At their respective meetings on 10 July, North Vancouver City and West Vancouver Councils gave first, second, and third readings to their proposed updated Part 9 Energy Step Code (ESC) and Zero Carbon Step Code (ZCSC) requirements. The corresponding bylaws are up for adoption at North Vancouver City and West Vancouver‘s Regular Council meetings on 17 July. The dual pathway approach proposed is as follows:
Pathway 1: Step 4 with ZCSC EL-3 (Strong Carbon Performance) Pathway 2: Step 5 with ZCSC EL-1 (Measure-only)
Township of Langley – Step 5 Workshops
The Township of Langley, Streetside Developments, and BCIT are hosting a series of Step 5 On-Site Workshops on the design, construction, and permitting of Streetside’s townhouse project that targets compliance with Step 5 of the BC Energy Step Code, CHBA’s Net Zero Energy Ready Standard, and EL-4 of the Zero Carbon Step Code. The series includes four different on site workshops focused on different aspects of the project:
Workshop 1 – Permitting and Inspecting a Step 5 Project Workshop 2 – Achieving an Energy Efficient and Airtight Envelope in a Step 5 Home Workshop 3 – Designing and Installing High Performance Mechanical Systems in a Step 5 Home Workshop 4 – Living in a High Performance Home
Workshops 1 to 3 will take place place between August 1 to 3. You can see the township’s dedicated webpage for additional information and to register. As space is limited please register ASAP if you are interested.
BC Low Carbon Sourcing Guide
Insulators and General Retrofit contractors: there’s a new BC resource to help you source low carbon materials for your projects.
The construction of buildings in BC is responsible for 7.5Mt of carbon emissions every year, that’s about 10% of all emissions produced within BC. These emissions are associated with the materials within a building and are known as the embodied carbon (or embodied emissions) of a building.
Residential retrofit contractors can join the effort to reduce these embodied emissions by considering low carbon types of insulation and other materials when retrofitting homes.
The Carbon Leadership Forum’s (CFL) new BC Low Carbon Sourcing Guide aims to serve contractors by providing a list of materials that are readily available within BC, and also provide installers and contractors with direct links to suppliers of these materials.
BC Hydro – Removal of Minimum Electricity Consumption Requirement
Effective July 1st, 2023, BC Hydro will no longer require customers to meet a minimum electricity consumption in order to qualify for rebates in the Home Renovation Rebate Program.
How does this impact your customers?
All customers who are heated by electricity are now eligible for rebates regardless of their minimum electricity consumption. All other rebate requirements remain the same.
Why is BC Hydro dropping the minimum electricity consumption criteria?
BC Hydro invests funds in the Home Renovation Rebate Program to help their customers that heat their homes with electricity save energy and money. The minimum electricity consumption requirement came into effect in October of 2020 to help ensure that the funds were being targeted at the customers who have the highest bills relative to the size of their homes and therefore had the greatest opportunity to save electricity. To provide more British Columbians an opportunity to qualify for home renovation rebates, they are dropping the minimum electricity consumption requirement moving forward.
When does this change take effect?
This requirement change applies to all applications moving forward with invoices dated on or after July 1st, 2023.
