate and you know, they don't need to worry about that, because we worry about it, but it is a complex regulatory sector. So Priscilla will stay with you. I'd like to dive a little bit deeper into your role in what you do. You talked about your role in reporting on grid performance. So that's our outage and reliability reporting, as well as financial reporting related to grid operations. Tell us why that's important for a distribution company like Hydro Ottawa. Priscilla Lacerda 09:55 As I mentioned before, Hydro Ottawa is regulated by the Ontario Energy Board, so it's crucial to maintain a reliable and cost effective grid. Our primary objective as a distribution company is with the customers. As we continually strive to improve performance for our customers, we need to maintain quality data to derive critical business insights and make informed business decisions. Trevor Freeman 10:18 Great. So following up on that, do you see, you know, smart technology or AI or anything else coming in and, you know, changing the way that we report in the future? Priscilla Lacerda 10:31 Yes, I see smart technologies and the blockchain is doing proof predictive analysis, and also anticipating potential issues and trends in the grid performance. Also, smart grids enable real time monitoring of various aspects of grid operations. And that's extremely beneficial as it will provide more up to date data. Trevor Freeman 10:52 Great. Alana, we're gonna jump over to you here and kind of do the same thing, dig a little bit deeper into what your previous answer was. So you mentioned things like EV charging infrastructure for some of our customers that own large buildings. Are you seeing more of our customers look to what we might call, you know, emerging technologies to meet their own needs or the needs of their own customers or building occupants? Alana Jones 11:15 Yeah, good question. We are seeing many, many people come to us to see what their options are for the implementation of EV chargers. If you are an EV driver looking to buy a condo in the city, having that infrastructure at home to charge is a must. And every year more and more people are driving EVs. So definitely, I would say building owners are looking to the future of electrification of vehicles and accommodating their building occupants. And we also see a huge push from dealerships to get chargers installed, whether they have requirements they need to meet, or whether they want to be the ones to get their hands on the latest EV models first. They are really interested in having that infrastructure already in place to accommodate current and future needs for it. There's also a goal, I think, not to be behind the eight ball when the time comes. And when everyone is rushing to get it done. So 2035 isn't that far away. And year after year, the increase in EV sales jumps, so getting your establishment ready for that, I think, is a must. And the last bit is funding. It's a huge early adoption incentive and government funding isn't going to be around forever. And as a company, we're able to secure a ton of funding for our clients. And it really drives down the cost of these easy installation projects. Trevor Freeman 12:25 Geat. And you know, you can't really talk about EVs or electrification without you knowing, at least considering sustainability and climate goals. Do you find that your customers' goals when it comes to hitting a netzero target or just reducing emissions? Does that really impact the decisions they're making? And as a result, is that impacting your work? Alana Jones 12:44 Yeah, absolutely. I believe the government mandate that all passenger vehicles being sold as of 2035, must be electric. And I think 20% by 2026, has had a huge impact on our clients, specifically dealerships. And some don't have any infrastructure in place at all, or even the capacity for the EV needs we're finding. So if service upgrades are required, that pushes the timeline of getting these EV chargers installed further and further away. We're also noticing municipalities looking to get fleets electrified, as well as looking to have larger service vehicles converted over to evey and everyone knows it's coming. And for some, it's been kept on the back burner. But like I said, 2035 really isn't that far away. So as a company, we are definitely growing to meet the demand of our customers. And so that's really a good sign of things moving in the right direction. And we know ultimately, it'll be better for the environment. Right? If all passenger vehicles and eventually working vehicles move to electric, that's not a secret. I think overcoming insecurities around electric vehicles is a big hurdle that many of us still have to get over. And I think that as battery technology improves, more affordable models are available. And the increase in public use chargers which we see happening rapidly, more and more people will get on board what I'll call the EV train. Trevor Freeman 14:00 Right? Yeah, that's great to hear. Okay, I'm going to shift gears a little bit here. So both of you are closer to the beginning of your career. I'm curious about how your experience so far has influenced how you see your own future path within the energy industry or elsewhere. Priscilla, why don't we start with you. Priscilla Lacerda 14:18 Well, my current experience gives me a holistic view of the company, as it deals with different departments, which makes me think about pursuing a management career in the future. Trevor Freeman 14:29 And do you see that - like, so you're in the distribution, part of the business now and specifically focused on reporting? Is that kind of where you have your eye or are you looking at other parts of the business? Priscilla Lacerda 14:41 Well, working with distribution has always been rewarding for me. So I'd say I would like to continue to work with this. What makes me most fulfilled about the role that I'm currently playing is being able to help other departments identify possibilities for improvement in existing or new processes. Trevor Freeman 14:59 Great, Alana, what about you? Alana Jones 15:02 Um, I believe it's a really exciting time to be an engineer working in the energy sector, there are new and emerging technologies. It's fast paced, and there is an abundance of work to be done. I'm just excited to be a part of it. Um, the industry isn't going anywhere. And like I said, it's growing rapidly. So having the experience to work alongside some really bright people on the bleeding edge of these technologies, is a really great opportunity. And hopefully, I'll have a career in this for years to come. Trevor Freeman 15:30 Awesome. So I'm curious to hear from both of you. What do you think are some of the biggest challenges facing the energy industry right now? And Alana will let you kick that off? Alana Jones 15:41 Yeah. I think one major challenge is having the infrastructure to support the electrification of buildings, homes, and all vehicles is a huge endeavor. And the grid needs to drastically increase in size and be ready to accommodate these future loads. And the pathway to net zero is a huge undertaking, and it will be challenging to achieve that, I believe. That's not to say it's not doable, but it's definitely a challenge and a massive investment. That being said, it's important to note that electrification changes are not happening all at once. Not everyone is switching to EV at the same time, or getting their buildings or homes all to net zero all at once. So I do believe that the Canadian grid is capable of growing gradually alongside those changes to be able to adapt. Trevor Freeman 16:27 Great, Priscilla, what do you think? Priscilla Lacerda 16:29 Well, one of the challenges the energy sector is facing right now is the urgency to meet the decarbonisation, and net zero... /episode/index/show/thinkenergy/id/30388568

Passing the mic: meet the new host of thinkenergy 03/04/2024

Passing the mic: meet the new host of thinkenergy Thinkenergy launched May 2019, with host Dan Séguin leading the charge to demystify the fast-changing world of energy. From helping Canadians better understand the sector to sharing insights from industry leaders and experts, Dan is a key reason why thinkenergy is the podcast for conversations around the future of energy. In his last episode as host, Dan passes the mic to Trevor Freeman, Supervisor, Key Accounts at Hydro Ottawa. Listen in as they share favourite episodes, what’s to come and more. Related links Daniel Séguin on LinkedIn: Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: Hydro Ottawa: To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thinkenergy/id1465129405 To subscribe using Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7wFz7rdR8Gq3f2WOafjxpl To subscribe on Libsyn: http://thinkenergy.libsyn.com/ --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: https://www.youtube.com/user/hydroottawalimited Follow along on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hydroottawa Stay in the know on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HydroOttawa Keep up with the posts on X: --- Dan Seguin 00:06 This is thinkenergy, the podcast that helps you better understand the fast changing world of energy through conversations with game changers, industry leaders, and influencers. So join me, Dan Seguin, as I explore both traditional and unconventional facets of the energy industry. Hey, everyone, welcome back. Today's show is going to be a little different. This is a bittersweet episode of thick energy podcasts. Today marks the end of an era for me on this incredible journey through the world of energy. It's been an honor and a privilege to share stories, insights, and innovations with all of you these many years on the show. But as they say, all good things must come to an end. Today, I'm excited to introduce you to the new Captain steering this ship into the future, someone who is just as passionate and knowledgeable about the energy sector than I am, maybe a little more. So. Without further ado, please join me in welcoming your new host of the think energy podcast. Trevor Freeman. Trevor, welcome to the show. Trevor Freeman 01:21 Thanks very much, Dan. And thanks for having me on and entrusting me with this project. I just want to start by recognizing all the hard work that you and your team have put into building thinkenergy into what it is today. It's a great community of listeners who are enthusiastic and curious about all things energy related. I've really enjoyed following along. And I'm thrilled to be joining the think energy team as we continue to explore this dynamic and ever changing world of energy at this really critical time in our industry. Dan Seguin 01:50 Trevor, for our listeners, perhaps you can tell us about yourself, your expertise in the energy sector in short, what is your role now? And how did you get here? Trevor Freeman 02:02 Sure. So I'm an environmental engineer who has been in the sustainability and energy field for about 14 years now. Right when I graduated out of university, I spent about four years working in international development and water and sanitation. But I'm coming back home to Canada I decided to explore this passion for sustainability and environmental improvement. And I made the shift to working in green building design and energy management. I worked in consulting and helping building owners primarily commercial real estate, improve their buildings, reduce energy consumption and costs, and incorporate sustainable thinking into their day to day business operations. I joined Hydro Ottawa about eight years ago now, first working on our conservation and demand management team, before making the jump over to our key accounts team, which I now lead. As the leader of the key accounts team, we support some of our largest commercial customers with all things related to energy, we're here to be their trusted advisors, whether that's routine questions or access to various services that Hydro Ottawa offers, or looking ahead, as more and more of our customers start to plan their own decarbonisation, or energy transition pathways. It's really a great role that helps my team and I really understand the needs and drivers of our customers, which are ultimately the end users of the energy that gets talked about on this podcast so often, that understanding helps Hydro Ottawa plan to meet the needs of those customers moving forward. Dan Seguin 03:37 Okay, aside from fame and fortune, what drew you to take on this role of hosting the podcast? Trevor Freeman 03:45 Well, I mean, since I can't talk about the first two, which are really the main drivers. In addition to being an engineer, I'm actually really passionate about communicating complex items. I know the term 'good communication' is not always associated with engineers, and I'm allowed to make that joke. But I really do enjoy having, you know, those tough conversations about complex and technical topics, whether that's how the grid works, to the changing landscape and technologies associated with energy to simply how does your electricity bill work? Or how does a building mechanical system work? I really enjoy having those conversations. And this seems like a great opportunity. So that plus seeing all the great conversations you've been able to have over the past years, with some really fantastic folks who are doing really great things, made it an easy decision to step into the role when the opportunity arose. Dan Seguin 04:37 Very cool, Trevor, sorry, but I'm gonna put you on the spot here. Do you have any favorite episodes of rhe thinkenergy podcast that resonate with you? Trevor Freeman 04:48 Sure. I'm actually going to cheat here, Dan, and give you three but I promise I'll be quick. So the first one is an episode that you did about residential heat pumps, with our mutual colleague Sean Carr. So I'm a little bit biased in this one because not only do I know Shawn story very well, but I actually went through my own heat pump journey about four years ago when I installed the hybrid heating system and my own house. And I think the more we talk about the benefits and the challenges of electrifying home heating, the easier we make that step for everyone else, who's going to be doing it as well. The second one I'm going to pick is your interview with Hydro Ottawa's CEO, Bryce Conrad, about our own netzero ambitions as an organization. So folks can go back and listen for themselves. But as a member of the Hydro Ottawa team, I was really inspired by the ambition and the drive to be a leader, and commit to something bold and lofty, even though we don't necessarily have all the answers about exactly how we're going to get there. And finally, I really loved your conversation with Dr. Monica Gettinger about the conversation we need to have around the future of energy, specifically her Positive Energy Program. As someone who is really passionate about taking action around climate change. I'm all too aware that as much as we finally seem to be getting some consensus that climate change is indeed a problem, there's still a lot of polarizing views about how to address the issue and how fast to move. Dr. Gettinger's work on building consensus and having a constructive dialogue was really refreshing to hear and made me really optimistic about where we can go with this. Dan Seguin 06:22 Cool. Okay, now, what excites you about the future of energy? Trevor Freeman 06:28 Yeah, I think this is a really great time to be in the energy fields, things feel like they're changing rapidly. And it seems like we're on the cusp of a real evolution of how we power our lives and our society. Whether it's what kind of energy we use - clean energy versus emissions producing energy, where that energy comes from, you know, centrally produced versus distributed, and how much control over that energy, the end users. So that's the homes and the businesses have through things like self generation and storage and smart technology. And that's not even talking about how that smart technology and AI is going to impact all of the above. So above all, I think I'm really excited to be working in an industry. That's really one of the major tools we have as a society to combat climate change. Electricity, while not the only answer is a major avenue for decarbonisation, and I really love being a part of that. Dan Seguin 07:28 Okay, Trevor, are there any topics or themes from your experience that you'd like to explore further on show? What can our listeners expect? Trevor Freeman 07:38 Honestly, Dan, I hope it's more of the same as what you've been doing over these past years. So that's talking to smart folks who are doing really cool things in the energy industry, especially around decarbonisation, and the energy transition that includes helping demystify some of those more complex topics for our listeners, you know, how does this big machine that we call the electricity grid in the energy industry? How does that all work? And what does it mean for our consumers, and then getting into the weeds on the energy transition, whether that's specific technologies or policy ideas, or more likely a mix of the both because you really can never have one without the other? Dan Seguin 08:16 Very cool. Thanks, Trevor. Trevor Freeman 08:19 Thank you, Dan. So I think this is the part where I get to take over. Now your listeners will know that you've been sitting behind the microphone for a number of years now, but I don't think anybody has ever interviewed you. So let's take this opportunity to ask you a couple of questions. So first of all, I was thinking maybe you could take us back to the beginning and tell us what inspired you to start this podcast? Dan Seguin 08:43 Well, our first podcast for those who don't remember, it was released in May of 2019. The topic was Microgeneration, wow! Ee explored the possibility, back then, of turning your home into your own virtual power plant. Now, the reason why we dove into podcasting was driven by the fact that we were looking for a product a platform that could help demystify maybe better understand the fast changing world of energy. We were looking for a product where we could maybe better shape the narrative, you know, by leveraging influencers and subject matter expert. It provided us with greater ability if you want to maximize the reach of the podcast, but also its amplification. Also, working with a captive audience like minded people, is much easier. Finally, another reason we gravitated to podcasting was to deal with info obesity, great term here, you know, cluster and noise on channels is constantly increasing and customer attention span is shrinking. So podcasts were convenient and very easy to consume. They're poor. audible. You can listen to them in a gym, drive to work or even on a plane. So it was a great choice for us to do and it worked very well. Now, if I look back five years, I think that podcasts have been extremely sticky. This long form content, basically had a great listen rate. And for us, I think we did good. Trevor Freeman 10:24 Great. Thanks, Dan. I can tell already that I've got a lot to learn on the communication side of things and marketing what we do here. On the podcast, do you have a favorite moment or more than one from doing the show that you want to share a favorite episode or something that really stands out and encapsulates the essence of think energy? Dan Seguin 10:45 So you're asking me to pick my favorite child? That's a tough one. Okay. Well, I think the one that comes into mind is the episode with a disaster volunteer from the Canadian Red Cross. As we all know, we've experienced a pandemic, a number of natural disasters in the last couple of years, devastating wind storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, freezing rain, forest fires and floods. And when disaster strikes, electricity supply is usually jeopardized. So during these large scale, emergencies, emergency response becomes critical. And in this interview, we explored what it's like to be a Canadian Red Cross volunteer with boots on the ground during a disaster. It's a very cool episode. Trevor Freeman 11:36 Over the past number of years of doing this, what has been the most significant change or changes and developments in the energy sector that you've seen? Dan Seguin 11:44 I think it's the acknowledgement of reducing our environmental footprint, the commitment to provide innovative sustainable solutions, things like achieving net zero operations. Also, climate change, coupled with the push for electrification is now driving a lot of innovation and change in our sector. What comes to mind is that greater push towards renewable energy, expanding access to EV infrastructure, as zero emission with public transit, there's a lot going on. And let's not forget the evolution of customers. They are no longer passive consumers of electricity, some of them are now becoming prosumers, managing, generating and selling their energy. So the energy landscape is in a constant flux. And it's going to be an exciting ride. Trevor Freeman 12:40 So as I sit here, behind the microphone on this side of the desk, what advice do you have for me taking on this podcasts around that ever evolving world of energy? Dan Seguin 12:50 This is not going to be long winded. Always make sure the content provides value for the audience. You must be audience driven. Be curious, and have fun. That's it. Trevor Freeman 13:04 Perfect. Sounds easy. So Dan, as you step away from hosting, what comes next? Are we going to be competing for podcast listeners or what's in your future? Dan Seguin 13:12 Not at all. I'll be spending a lot more time with my wife. I'm going to continue my karate journey. I'm going to master pickleball my word. I want to do bike rail trails across Canada in the US. And I'm looking forward to joining the ever growing generation of snowbirds in Florida. While renovating my condo in Naples and enjoying the beach. Trevor Freeman 13:40 As long as you put some solar on that condo, Dan, I think that sounds like an awesome plan. So finally, just to wrap it all up again, our regular listeners will know that you have subjected your guests to some on the spot rapid fire questions. And again, I don't think you've ever answered them yourselves. So I think it's time that we get to hear what your answers to those questions would be. So are you ready? Dan Seguin 14:03 I am. Trevor Freeman 14:04 Here we go. What are you reading right now? Dan Seguin 14:07 Right now I'm reading Forever Young by Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. It's a book on strategies for aging. Trevor Freeman 14:13 Well, sounds appropriate given your coming retirement. So what would you name your boat if you had one? And do you have one? Dan Seguin 14:21 I do not. I used to have a pontoon boat when I lived by the lake, but I would call it now, I think, Gilligan. Trevor Freeman 14:29 Who is someone that you admire? Dan Seguin 14:31 Hands down my life partner, my better half, France, my wife. Trevor Freeman 14:35 I know that if I'd have asked you to name two people, I would have been number two. Dan Seguin 14:38 Oh, absolutely. Trevor Freeman 14:39 I know that like many of us, you are probably guilty of watching a lot more Netflix and streaming platforms over the last number of years. So what's your favorite movie or show? Dan Seguin 14:49 Okay, well, the best Netflix series hands down is Peaky Blinders. And for me the best movies I'll go with three. The Godfather, Memento and Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. 15:03 Well Dan, I think we've reached the end of this transition episode of the thinkenergy podcast. Thanks again for pulling me in and then trusting this with me. And thanks for sharing a little bit about your life with us today. Dan Seguin 15:16 Very cool. Thank you very much. Trevor Freeman 15:18 And finally, what excites you about the energy industry right now? Dan Seguin 15:22 Well, I think I alluded to this earlier, I think what's exciting me is seeing how the electricity grid, how utilities across North America will cope with a millions of EVs should be interesting. Trevor Freeman 15:36 You'll have to come back in Dan and check in on things in a year or two. And we've got it all figured out. No doubt. So Dan, I think that's it. I think we've reached the end of this transition episode of the thinkenergy podcast. Thanks again for having me on for entrusting this with me, and for sharing a little bit about your insights and your life with us on this episode. Dan Seguin 15:58 Thank you, Trevor. There you have it, folks, thank you all for being part of this amazing community. And I look forward to tuning in now as a listener. From now on. This is Dan Seguinsigning off and passing the microphone over to Mr. Trevor Freeman. Trevor Freeman 16:17 Thanks, Dan. It's been a pleasure. Dan Seguin 16:20 Thanks for tuning in for another episode of The thinkenergy podcast. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review where ever you're listening. And to find out more about today's guests or previous episodes, visit thinkenergypodcast.com I hope you'll join us again next time as we spark even more conversations about the energy of tomorrow. /episode/index/show/thinkenergy/id/30187868

Rewind Episode: Coming Clean About a Clean Electricity Future 02/19/2024

Rewind Episode: Coming Clean About a Clean Electricity Future Rewind episode: The pressure to tackle pollution and climate change is increasing, as countries worldwide are eliminating greenhouse gases and moving away from fossil fuels. This shift towards a cleaner future has a lot of moving parts, especially as it relates to cleaning Canada’s energy sector. Merran Smith, founder and Chief Innovation Officer at Clean Energy Canada, joins us to talk about whether Canada can affordably and realistically accelerate our clean energy transition to reach our net zero goals. Related links LinkedIn, Merran Smith: LinkedIn, Clean Energy Canada: Clean Energy Canada: To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: To subscribe using Spotify: To subscribe on Libsyn: --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: Check out our cool pics on More to Learn on Keep up with the posts on X: ---- Trancript: Dan Seguin 00:06 This is thinkenergy, the podcast that helps you better understand the fast changing world of energy through conversations with game changers, industry leaders, and influencers. So join me, Dan Seguin, as I explore both traditional and unconventional facets of the energy industry. Hey, everyone, welcome back. Today, we're coming clean about what clean energy could look like in the near future. That's right. And with the help of our guests, we're going to define what clean energy means, specifically for Canada and the future of electricity. There is a rising pressure around the globe to transition away from fossil fuels, eliminate greenhouse gases, and challenge the status quo when it comes to pollution and tackling climate change. What does that mean for Canada and our place in a clean energy world? Obviously, there's a lot of moving parts when it comes to cleaning Canada's energy sector, particularly when it comes to transportation, and heating of our buildings. But there's more to it than just that. There's renewable energy, revamping and expanding the electricity grid and conserving energy. Not to mention innovation and technology that doesn't exist yet. That will all play a role in getting us to Canada's Net Zero targets. So here's today's big question. Can Canada affordably and realistically accelerate its transition to clean energy in time? Our guest today is Marren Smith, Founder and Chief Innovation Officer at Clean Energy Canada is a leading Think Tank, advancing clean energy and climate solutions. Marren has won numerous awards for her work and also serves as co chair of the BC government's Climate Solutions Council. Okay, Marren, let's kick things off by telling our listeners about yourself, your work, and what Clean Energy Canada is. Marren Smith 02:23 Yeah, so I'll start with Clean Energy Canada, we're a think tank based at Simon Fraser University's Center for dialogue. And we focus on solutions to accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy. And so what do we actually do? You know, we do think tank things like analysis and policy advice. But what makes us really different is that one, we focus on the solutions, not the problems, all about solutions to we really like to bring together business industry unions, get everybody in the room and see if we can get consensus around the advice to governments so that they can move solutions forward faster. And thirdly, what we do is we do a lot of talking to Canadians about the energy transition, how it links to jobs, to a nick strong economy and more affordability. And so we think of ourselves actually as a do tank and not a think tank. And myself, I'm a fellow at Simon Fraser University, I founded Clean Energy Canada, I'm now moved on, I'm no longer the Executive Director. I'm the Chief Innovation Officer. And I had been asked over the years, in the last 10 years doing this work, to co chair a number of Climate and Energy advisory bodies for both the federal and British Columbia governments. And I think that's because I have a pretty long track record of bringing together unusual allies around solutions to environmental energy and economy problems. So that's a bit about me. Dan Seguin 04:09 Now, I'm somewhat curious, how does Clean Energy Canada define clean energy? Is it in relation to zero emissions? Or is there more to it than that? Marren Smith 04:22 Yeah, so for us, we talk about clean energy spanning both energy supply. So renewable electricity, for example, solar, wind, thermal, but also demand. And so our definition of clean energy includes, like, as I said, renewable electricity generation, but also energy storage, energy transmission, energy efficiency, and any of the technologies or services that decarbonize transportation buildings in these and other polluting parts of our economy. So we have a fairly large definition of clean energy. And you know it really, when you look at it, that is what energy is all about. It's not just about making the energy. It's about how you use it and the technology so that you can use it more efficiently. Dan Seguin 05:18 Clean Energy Canada has been advocating for climate action since 2010; 12 years in what are three positive changes that have made the biggest impact in Canada? And what is one that has hindered success? Marren Smith 05:37 Yeah, this is a great question. So the three positive changes that I see is, one, the cost of these clean energy technologies have dropped significantly. So the the solutions are cheaper. Secondly, is that we've really moved past the climate debate in Canada. And thirdly, is electric vehicles. And I just want to talk a bit about each of those if that's okay, so the costs of clean energy technologies, many people don't understand that. Over this last decade, the cost of solar has dropped yet again, it's dropped another 90%. Over those last decade, the cost of batteries, which are the heart of an electric vehicle have dropped about 90%, wind has dropped about 40%. And so, you know, a dozen years ago, clean energy Canada was talking about this is coming, we need to prepare Canada needs to be aware as an oil and gas producer, we need to be looking at this clean energy transition. But now, it's here, these technologies are ready for primetime. And the eccotemp economic opportunities are there to create jobs here in Canada around those clean energies. So that's significant. Um, the second one is I think we've all lived through and seen in the news, this debate about whether Canada should be acting on climate, whether it's real, whether Canada has any responsibility, whether it's feasible. And that's now become a real global conversation. And there's a clear message globally that we need to act now. And, you know, we've had over this last six years, federal government, with the leadership that's aligning with those global efforts to act on climate. And in fact, this federal government has created the first climate plan that Canada's had to meet our climate targets, and they're now really putting it into action. And so that's been a significant and positive shift that we're actually moving to action. And thirdly, is around electric vehicles. And, you know, I just have to say them specifically. Because, in my observation, they really show Canadians what the transition looks like. It kind of looks like what it used to be, you know, an electric vehicle and a gas fired vehicle, they look pretty similar. But people are seeing how much better they are that they are more affordable to drive, and especially the today's price of gas, you know, if you're plugging in and charging your car, you know, your Chevy Bolt and getting 400 kilometers for somewhere, you know, depending on where you live in Canada, five to ten dollars versus what it's costing to fill up your car that's significant. So electric vehicles and how fast they have come online, how we have seen, the manufacturers shift is to go from, we're resisting this to this as the future we want to be out in front and competing to be the ones who are going to be producing them. So that dramatic shift, it's really showing how we can link this decarbonisation climate action with the economy, that our industries can be successful and that we can really move forward towards netzero towards decarbonisation towards cleaner energies. And, you know, continue with a strong economy if we do at night, right if we act now. And I guess Lastly, about electric vehicles, it's for anybody who hasn't gotten in one yet, you really should, because they're pretty fun to drive. And that's what we want this energy transition to be. We want it to be make life better. And I think electric vehicles are just one way that people can see how, you know, once you get over the hurdle of purchasing one, it does make life better, cleaner air, more affordable to drive. Now, you asked the other question, what's hindered success? And I would say what's really hindered Canada's movement on all of this has been the debate and the governments that have really ripped up climate action or refused to move forward on climate action. And, you know, that's created uncertainty. So we've seen various governments in Ontario in Alberta, you know, federally across the country, I shouldn't just name those provinces, because across the country, governments who come in and who are not willing to take action on climate and really want to stick with the static quo. And that really creates a lot of uncertainty for business and doesn't drive the change. I'm really hopeful that we're not going to see that anymore. You know, now that we've seen this new inflation reduction act out of the United States, it is sending a clear signal that this is the biggest economic opportunity that there has been, you know, in this generation, absolutely. To drive and build this clean energy economy, they are investing heavily in it. And we're going to see in the United States, those kinds of investments happening all over the country, you know, in red states and blue states, blue collar workers are going to be you know, being employed in plants, white collar workers, rural urban, this, this is going to be a massive, massive growth for industries and the economy, in producing electricity producing batteries and producing all the component pieces towards them hydrogen, retrofitting buildings. So there is a huge boom coming. And I hope that in Canada, we actually see our government picking up on that as well and linking this decarbonisation with our economic strategy. Dan Seguin 11:55 Marren, what do you mean when you state that the Clean Energy Transition is a once in a generation opportunity for Canada to build a resilient, growing and inclusive economy? Marren Smith 12:10 Yeah, so we've just talked about how we're really seeing around the globe, you know, the United States, but we've been seeing this in the EU and the UK and China, this, you know, linking up their industrial strategy, their economic strategy, to their economic strategies. And so Canada really has what it takes to make this shift as well to, you know, take action on climate decarbonize and really shift from fossil fuels oriented economy to a clean energy or renewable energy economy. So we have the natural resources that are going to be needed, you know, those metals and minerals, for example, we're going to be needing that steel, that cobalt, that nickel to be building the transmission lines, the solar panels, and in particular, the batteries, which are really the heart of the clean energy system. So Canada has what it takes. And then secondly, we've got the clean electricity or grids about 83% clean or zero mission right now. We've got a skilled labor force. So that's what the opportunity is, it's going to be a massive effort for us to retool our existing industries and build some of these new industries. But we've got the potential to do it. Dan Seguin 13:40 Next question. Now, what makes Canada well positioned to be a global clean energy leader? Marren Smith 13:48 So Canada's got the natural resources that we talked about metals and minerals, forest products, agricultural products, we've got great solar and wind resources and a grid that's already at 3% zero emission. We have great potential for green hydrogen. And, you know, we've got great trading relationships with the US as well as Europe and Asia. So we are positioned to be creating clean energy and one of the things that we are uniquely positioned around our batteries. Batteries are going to be the heart of the energy system. So they're obviously the heart of the electric vehicle. But also, large scale batteries are going to be what backs up that intermittent or variable wind and solar and renewable energies, they're going to be a part of the system as well. And so Canada is the only country in the Western world. It's actually the only democratically elected country that has all the metals and minerals needed to produce batteries. So In addition, we've got the good clean electricity to actually manufacture those metals and minerals and turn them into, you know, refine them, turn them into cells and ultimately batteries. So we've got the key components there. And that one huge opportunity for Canada. And we're seeing you know, this federal government has been working with Ontario and Quebec and landing some significant battery company investments, you know, GM and Bay calm for this year, LG and still Lantus in Ontario. So that's I some of the key parts of why Canada is so well positioned to be a clean energy leader. Dan Seguin 15:45 Next question for you. What are the strategies you employ to achieve your mission to accelerate Canada's transition to a renewably powered economy? Marren Smith 15:56 Yeah, so one, I think that we work with businesses, industry unions, to understand what their needs are, you know, we're positioned at the Center for dialogue at Simon Fraser University. And so we use dialogue, bring people together, structure it so that we can have a deliberate conversation that gets us to advice for government. So that's one of the strategies we employ. A second one is, you know, we look around the world and we find out what policies are working elsewhere, what programs, what are other countries doing that's working? And what can we glean out of that, and use in the Canadian context, and feed that kind of information to governments and to industry about what they can do next? Because Kevin does not the only one doing this, and there's a lot of countries that are ahead of us on this. So let's learn from them, and Canadian eyes it. And then lastly, we really have an eye to bringing the public along with us in this conversation, ensuring that they understand the Clean Energy Transition exactly what does it mean, understand some of the policies when they get controversial? And understand what's in it for them? You know, and right now we're seeing a public that is got, you know, a lot of insecurity going on with the global state of affairs, the war in the Ukraine, you know, this energy prices escalating, there's a lot of misinformation going on. And so, actually having the public understand and see how they fit into the energy transition, and how it's going to make life better for them, is, I'd say, a very important part of the transition. And so we do what we can we actually study how to communicate with the public and study language, what works with them, what resonates and how to get the stories to them that are going to help them understand this energy transition, what they can do, and what they can support. Dan Seguin 18:06 Marren wondering if you could unpack for our listeners, what are some of the ways clean energy Canada has contributed to our country's progress in the last year or two? Marren Smith 18:19 Yeah, so we have been working hard over the last couple of years. And I'll tell you about some of the significant achievements that I think we've been part of making happen. So first is about electric vehicles, or zero emission vehicles, as they're called in some circles. We see these as a key part of the solution, and one that is getting ready for primetime. They're a key part of the solution, because one quarter of Canada's carbon pollution is from transportation. So we've got to tackle this and about half of it from passenger vehicles, half of it's from trucks and buses. And so we've been working on both sides of that equation. And one of the things that had become the barrier has been supply of cars. At this point, people want them and we're seeing the uptake of those cars, you know, double and triple year over year. And so how do you get the supply here and how you do that through a policy called the zero emission vehicle mandate that requires the automakers to sell them in, in Canada. And so that's one that we've been working on. We actually were successful in getting one in British Columbia. And you know, and I have to report to you that so far in 2022 17% of new car sales have been electric vehicles. So that just far outpaces what people predicted. I think we were trying to get to 10% by 2025. We've blown through that we've now increased our targets because clearly for Colombians are ready to buy them. And there's similar types of stats from Quebec, who also has a zero emission vehicle mandate. The challenge for the rest of the country, and you know, if you're in Ottawa, you're probably going and putting your name on the list. And it's multiple years, you might not even be able to get on the list anymore, because there just aren't any cars. And so we need a federal zero emission vehicle mandate that requires the companies to the automakers to sell electric vehicles in Canada, or they're penalized. So that's one thing that we've made good progress on and contributed to. One that I haven't talked much about, that I'll mention here is about the steel sector, the cement sector, these heavy industries that are also heavy polluters. And, you know, so that's another area we've been working on and looking for solutions. We're looking at, okay, much of this steel, cement, aluminum, it's all being used in the construction industry. So how do we get those who are building things and buying things to demand low carbon steel, low carbon cement, which will really help these industries put it'll push them to to decarbonize and so that program is called by clean. The biggest purchaser of steel and cement and, and these types of things in the country is the government and we've been working to get the government to commit to a bike clean policy. The really interesting thing is that the steel sector, the cement sector, the aluminum sector V, these sectors are really on board to decarbonizing, this is globally happening. We're seeing all of these industries recognize that they cannot be admitting the scale of pollution, they are right now they've got to reduce that carbon pollution get to net zero. And so, again, we're seeing progress on reducing emissions in that sector. And we're seeing, you know, the United States and Canada have actually said that they are going to work together on this bike lanes so that both countries are pushing that they will procure, they will only purchase low, lower carbon, steel, cement, etc, for building our hospital, roads, schools, and all those good things. So that's another one that I'd say we could say we've been involved with, and batteries, I've already talked about it. We've been involved in the batteries for the last few years, and bringing together that sector, from the mining sector, all the way up to battery producers and electric vehicle, you know, the automatic factoring companies like GM, and all the way to the recyclers, and working with government to get, you know, a battery strategy for Canada to really ensure that we lock in and land the most jobs and the most... /episode/index/show/thinkenergy/id/29984228

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