Victoria sets guidelines to cut energy consumption
Scott Simpson
Sun
Consumers reeling from rising home heating costs can keep more cash in their pockets by changing their behaviour and insisting on higher-efficiency furnace systems, the president of a company looking for access to the British Columbia natural gas market said Thursday.
Direct Energy Business Services president Bob Huggard told the Vancouver Board of Trade that Canadians “can no longer afford” to regard rising natural gas prices simply as an issue to be resolved by increasing gas supply.
“Statistics from Natural Resources Canada show that when it comes to consumption of energy per capita, Canada is ranked second in the world with 250 gigajoules per capita — putting us ahead of the U.S. which sits in third.”
Huggard said it’s no defence for Canada to argue that, as a northern nation experiencing severe winters, a high rate of consumption is a given.
Scandinavian nations, by contrast, consume far less energy per capita than Canadians.
Huggard said North America no longer has the in-ground resources to boost gas supply as demand rises — the most cost-effective and “sustainable” solution is to be more conservative in consuming gas.
“We believe the time has come for all Canadians to start planning and implementing sustainable energy strategies that not only help them reduce their costs but also reduce their environmental footprint.”
Direct Energy is one of a handful of companies, along with Terasen Gas, that sells natural gas to industrial and commercial customers in British Columbia.
At present, only Terasen sells gas into the residential market.
That is expected to change by 2007 as Terasen, Direct Energy and other prospective gas sellers, and the B.C. Utilities Commission work out a new business arrangement allowing competitors to use Terasen’s gas pipeline network to market gas to homeowners.
Direct already has residential customers in Ontario and Alberta.
Most existing Canadian homes have gas-fired furnaces operating at 65-per-cent efficiency — compared with new systems that can run at 95-per-cent efficiency and save about one-third compared to a typical monthly gas bill.
Huggard said it may seem “counterintuitive” for a company selling natural gas to counsel consumers to consume less of it, but over the long run, his company, consumers, the economy and the environment all benefit.
Huggard noted that B.C. Energy Minister Richard Neufeld announced in September an initiative to reduce average energy consumption in new multi-unit residential buildings by 37 per cent, in new homes by 32 per cent, and in commercial, institutional and industrial buildings by 20 per cent by 2010.
B.C. also wants to cut average energy consumption in existing buildings — led by a 17-per-cent reduction in single-family homes.
Huggard said homeowners, and home-buyers, will have to be proactive if the government hopes to reach those targets.
“We are starting to see in the marketplace builders realizing that they can create a niche that’s very competitive in the building market by identifying themselves as green or energy-efficient. Government, our utilities and people like Direct Energy can play a supporting role to those builders.”
© The Vancouver Sun 2005
