By Elizabeth Perrier

Why incentives:

Improving energy efficiency is one of the easiest and most cost effective ways to control energy costs for owners and tenants of buildings. Unfortunately, the owners of small and medium-sized buildings in the commercial and institutional sectors often lack the financial and technical resources to make energy improvements. Incentives help building owners and tenants overcome financial barriers and improve the energy efficiency of their operations. In addition to conserving energy, these incentive programs help owners and tenants reduce energy-related greenhouse gases (GHGs).

There is a wealth of different incentive programs. The tricky part is becoming aware of incentives, recognizing which ones are applicable, and the getting through the rigmarole of applying and getting approved. New incentive programs are constantly sprouting up and older ones are dropped. Time needs to be invested consistently to stay in the loop with new incentives. Generally, a good rule of thumb is to not design your business activities around an incentive program. It is important to address your internal needs and then invest in seeking incentives that work with your long term goal. There are cases, through effective communication, where incentive providers (government or utility) will bend to suit your needs. The main struggle in applying for any program is trying to speak the language of incentive provider. It is useful to have someone experienced with the particular grant to assist you in the program. It is not worth the intellectual capital to learn all the ins and outs of a program for just one application. Chances are you will miss something and jeopardize the funding.

Natural Resources Canada's Office of Energy Efficiency offers a number of incentives programs covering retrofits, assessments, renewable power, and solar water and air heating systems across the country. These programs are geared towards small to medium size commercial, multi residential, institutional and industrial buildings.

Many provinces offer their own unique programs. More will be forthcoming as the provincial premiers committed to achieving a 20 per cent increase in energy efficiency in their provinces by 2020 at their recent conference.

So far this year applications are being accepted for programs based in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, and British Colombia. Each program has it own set of criteria and are usually offered through regional electric or natural gas utilities. Incentive programs that provide financial incentives consider a range of energy efficient improvements including building automation systems, lighting, boilers, monitoring and tracking, and solar.

Provincial incentive programs:

New Brunswick offers an incentive program through the New Brunswick Energy Efficiency and Conservation Agency which assists existing commercial building owners and operators in making their buildings more energy efficient, reducing operating and maintenance costs, and improving the quality of their facilities.

Nova Scotia programs are offered by Nova Scotia Power and Heritage Gas. Nova Scotia Power offers a rebate on the installation cost of a solar water heating system for residential or commercial buildings. Heritage Gas offers The Natural Gas Equipment Program through which financial incentives encourage energy consumers to convert their existing space and water heating equipment, as well as laundry, cooking and processing equipment, to natural gas.

Quebec has incentives from Hydro Quebec, Gaz Metro, and Gazifere encouraging customers to implement an immense number of energy saving practices such as boiler upgrades, lighting, motor, monitoring and tracking, and studies in order to save energy.

Manitoba has many different programs offered by Manitoba Hydro that cover building envelopes, lighting, boiler systems, commercial kitchen appliances, monitoring and tracking, studies, and geothermal power.

British Colombia incentive programs are offered through BC Hydro, Terasen, and Fortis BC. and cover lighting, motors, monitoring and tracking, and boilers.

There is a panoply of businesses that have benefited from these programs including bakeries, cinemas, grocery stores, restaurants, apartment buildings, colleges, offices, and manufacturers.

Ontario’s latest incentive opportunity:

The newest Ontario incentive program is offered by Enbridge in partnership with the Ontario Power Authority (OPA). Their High Performance New Construction Program (HPNC) provides significant financial incentives for design assistance studies outside the 416 area code in Ontario. It compliments programs currently offered by BOMA, The City of Toronto and the ERIP incentives offered by Local Electricity Distribution Companies.

This new program is designed for new construction or additions and major renovation projects that exceed the Model National Energy Code for Buildings (MNECB) in terms of energy performance. It helps building owners offset the costs of designing more energy efficient buildings for commercial, institutional or multi-family use and provides an incentive for electrical energy savings. Applicants can receive up to $10,000 toward the cost of building simulations and up to $400/kw of reduced electrical demand as determined by energy modeling. Married with this incentive program is the Design Advisory Program (DAP) offered by both Enbridge Gas and Union Gas. It is a fixed incentive of $4,000 for design activities aimed at improving a building's energy and environmental performance.

Not all buildings will be eligible. To qualify a building must be a new structure, a new addition to an existing structure, a major renovation that converts the building to another use, a renovation that results in the building being inaccessible for at least thirty days or the replacement of a least two building systems. The design for the building must comply with Part Three of the Ontario Building Code (OBC) of 2006. The savings in energy from the design must come from a more energy efficient building rather than from energy substitution.

This program is a great addition to incentive programs being offered currently in Ontario. Building owners located outside the Toronto area will be able to take advantage funding that allows them to not only save on energy bills for years to come, but to construct energy efficient buildings that reduce energy-related greenhouse gases and air pollution.