On behalf of the Town of…

On behalf of the Town of Caledon, I would like to present our submission as part of Ontario's Long-term Energy Plan Review.

 

The Town's submission is organized around eight themes and includes comments made by staff for consideration by the Province as the 2017 Long-term Energy Plan is developed . The comments include recommendations that we hope will help to set the direction for Ontario's energy future for the next 20 years. The Town of Caledon has taken a progressive approach to environmental leadership, and we would encourage the Ministry to consider the expertise of our staff to help improve this important Plan.

 

At the regular meeting of Council held on November 29, 2016, Council adopted a resolution regarding the 2017 Ontario Long Term Energy Plan Discussion Guide: Town Comments. The resolution reads as follows:

 

That Staff Report 2016-151 regarding the 2017 Ontario Long Term Energy Plan Discussion Guide: Town Comments, be received; and

 

That Schedule A of Staff Report 2016-151 be forwarded to the Cabinet Liaison and Strategic Policy Coordinator at the Ministry of Energy as the Town's comments regarding the 2017 Ontario Long Term Energy Plan Discussion Guide.

 

The Town would also like to note that it is supportive of the Region of Peel’s comments with respect to the Long Term Energy Plan Discussion Guide.

 

Thank you for your attention to this matter and we look forward to the release of the revised Plan in 2017.

 

Distribution and Grid Modernization

 

What are the significant challenges facing utilities and what can government do to meet them? •Pressure to meet conservation targets: There are significant opportunities for partnerships with municipalities and LDC’s to better target conservation programs through targeting hot spots and trend opportunities presented in energy and building age mapping (community energy planning). •Preparing for climate change resiliency: adaptation and resiliency of the energy system under extreme weather events must be part of the consideration of modernizing the grid to withstand and limit power outages. There will be opportunities to partner with municipalities who are working on studies to understand for the future impacts of a changing climate.

 

•Modernizing the grid and distribution system to accommodate for additional demand due to the electrification of the economy may be expensive. This must be done in a financially responsible manner and examine opportunities to leverage funding from the cap and trade markets to offset these investment costs and protect those vulnerable to price increases including families and businesses.

 

•Invest in the appropriate electricity service infrastructure to allow more rural and remote customers to participate in decentralized energy systems. For example, many rural residents have not been able to participate in existing Provincial renewable energy programs due to the lack of access to a three phase power distribution network.

 

What additional policies should the government consider to expand access to natural gas?

 

•The Town is very supportive of the programs focused on expanding natural gas to rural communities.  Not having access to cheaper fuels for heating and agricultural purposes (i.e. crop drying, and greenhouse heating costs) does place significant cost pressures on local businesses and negatively impacts local economic activity.

 

•The Town encourages engagement between local municipalities and the Province in allocating the funding and construction of natural gas lines ensuring that environmental regulations are upheld and public safety guidelines are met.

 

•An opportunity may include the coordination of permitting and siting processes for the building of underground infrastructure (i.e. roads and sewers) to expand natural gas pipelines offsetting the capital construction costs.

 

Micro Grids

 

What are the best uses of micro grids in Ontario?

 

•The Town and its residents have experienced significant challenges due power outages resulting from extreme weather events. Micro Grids can be used as a climate change adaptation tool to ensure core functionality during extreme weather events. It will be important to coordinate with municipalities to identify priority areas to serve as emergency centres during these events. •There is also opportunity to combine storage with local energy generation and consumption. For example, the technology exists allowing for buildings to act as producers, storage and consumers of electricity. LDC’s should be encouraged to partner with municipalities and developers to construct and pilot buildings and communities to perform these functions to contribute to both resiliency and a decentralized energy system.

 

Are there barriers preventing the use of micro grids?

 

•Establishing and communicating the business model beyond traditional means may be challenging. It will be important to establish clear benefits, and incorporate the full cost of system outages (i.e. avoided economic loss due to power outages during ice storms).

 

•Developing partnerships across jurisdictions that are multi stakeholder in nature (i.e. developers, business owners, and municipalities) will be difficult. Establishing clear benefits and investment opportunities (i.e. to serve local functions of energy storage and generation) will be important.

 

General Comments-decentralized heating

 

•Encourage partnerships with municipalities who have undertaken energy mapping exercises, to partner with neighbouring jurisdictions and utilities to identify district energy opportunities in high density and demand development areas.

 

Transmission

 

How can Ontario continue to strengthen reliability of the transmission system of the Province? •As part of transmission investments, the Town encourages consultation with local municipalities and businesses to understand power quality concerns such as brownouts to inform future investment. This has been a challenge faced in our community that negatively impacts the local economy, for example due to challenges in productivity in manufacturing processes and/or equipment failures.

 

Is the current user pay model and effective way to meet Ontario’s needs? Does it appropriately balance the goals of economic development and protecting tax payers?

 

•The user pay model in principle is effective however can be improved. It should be encouraged that when planning and constructing new industrial subdivisions for example, utilities should work with developers, community and municipalities to understand all future uses and needs for the subdivision to ensure adequate capacity of the connected system and to avoid unnecessary costs to increase the system capacity in the future.

 

Innovation and Economic Development

 

Which innovations offer the greatest benefit to your community and the energy system as a whole? •Innovations in lowering greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector will be of significant interest. Transportation is the greatest contributor to local greenhouse gas emissions. These innovations will include investments into a fuels transition in the community (i.e electric vehicles), creative and cost effective delivery of public transportation in rural communities (i.e. investments in public and demand based transportation to and from major transportation hubs) and investment in electric and natural gas fueled municipal and larger industrial fleet. •Innovation in creating a decentralized energy system in rural communities using locally available resource opportunities. There is an abundance of energy in agricultural operations that is underutilized. The LTEP should consider policy options focused on enabling more agricultural communities to significantly contribute to Ontario’s energy future, for example through forming co-ops to operate independently or in partnership with organic waste management practices to produce renewable natural gas for local natural gas utilities. In order for this to be successful, investments, as announced by the Province in delivering natural gas to rural communities will be crucial. These two investments have the potential to unlock significant economic benefits. •Expanding the net metering program and couple this with widespread local storage opportunities in advance of the building code achieving net zero communities.

 

•Encourage innovative partnerships between utilities, local businesses and municipalities to identify opportunities for net metering programs and other decentralized energy generation to offset future requirements for additional electrical infrastructure, while allowing operations to become self-sufficient controlling both consumption and generator borne costs

 

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How should the public and private sectors cooperate to encourage innovation in the energy section? •Investigate the potential for public and private partnerships. This model has proven to be successful in other infrastructure investments, leveraging both private and public sector funds. •It will be important to focus investments generated by the Cap and Trade program into the low carbon economy transition to foster the development of low carbon technology solutions that municipalities, residents, businesses and industry can cost effectively implement. In addition, by funding and focusing the investments from the Cap and Trade program will be important in controlling future cost increases associated with the potential electrification of the economy.

 

What actions could the government take to support the adoption of alternative fuels?

 

•The Province should consider making more incentives opportunities and tax breaks for Municipal and other large fleet operators to support the transition to low emitting large fleet. •Invest in engine technology that would allow for increased percentages of biodiesel mixture. •Mandate standards for the mixing of biodiesel. If biodiesel isn’t blended appropriately, there can be significant challenges for the engine to operate safely and efficiently.

 

Conservation and Energy Efficiency

 

To meet the Province’s climate change objectives, how can existing or new conservation and energy efficiency programs be enhanced in the near and longer term?

 

•Strongly encourage the addition of electrically heated homes to the home energy audit and retrofit program. Despite electricity being a ‘cleaner’ fuel, it is recognized that in order to encourage an electrification of the economy as highlighted in the OPO’s scenario C and D, new generation will be required to accommodate growth. Therefore, investments should be made in areas where appropriate to conserve first, before investing in new generation, which includes opportunities in electrically heated homes.

 

•Develop funding opportunities to encourage municipalities with community energy plans in partnership with utilities to develop tailored energy conservation programs and renewable energy opportunities (i.e. solar hot water heating) for residents, business and industry. This partnership will be particularly important for buildings (beyond residential) that don’t have a specific utility designated for heating.

 

•Facilitate improved data sharing agreements allowing municipalities to undertake energy mapping of more sectors to identify additional local conservation measures.

 

•Place a true conservation first framework on all energy consumed in the Province. The majority of household energy consumed in the Province is natural gas. Natural gas is a significant greenhouse gas contributor, and holds significant opportunities for conservation; however retrofits currently lack a business case. Natural Gas programs and incentives should be increased to improve the business case to encourage conservation in all sectors.

 

How can we continue to inform and engage energy consumers?

 

•Expand and promote the green button initiative to residential and business customers. Look for opportunities to centralize natural gas data into the green button to allow consumers to have access to energy data in a single interface. This may also generate opportunities in the technology and the application development sector to create tools to develop quick business cases for conservation and fuel switching.

 

•Municipalities with energy maps should partner with local distribution companies to discuss energy use in target communities and promote and tailor energy conservation programs.

 

Clean Energy Supply

 

What role should renewable energy generation play in the modernization and transformation of Ontario’s electricity system?

 

•The development of renewable energy to serve as distributed and local energy systems, coupled with storage technologies hold the potential to prepare communities for climate resiliency and energy independence. This will be significant when communities can remain ‘online’ through increasing numbers of extreme weather events.

 

•Local and renewable energy generation (through biogas, solar etc.) keeps energy dollars within the local economy and community instead of crossing borders into other jurisdictions.

 

•Allow for more municipal and private contributors to participate in energy market agreements (i.e. through the net metering program) and produce power to the grid and receive credits based on time-of-use pricing.

 

•Renewable energy should not be limited to just electricity generation. There is significant opportunity within agricultural and rural communities to contribute to this low carbon economy transition in the form of renewable natural gas. Providing the infrastructure to these communities (through natural gas expansion) will be important to allow for connection and contribution.

 

What factors should Ontario focus on as it pursues opportunities for electricity trade agreements with nearby Provinces and states?

 

•As done with the agreement with Quebec, electricity trade agreements should be done with jurisdictions with similar climate and greenhouse gas reduction goals (i.e. both Provinces have either signed, or intend to enter into the Western Climate Initiative) ensuring that the generation side is low GHG emissions and with patterns that are complementary to one another (Ontario is summer peaking and Quebec is winter peaking).

 

Regional Planning

 

In areas expected to undergo a transformation from rural to suburban through intense development, how could the province help to ensure that corridor lands are reserved/set aside before development occurs to minimize the potential costs and inconvenience of acquiring and clearing developed lands in the future?

 

•Caledon is subject to significant growth, which will require investments in transmission and distribution infrastructure in order to meet that demand. Town staffs are supportive of the Regional Planning process and are currently working with utilities in the planning process to expand electricity infrastructure into high growth areas. It will be important to continue working with municipalities to identify reserved corridor lands as growth is allocated to understand future needs.

 

•In addition, there are synergies in municipal energy mapping and energy forecasting studies that display the future impact of growth on local energy systems that can contribute to this work.

 

General Comments

 

•The LTEP should also encourage an integrative planning process that incorporates energy planning, where appropriate, for decentralized energy systems to suit most/all of the needs of new communities, cost effectively. This should also be undertaken with a lens of climate resilience and net zero design principles as the Ontario Building Code transitions to net zero. This in turn could be beneficial in avoiding costs associated with large transmission construction, where appropriate. This will be particularly important as Southern Ontario’s population grows by almost 50% over the period of the 2017 LTEP.

 

Supply Mix

 

To meet a higher demand, what mix of new electricity resources would best balance the principles of cost effectiveness, reliability, clean energy, community engagement and an emphasis on conservation first?

 

•As mentioned in the LTEP document, the Province should continue to invest in its Conservation First policy and extend this to the natural gas demand side management framework. There continues to be significant opportunity for natural gas conservation but currently lacks a business case in some projects.

 

•The price of the technology to support renewable energy (i.e. solar) has dropped significantly. Trends like this should continue to play a large role in the procurement of future energy generation sources.

 

•Support the widespread adoption of the net metering program in the existing built environment and in new developments. This will allow more buildings to become energy generators at the TOU market cost of electricity versus the contracted cost.

 

•Apply a life cycle costing method in the procurement of  future energy generators that incorporates the long term maintenance and operating costs, as well potential ‘do nothing’ or avoided costs resulting from climate change impacts.

 

•The income generated from the Cap and Trade program should be invested in incentivizing the creation of local, decentralized renewable energy sources and fund pilot communities.

 

What policies will Ontario need to adapt to transformation in the fuels sector?

 

•Allow for municipalities to have more of a role in the siting of renewable energy infrastructure for decentralized energy systems to ensure the siting is in line with Official Plans and designated future development areas.

 

•Allow municipalities to enforce green development standards

 

•Update the Ontario Building Code to reflect the LTEP, Climate Change Action Plan and pending Growth Plan mandates.

 

•Enforce community energy planning and local energy targets. Encourage more integration between LDC’s and municipalities in determining the future demand of pending development and assess how these needs can be met through decentralized energy systems.

 

•Provide investments for fuel switching to make conversions to electricity based heating an affordable solution. This could be combined with programs such as net metering to offset costs, allowing homes and businesses to rely on self-generated energy during more expensive peak times. In addition, significant attention must be paid to the future resiliency of these systems (i.e. combination with storage technology), as electricity has arguably been more sensitive to extreme weather events.

 

[Original Comment ID: 206982]