Providing professional planners with the tools and strategies to effectively pursue community energy pathways will play a central role in energy conscious cities of the future.
Many Canadian communities are doing this already. The City of Guelph, for example, created the Guelph Community Energy Plan in 2007 – the first of its kind in North America.Since then, the development of community energy plans has evolved substantially across the country. Today, cities and towns across Ontario have initiated change. But the most effective community energy planning comes at the early stages of development.
Will your next vehicle purchase be an electric vehicle?
According to Ontario provincial government reports in 2016, the transportation sector is the leading contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, emitting 35% of GHG emissions in the province. Electric vehicles are one of a range of strategies to lower carbon emissions, yet they currently make up less than 1% of new vehicle sales in Canada, compared to leaders such as Norway (30%). Further, how people make decisions about alternative vehicle purchases is relatively under-studied in the social sciences, particularly the social influences on purchasing behaviour.
USDN releases new Guidebook on Equitable Clean Energy Program Design for Local Governments and Partners
The guidebook introduces a process and principles that local governments and their partners can use to design equitable clean energy programs in their communities. Supported by the Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN) Innovation Fund, the project’s intent was to develop actionable resources for local governments and partners to use to advance social equity in clean energy program design and implementation in their communities.
Building Tools to Plan for the Transition to Distributed Renewable Energy
CEKAP launched a project that aims to increase the capacity of communities and local planners to anticipate and manage the landscape impacts of distributed renewable energy (DRE) development within their region. We are focused on ‘land-based’ DRE (wind, solar, biomass) for now, but will expand focus to rooftop solar and others soon. The project combines spatial analysis and community engagement to enable smart and socially inclusive local energy planning.
Retooling Community Energy Planning – Workshop Report
In the fall of 2017, CEKAP conducted a series of workshops across Canada aimed at facilitating conversation surrounding the use of analytical tools in the community energy planning process. The goal of the workshops – to share expertise across the CEKAP partnership in order to identify potential improvements to analytical tools – will better enable decision-makers in the energy planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation processes.
