Proposed amendments to O.Reg 507/18 (“Broader Public Sector: Energy Reporting and Conservation and Demand Management Plans”) under the Electricity Act, 1998

These changes would streamline reporting and tracking of energy use by moving required energy reporting from the current SharePoint 2013 platform (that has reached the end of its life) to the widely used ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager electronic reporting system. Further changes would: phase in reporting of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions data to the previous calendar year (rather than two calendar years in the past) and update prescriptive elements of the regulation.

O.Reg 507/18 requires broader public sector (BPS) organizations to report their buildings’ annual energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions data for the year, two calendar years in the past to the Ministry of Energy by July 1. This includes information on the gross floor area of their buildings, identifying information, energy consumption, and performance metrics such as greenhouse gas emissions.

The Ministry of Energy is proposing amendments to O.Reg 507/18 to:

• Streamline reporting and tracking of energy use by moving reporting from a custom-made platform that has reached the end of its life, to the widely used ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager electronic reporting system.
• Change the energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions reporting period from two calendar years in the past to one calendar year in the past.
  • Phase in reporting to the previous calendar year as follows:
    • require reporting for one year (2021 energy data) in 2023. No change to current reporting requirements
    • require reporting for two years (2022 and 2023 energy data) in 2024 as a transitional year
    • starting in 2025, require reporting for one year (2024 energy data in 2025)
  • The ministry will support BPS organizations with the dual reporting requirement in the transitional year (2024).
• Update prescriptive elements of the regulation such as the exact title of the form, units of measurement, and fields for which data is collected, and referencing a Guide. This guide could provide BPS organizations with detailed information on how to report their building’s energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions and could be updated from time to time as needed.

The proposed updates would support the feedback received from BPS​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ organizations and the replacement of the current portal used for BPS​​​​​​​ energy reporting, moving it from SharePoint 2013 to Portfolio Manager.

Analysis of Regulatory Impact:

Ontario’s broader public sector (BPS) energy reporting regulation (O.Reg 507/18) was developed in 2011 to help organizations better understand how and where they used energy, and identify potential conservation opportunities. Support from the sector for this program has been strong since the regulation has been in place.

The proposed changes to the BPS regulation would clarify the reporting requirements and result in more timely and comparable energy use and greenhouse gas information for BPS organizations through Portfolio Manager. Moving reporting to the previous calendar year will provide more current information to organizations that would support conservation and demand management planning.

By using Portfolio Manager, BPS organizations would have access to a widely used energy reporting platform that is free to use and offers several pre-built energy benchmarking reports that would no longer need to be calculated manually. Organizations would also have access to more meaningful and comparable energy and greenhouse gas emission calculations, as Portfolio Manager is used by several jurisdictions across North America. Portfolio Manager would also offer time savings in the form of automated data validation while allowing the use of Excel to import and export data.

BPS organizations have experience in collecting and reporting their energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions data to the ministry over the last ten years. There may be fiscal implications as organizations transition to reporting in Portfolio Manager and to reporting for the previous calendar year. The ministry will review options to support BPS organizations through this transition.