Enabling policies refer to policies, regulations, and other activities that build supportive infrastructure and policy frameworks to advance provincial energy efficiency. They cross several sectors and reinforce program strategies and other policy areas. Many of these policies are important for scaling up energy savings. They are also important to ensure the “energy efficiency resource” has the capacity to continuously renew itself and produce new energy savings opportunities as older strategies and technologies (e.g., lighting) mature.
| Policy type | Description |
|---|---|
| Advanced metering infrastructure | Advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) includes "smart meters", as well as the broader communications networks and data management systems that enable two-way communication between utilities and customers. AMI enables utilities to provide more feedback and behavioural insights to customers, design rate schedules to provide better price signals, disaggregate data to target energy saving initiatives, and promote grid-interactive efficiency buildings. |
| Carbon pricing | Carbon pricing can help reduce market barriers to energy efficiency, partly by increasing the cost of fossil fuel-based energy and related products. Governments can also invest carbon-pricing revenue in energy efficiency programs and demonstration projects |
| Dedicated innovation funding | Innovation, experimentation and demonstration activities can improve the scale and scope of building energy retrofitting and move toward equitable accessibility. Rigorous evaluation, measurement, and verification is an essential element to ensure potential DSM investments are justifiable and cost-effective. Accordingly, it is important that efficiency program administrators include dedicated funding to support experimentation, program innovation, and pilot and demonstration projects. |
| Non-wires / pipes alternatives | Energy efficiency and demand response can be coupled with energy storage or distributed generation to avoid the need to build transmission infrastructure, especially when geo-targeting constrained areas within the energy system. Broadly, this is referred to as "non-wires / pipes solutions". There are regulatory and institutional barriers to incorporating these solutions in grid planning processes, such as limited familiarity with the practice among utilities and regulators. This policy item tracks the existence of planning practices and pilot / demonstrations for non-wires / pipes alternatives (NWA / NPA). |
| Pilots and demonstrations | Experimentation with new program delivery models or methods and piloting and demonstrating technological improvements or processes are important activities to enable new sources of energy efficiency. Pilot and demonstration projects allow program administrators to gain experience, quantify savings and improve program outcomes. |
| Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) Financing | Local improvement charges (LICs) allow municipalities to amortize the costs of local infrastructure improvements through property taxes. Similarly, Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing allows a building owner to repay the cost of an energy retrofit through their own property taxes. The cost of the improvement is attached to the property, not the owner, and is transferable in the event the property is sold. PACE programs may be either residential (R-PACE) or commercial (C-PACE). |
| Soft loans and on-bill financing | Governments can provide “soft loans” with lower interest rates or longer repayment terms that facilitate greater participation in energy efficiency retrofits by allowing the amortization of costs over a longer period of time. On-bill financing is where the program administrator - typically a utility - offers loans that are repaid through utility bills. On-bill repayment programs are similar, but require a third-party lender (e.g. municipality, bank, etc.) to provide capital and underwrite loans for repayment through utility bills. |