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Buildings · Reduce
You Can't Value What You Can't See: Calgary Maps Its Homes' Energy Performance
What's Stuck: Two things. First, the market for home energy retrofits is weak. Retrofit rates in Canada have run below 1% a year, projects are small and costly to sell. Even after the Canada Greene…
November 2, 2026Energy Security
Energy Security Means Something Different Depending on Where You're Standing
Geopolitical shocks in Europe and the Middle East, and Washington’s trade war with Canada, have brought "energy security" into sharp focus. But the term means something different depending on who i…
October 19, 2026Buildings · Reduce
Ottawa's Latest Retrofit Target Only Reaches 6% of Homes — Here's a Bigger Lever
What's new: The federal government's latest electricity strategy commits to retrofitting up to one million homes. This sounds significant, until you learn this is roughly 6% of Canada's 15.7 millio…
October 7, 2026Thermal Utilities · Improve
District Energy Already Works — But it Goes Against the Grain
District energy — networks of underground pipes that deliver heat and cooling the way wires deliver electricity — is now operating in more than 200 Canadian communities, according to the district e…
October 3, 2026Energy Security
Canada is a Top Oil Producer — Your Gas Price Doesn't Know That
Canadians are right to be perplexed when a war half a world away sends the price at the pump climbing — especially in a country that's one of the world's largest oil producers. The reason is just n…
September 25, 2026Land Use
Land-use Planning is Energy Planning — Whether the Province Gets It or Not
Ontario is making it harder for municipal governments to participate in the low-carbon energy transition — a move that benefits the incumbent energy system, especially the use of fossil gas for hea…
September 19, 2026Energy Transition
It Pays to Be Weird — Just Ask Iceland
"It pays to be weird" was the conclusion of a Danish doctoral thesis studying Iceland's remarkable success as a nation — not a slogan, a finding. A remote island of under 400,000 people turned its…
September 18, 2026Energy Transition
The Energy Transition Will Happen With or Without Your Municipality — Lead It
The low-carbon energy transition isn't a future possibility — it's already underway, and the communities that shape it now will capture the economic benefits. The ones that wait will absorb the cos…
September 11, 2026
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Occasional notes on community energy planning in Canada.