Christina Hoicka

• Greenhouse gas savings from deep energy building retrofits are cost-effective and can be realized more quickly than reductions from other sectors. • Program and policy design should prioritize the greatest social, economic, and environmental benefits. • Innovation should focus on the retrofit process, financing, and delivery models, rather than solely on technology. Scientists advise limiting global warming to 1.5°C with substantial actions by 2030. Our viewpoint argues that climate response strategies in Canada have underemphasized and underestimated the potential contribution deep energy retrofits can make to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions, leading to inadequate responses in the building sector, and that Canada can (and should) be ambitious with building retrofits over the next decade. GHG savings from building retrofits can be realized more quickly than GHG reductions from other sectors, and either deliver net cost savings or are cost-effective when compared to other mitigation measures. Retrofits can also provide social and economic benefits, such as improved health and comfort, and lower energy costs. This paper reviews energy use and building retrofits in Canada and argues the following should be implemented: (1) focus innovation on deep energy retrofit processes, not singular retrofit actions; (2) maximize both social and environmental benefits; (3) improve data gathering and availability for analysis and delivery; (4) innovate for a process of decisions and to avoid "dropouts" during the retrofit process; and (5) focus innovation on business models that maximize benefits.

Reconciliation is about the genuine restructuring and transformation of the relationships between Indigenous and settler people. Although renewable energy has not been inherently positive for Indigenous peoples, Indigenous communities in Canada have been participating in renewable energy production, which presents a potential pathway to reconciliation, climate change mitigation and a just energy transition. This study explores whether and to what extent community energy-defined by deep engagement in process, as well as local and collective benefits-relates to elements of participation associated with reconciliation, both conceptually and empirically. A conceptual framework based in community energy was developed to characterize and analyse 194 renewable energy projects associated with Indigenous communities. This framework considered 'community' as belonging to traditional land, places where Indigenous people live, and as local authority, such as the Indigenous political organization of a settlement or reserve. Projects were examined by legal form, project location, and control. The findings do not provide strong indications of reconciliation. We suggest that one pathway to reconciliation is equity ownership, which has risen over time, although most projects located on traditional territories and Indigenous communities generally have minority or no ownership. There were no projects associated with Métis communities, and only 6 associated with Inuit communities. Institutional change requires implementation of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) and extensive policy supports. Further research with and by Indigenous communities should examine how to support equity ownership by examining the findings of the 41 projects controlled by Indigenous communities and increased attention to Métis and Inuit communities.

The recast of the European Union Renewable Energy Directive (RED II) entered into force in December 2018, followed by the Internal Electricity Market Directive (IEMD) and Regulation (IEMR) as part of the Clean Energy for all Europeans Package. The RED II, that the 28 Member States have until June 2021 to transpose into national law, defines "Renewable Energy Communities" (RECs), introduces a governance model for them and the possibility of energy sharing within the REC. It also provides an "enabling framework" to put RECs on equal footing with other market players and to promote and facilitate their development. This article defines "renewable energy clusters" that are comprised of complementarity of different energy sources, flexibility, interconnectivity of different actors and bi-directionality of energy flows. We argue that RECs and RE clusters are socio-technical mirrors of the same concept, necessary in a renewable energy transition. To test how these new rules will fare in practice, drawing on a secondary dataset of 67 best-practice cases of consumer (co-)ownership from 18 countries, each project is assessed using the criteria of cluster potential, and for the extent that they meet the RED II governance requirements of heterogeneity of members and of ownership structure. Nine cases were identified as having cluster potential all of which were in rural areas. Of these, five projects were found to be both RECs and RE clusters. The absence of the governance and heterogeneity criteria is observed in projects that fall short of the cluster elements of flexibility, bi-directionality and interconnectivity, while cluster elements occur where the governance and heterogeneity criteria are met. When transposing the new rules into national law we recommend careful attention to encourage complementarity of renewables, RECs in urban contexts and "regulatory sandboxes" for experimentation to find the range of optimal preferential conditions of the "enabling framework".

Community energy is associated with a wide range of benefits, for example, providing new social mechanisms for learning, facilitating economic development, and in engaging local populations in energy policy implementation. However, empirical research continues to uncover many differences in the specific forms, functions and policy settings that relate to community initiatives across jurisdictions. This paper examines community energy projects in Canada and New Zealand, two understudied countries with high per-capita greenhouse gas emissions, distinct practices of community energy, and Indigenous community participation. This comparison reveals a range of striking differences in what communities do and how community energy projects are structured. We use institutional theories to highlight the role of incumbent resources, actors, and political context to explain the variations of forms and functions of community energy. We provide a reconceptualization of community energy practice as a much broader in both energy activity and ownership structure than presented in much of the current literature. The distinct national practices of community energy found are explained predominantly by the policy settings: less privatization and more new renewable energy support in some Canadian provinces, with more uniform liberalization and legal support for trusts in New Zealand.

The traditional model of taking single actions when components reach their end of life or provide inadequate service has enabled the residential sector to gradually improve its energy efficiency over time. However, to achieve the large potential reductions in energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in residential buildings, a deeper systematic approach is required. The house as a system approach to energy retrofits emphasizes that for the greatest improvements in energy performance, multiple retrofit actions must be taken, and the order is important. This was the core concept in the Canadian residential energy efficiency programs, EnerGuide for Houses (1998-2006) and ecoEnergy (2007-2012). In this study, a systematic analysis of a large dataset that documents 19,552 residential energy evaluations conducted by a single agency in Waterloo, Canada, allows for a more nuanced description of how well the energy retrofit actions taken by participants followed the house as a system approach. The findings are encouraging in that participants did respond to the multiple recommendations given to them by energy advisors. In particular, a higher number of recommendations was associated with households arranging follow-up evaluations and taking more action under the performance-based grant program. However, the results also illustrate that participants frequently did not attend to the retrofits in the combinations associated with the house as a system approach. Insulation to reduce heat losses should have been the first priority in the systemic approach, but was often not upgraded, and the extent or depth of the upgrade was often less than what had been recommended. Furnaces and windows, which should have been upgraded in combination with or after the building envelope, were often upgraded as singular actions, demonstrating the persistence of the traditional model in some households. Time-limited grants do not appear to compatible with encouraging the house as a system approach; it appears that staged-approaches and careful attention to the building envelope retrofits would allow these programs to promote the house as a system approach to encourage deep retrofits and achieve low-carbon housing.

Better methods of characterizing and addressing heterogeneity in preferences and decision making are needed to stimulate reductions in household greenhouse gas emissions. Four residential energy efficiency programs were delivered consecutively in the Region of Waterloo, Canada, between 1999 and 2011, and each offered a unique combination of information, financial reward structure, and price. A natural quasi-experimental intervention design was employed to assess differences in outcomes across these program structures. Participation at the initial (evaluation by an energy advisor) and follow-up (verification of retrofit) stages, and the material characteristics (e.g., energy performance) were measured and compared between the groups of houses included in each program at each stage. The programs appealed to people with different types of material concerns; each phase of the program was associated with houses with a different mix of material characteristics and depths of recommended and achieved changes. While a performance-based reward attracted fewer houses at each stage than a larger list-based reward, older houses with poorer energy performance were included at each stage. The findings support experimentation with program designs to target sub-populations of housing stock; future program designs should experiment more carefully and with larger performance-based rewards and test parallels with potential carbon market structures.

Page 1. SPECIAL ISSUE ON GREEN ENERGY SYSTEMS Residential energy efficiency programs, retrofit choices and greenhouse gas emissions savings: a decade of energy efficiency improvements in Waterloo Region, Canada Christina E. Hoicka*,† and Paul Parker ...