On Tuesday, February 2nd from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m., the Ontario Power Authority hosted its third Conservation Fund webinar of the 2009-2010 season. The event examined some of the innovative methods that organizations in the broader public sector are using to manage energy consumption and encourage conservation.

The presenters were:

Norm Vezina, York Catholic District School Board

Norm is leading an initiative that is helping school boards across Ontario obtain funding to support energy-efficiency projects in the sector’s approximately 5,000 buildings. A central focus of this project is the development of an Incentive Programs Advisor who works with each board’s staff to identify cost-effective projects and helps them to complete the application for funding – an innocuous sounding task, but one that needs to be done correctly to prevent applications being rejected or delayed. This project is part of the Ministry of Education’s Energy Conservation Initiative, which has also made available other complementary tools, such as a utility consumption database and research on best practices in facilities management, with the goal of reducing the sector’s energy consumption. Other related activities include the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure’s $50M investment in renewable energy generation for public schools. Norm is the Senior Manager of Environmental & Office Services at the York Catholic District School Board and is also the Energy Conservation Officer for the Ministry of Education.

Spencer Wood, Humber College

Spencer is playing a leading role in a collaborative project initiated by Colleges Ontario in which all of Ontario’s publicly funded colleges are participating. Through the Ontario Colleges Energy Conservation Secretariat, the colleges have access to a real-time operating system that enables live tracking of utility consumption. Combined with energy retrofits and facility manager training, this energy management tool has enabled colleges to undertake ambitious projects – and have confidence that they will be able to see the results. Spencer brings with him experience both from working with the Secretariat on a sector-wide basis, as well as from managing retrofit projects and facility operations as the Maintenance and Operations Manager at Humber College.

John Witjes, Queen’s University

John is the project lead for a recently completed project initiated by the Ontario Association of Physical Plant Administrators (OAPPA) to collect data on energy consumption at Ontario’s universities. The project collected and analyzed data to allow for more accurate benchmarking, reporting and planning related to energy management at these institutions, which operate large and complex energy systems in various types of buildings. John will describe the challenges that that the project needed to overcome to meet its objectives, as well as the next steps for this initiative given the universities ongoing interest in managing energy costs. John is the Operations and Engineering Director of Physical Plant Services at Queen’s University and chair of OAPPA’s Energy Committee.


You can access an archived copy of the webinar here: click here.

Presentations from past webinars can be found on the Conservation Fund website, please: click here.