More building upgrades are expected as the City of Vancouver rolls out new carbon reporting requirements for large buildings.
The city is phasing in carbon reporting requirements, which begin Sept.1 for multi-family buildings over 100,000 square feet. Commercial buildings above 50,000 square feet were required to begin reporting emissions on June 1.
Future caps and fees will follow for 2026, and starting in 2027, owners and managers of large office and retail buildings (those greater than or equal to 100,000 square feet) will have to secure an annual operating permit.
The regulations come as the energy sector evolves on many fronts.
Recent developments include pension plans injecting capital into retrofits; “district energy” systems that centralize a community’s energy generation; and made-in-B.C. smart panels for electrification and load management.
Building owners considering retrofits need to get the ball rolling early, said Jennifer Davis, a program director with Building Owners and Managers Association of British Columbia (BOMA BC).
“There’s a lot that goes into designing the building in advance of actually undertaking the retrofit, and this is sometimes a one- to two-, sometimes three-year process,” she said.
The first step, she said, is to identify opportunities for energy conservation and decarbonization. An “ASHRAE Level 1” study, referring to energy audit procedures developed by an international body of HVAC professionals, can identify specific retrofit opportunities within a building.
A feasibility study would follow, and then the building owner would have to determine how to finance the retrofit, such as identifying available incentives and low-interest financing from sources such as utilities. There is more funding available for initial studies and capacity-building and less for the physical equipment itself, she said.
“Sometimes when we’re talking about retrofitting a commercial building with lower-carbon options, you’re looking at oftentimes several hundred thousand to upwards of millions of dollars in costs for the infrastructure,” she said.
Some investors see opportunity as buildings age and retrofitting becomes more prevalent.
A new $25 million partnership involving B.C. pension plans is getting into the building retrofit space, bringing energy-efficient technologies and smart building solutions to institutional, commercial and multi-residential buildings in Canada.
Concert Infrastructure Ltd. announced on June 9 a partnership with Montreal-based GDI Integrated Facility Services Inc. and a GDI subsidiary to provide equity investment into building upgrades that reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, lower energy consumption and generate operational cost savings.
Those savings would be used to repay the investors over a prescribed period of time between 10 and 20 years depending on the scope and specifics of each retrofit, said Derron Bain, CEO of Concert Infrastructure, whose shareholders are B.C.-based union and management pension plans.
“Energy retrofits and GHG reduction is clearly a societal objective across the country, and so we thought it was a good opportunity and a good investment for the company and its shareholders,” he said.
Federal Crown corporation Canada Infrastructure Bank is providing senior debt financing to support the projects, he said.
District energy, smart panels shaping energy future
“District energy” systems can also cut costs and carbon emissions by centralizing energy generation for multiple buildings in a community, according to a recent Urban Land Institute BC panel.
By providing thermal energy to many buildings simultaneously using renewable energy sources in a single facility, district energy systems can eliminate much of the mechanical equipment in individual buildings, ultimately reducing costs.
District energy takes centralizes thermal energy generation so that it can be delivered to individual buildings, said panel member Jason Owen, vice-president of project development at Corix District Energy Holdings GP Inc.
This approach can reduce upfront capital costs for developers, because ownership of generating and distribution infrastructure is transferred to a public utility such as BC Hydro, he said.
Sharing energy across sites also leverages economies of scale to supply clean energy more cost-effectively than a single-building approach, accelerating fuel-switching away from natural gas toward electrification, he said.
Meanwhile, made-in-B.C. technology can help avoid the need for significant electrical service upgrades where single-family homes are replaced with multi-unit housing.
A new smart panel, developed by Vancouver-based Evectrix with public funding, transforms a conventional breaker panel into a “smart hub” that manages real-time energy usage and efficiently distributes electricity to a home’s appliances, such as electric vehicle chargers and heat pumps.
“It technically uses every single amp as efficiently as possible to avoid the entire panel upgrade,” said Kambiz Pishghadam Ghaeni, COO of Evectrix.
A recent pilot project on Vancouver’s Chestnut Street demonstrated how the Evectrix panel can eliminate the need to upgrade to a 400-amp service from a 200-amp one, even in an electrified six-unit development, according to the B.C. Ministry of Energy and Climate Solutions.
Ghaeni said the technology can help BC Hydro optimize electricity and get the most out of the Site C hydroelectric dam. The $16 billion dam is increasing the province’s electricity supply by eight per cent, but future demand could outpace this.
“That is nothing. Most of us don’t even have cooling, most of us don’t even drive EV yet,” Ghaeni said.
Vancouver leading on carbon control
Greenhouse gas intensity limits, which take effect next year for large commercial office and retail buildings, are 25 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent per square metre per year for offices and 14 kilograms carbon dioxide equivalent per square metre per year for retail, though restaurant emissions are not counted and commercial kitchens are exempt.
Only those buildings over the limit will be required to pay a $500 carbon emissions operating permit base fee plus $350 per tonne of CO2 emitted beyond the limit.
“The city’s goal is not to issue penalties and collect fees, but to help owners cut carbon pollution and improve their buildings,” said a statement from the city.
There are also regulatory changes at the provincial level. The B.C. government recently launched an independent review of the CleanBC program, its plan to lower climate-changing emissions by 40 per cent by 2030.
BOMA BC’s Davis said it’s a welcome refresh.
“Like anything, markets evolve so rapidly, so sometimes a program just becomes a bit stale,” she said.
