ThinkEnergy

The summer heat is in full swing, so let’s revisit why systems like district energy could be a sustainable way to heat and cool communities—ultimately working towards a zero carbon footprint. Jeff Westeinde, President of Zibi Canada and Founding Partner of Windmill Development Group joined thinkenergy to talk about how Zibi, which aims to be Canada's most sustainable development project, embraces district energy and One Planet Living. Relive this episode as part of thinkenergy’s Summer Recharge!    Related links LinkedIn, Jeff Westeinde: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-westeinde-a46b4843/ LinkedIn, Windmill Development Group: https://www.linkedin.com/company/windmill-development-group/?originalSubdomain=ca Zibi: https://zibi.ca/   --- To subscribe using Apple Podcasts:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thinkenergy/id1465129405   To subscribe using Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7wFz7rdR8Gq3f2WOafjxpl   To subscribe on Libsyn: http://thinkenergy.libsyn.com/ --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: https://www.youtube.com/user/hydroottawalimited   Check out our cool pics on https://www.instagram.com/hydroottawa   More to Learn on https://www.facebook.com/HydroOttawa   Keep up with the Tweets at https://twitter.com/thinkenergypod   Transcript   Dan Seguin  00:06 This is thinkenergy. The podcast that helps you better understand the fast changing world of energy through conversations with game changers, industry leaders, and influencers. So join me, Dan Seguin, and my co host Rebecca Schwartz, as we explore both traditional and unconventional facets of the energy industry. Hey everyone, welcome to the summer rewind edition of the thinkenergy podcast. While we recharge our batteries during these lazy hazy days of summer, we're bringing back some blasts from our podcast past. We'll be reintroducing some of our most popular interviews that garnered a lot of attention and interest. There's been a lot of talk about the future electrification of energy on the path to net zero. The episodes we've selected are very future focused with themes around Green Innovation, renewable energy, and our impact on the environment. So I hope you enjoy the summer rewind edition of today's episode. In the meantime, have a happy summer. And we'll be back on August 15. To kick off another exciting season. Cheers. I'm Dan Seguin from Hydro Ottawa, and I'll be hosting the thinkenergy podcast. So here's today's big question. Are you looking to better understand the fast changing world of energy? Join me every two weeks and get a unique perspective from industry leaders as we deep dive and discuss some of the coolest trends, emerging technologies and latest innovations that drive the energy sector. So stay tuned as we explore some traditional and some quirky facets of this industry. This is the thinkenergy podcast.  Hey, everyone, welcome back. This is the ThinkEnergy podcast. What happens when you use a network of hot and cold water pipes, bury them underground and then use them to efficiently heat and cool buildings - even whole communities, you get something called 'district energy'. And it's not a new concept. A quick search will reveal that its origins can be traced back to the second century BC to the invention of the hypocaust heating systems that powered the hot water bath of the ancient Roman Empire. Famously a hot water distribution system in Chaudes-Aigues, in France, is regarded as the first real district heating system. It used geothermal energy to provide heat for about 30 houses in the 14th century, and the US Naval Academy in Annapolis began steam district heating in 1853. If you're like me, maybe you're wondering why modern civilization did not continue to use this efficient and environmentally sustainable technology more. There are some European countries such as Denmark, where district energy is mandated, but for the most part, it is largely gone the way of ancient Rome and public bathing. The latter is not such a bad thing in my mind, with more and more socially conscious citizens around the globe, district energy is once again seeing a surge in popularity and becoming a preferred method, thanks to its lower and energy efficient operating costs, reduced supply disruptions, and environmentally sound methods of heating and cooling buildings, municipalities and property owners are intrigued by this ancient alternative energy technology. So, here's today's big question: Is the world ready to embrace district energy as a viable means to power our communities? Is the nation's capital ready to have the first one planet zero carbon community district energy system in the country? Well, my guest today is the founding partner of the Thea partnership. One of Canada's most sustainable real estate development companies, as well as the president of Zibi Canada, which aims to be Canada's most sustainable development project. He's also an active investor and entrepreneur in both environmental, clean tech and real estate sector with active investments in solar energy, site remediation, and the beneficial reuse of waste. Dear listeners, please welcome Jeff Westeinde. Jeff, can we start by you telling us a bit about your background, the Zibi project and what drives your passion to build sustainable communities?   Jeff Westeinde  05:24 Well, so I guess my background, I always say I'm an entrepreneur. I'm an engineer by training, but entrepreneur by practice. So I've, I've had one, what I call real job in my career, I worked for a company for a little over a year, it quickly became apparent that I was unemployable. So I had to start my own business. And I've always been in the environmental sector. So I started I started my career as an environmental contractor cleaning up industrial messes and some of the wastes of the past. And as part of that, I would watch our clients the way they were cleaning up properties, and then what they would do to redevelop them. And I was pursuing trying to, you know, clean up the environment, make the planet a better place. And yet, so the practices we were using, were actually making it worse. We're trucking contaminated soils. You know, the time I lived in BC, we're picking up soil, putting it in a dump truck and hauling it across the Rocky Mountains into a landfill in Alberta. And nobody can tell me that's good for the environment. So very good. quickly decided that we shouldn't say very quickly but decided while I continue to move up the food chain, and start to buy contaminated properties and start to develop places and communities. And because we were purchasing contaminated properties, the commitment that we had was, let's do better than we've done before. So let's push the envelope about how can we live in a sustainable way? How can we ensure that what we're building today doesn't cause the problems that we're cleaning up on the very site for developing so that's maybe a bit of a background as to you know, why how I got into this and in my passion around, you know, leaving, like, I don't know if you're ever in the wilderness, but there's a rule, leave the campsite better than you found it. And I think that rule, that should be a planet wide rule, and it's historically as you know, as not being so.   Dan Seguin  07:12 Okay, Jeff, you're on the record saying that the way we build communities does not support health, happiness or the environment. What do you mean by that? And how does Zibi differentiate?   Jeff Westeinde  07:28 So, I might even be so bold as to say that, I would argue that most of our planning, especially in North America, is actually shortening the lifespan of our own citizens. And that's because we're so car reliant. We're so socially isolated in the way that we build. So think about a typical suburb. In a typical suburb, if you want to get up and, you know, go get a coffee, buy some milk, bring your kids to school, the very first thing you do is go hop in your car and drive. And that that leads to, you know, the stats that can predict the rate of diabetes, the rate of obesity, the rate of all sorts of other chronic diseases by the postal code you live in, was shocking. So, this car centric suburban lifestyle is not good for you. So that's the health side of it. The happiness side of it, I'll just point to one stat. And that's that you can use, there are statistics that say you can determine the level of happiness of somebody by how many of their neighbors they know by first name. Well, when you live in the suburbs, you know, you might know 2, 3, 4 neighbors, or those people whose kids are your age, or those guys you play hockey with, but you don't have the unexpected collisions as you're walking to the coffee shop or as you're bringing your kids to school. So again, that urban sprawl arguably leads to a lot of source of social isolation. And if something happens to an older person, you fall, you break a leg, even as a young person and you're inside your house. Similarly, you're not looking out your window and seeing people and waving at them and those types of things. So how we build our communities, I think is really important for health, happiness and obviously for environmental sustainability. And what we're doing at Zibi is making sure that you will not be car centric, that you do have these collisions with your neighbors. As you're walking around the neighborhood. We actually have social programming that, you know, we have snowshoe nights and that when Cirque du Soleil comes, we have a night that is just for the residents of Zibi that come, you know those kinds of things to make sure you feel like a part of that community.   Dan Seguin  09:49 How did you discover the one planet system? What can you tell us about it and your goal to build the first one in Canada?   Jeff Westeinde  10:00 Well, so we'll talk about how we discovered it first, and that's good. Myself and my business partners were behind the very first LEED Platinum buildings in Canada. So we built the first LEED Platinum building in BC, Alberta, Ontario, and in the country as a whole and the LEED Platinum building we built in Alberta - I was visiting one day A couple years after we'd built it, and LEED Platinum is literally the Platinum standard, the most sustainable in the lead system. And I watched one of the residents of his LEED Platinum condominium building drive a Hummer SUV into the parking garage, and said, you know, it's great that our building is sustainable, but we really have an impact and how the users are using the building and how they're, how they're living their lives. So we started scouring the planet, literally to say, Well, is there a system that would really impact not only how we build our buildings and how they operate at a point in time, but how do we engage the people, the users that are using those places? So one planet, we get rated on things like health and happiness and social engagement, along with all the other architectural and engineering features of a community. And the way one planet works: very simple. The name says it all we have to live as if we only have one planet. Most people when I say that look at me and sort of go, but we only do have one planet. And we need to remind them that if you live like a typical Canadian, you're using four planets of resources to sustain your unsustainable lifestyle, and Americans using five planets, Europeans using three planets, and all we're doing is stealing from future generations, and the developing world to sustain our unsustainable lifestyles. So one planet really is all about both environmental sustainability, like technical sustainability and social sustainability, with one planet worth of resources, and it's a very holistic program. Very audacious goals, we're going to talk about zero carbon. So as you know, Zibi is in the nation’s capital in Ottawa and Gatineau. You know, we are we are today we're going to be at plus 34 degrees. Six months from now we'll be at minus 34 degrees Celsius and to be zero carbon in this environment. It's the Holy Grail. So achieving one planet is not an easy thing to do very audacious. But that's where we said, No, that's the bar we need to hit, we need to again, leave our campsite better than we came to it.   Dan Seguin  12:35 I was fascinated that this method, 'district energy' dates back, like I think is 3000 or 4000 years to the time of the Roman Empire. What are some of the key benefits of the energy system you're implementing in your community? And why has it taken this long for folks to embrace it with it's being around for so long?   Jeff Westeinde  13:01 Well, like most technological breakthroughs, it is not the technology itself or even the concept itself that gets in the way, its people. So regulators, you know, if you look at how our grid works, say in Ontario, you cannot run a district electrical system. I can't, I couldn't produce energy and give it to my neighbor. Because we have a regulatory body that says you can't do it. And there are good reasons for that it was around safety and security and all those types of things. But we've ended up with all of these barriers, that that would prohibit the transportation and sale of energy. And, you know, I talked about electricity. But what's very interesting at Zibi - our district energy system is just hot and cold water. And there are no regulations currently in Ontario and Quebec, around moving hot and cold water. So that allowed us to start a district energy system. Answer so yeah. Again, the reason I would say you don't see more of them is the regulatory hurdles to implement the district energy system are enormous. However, the benefits are huge. And I'll use a very, you know, high level example that if you were to have a, you know, a Shopify data center, a good Canadian company, unlike Amazon, as a for instance. That is in constant cooling. So it's rejecting heating all the time. Right? And beside it, you have the Nordic spa, another great company that always needs heating, but needs to therefore be rejecting cooling. When you put those two side by side, and they're swapping energy back and forth. So your load is so much less. That's the concept of District energy is that by sharing and you know, a commercial building has different loads than a residential building has different loads than a retail building. By sharing those loads, they have different peaks, either for peak shades, you'd be you have less capital expenditure and you're more efficient. Why is it taking so long? It drives me crazy, but I really do think it's regulation is the key item why.   Dan Seguin  15:13 Aside from regulation, what have been the challenges you encountered bringing this technology to market in Canada? The sight of your one planet community alone, straddling Ontario and Quebec, is really unique. Tell us about the challenges and how your passion has gotten you through.   Jeff Westeinde  15:34 Yeah, I'm not sure how long this podcast is, but I could talk for a week about the challenges. Yeah, as you talked about, we do span the provincial border between Ontario and Quebec. You know, we jokingly say, both sides have a different word for everything. Because one speaks French one speaks English. Even the rule of law is different to one side of the other the legal system. So, you know, we need to repeat everything twice when we do this, but what I'll tell you is, I would say that the way that we've overcome what are just an enormous amount of challenges, I won't even get into what they all are, but it was it was crazy. Boy, when we overcome it was we shared our vision. And actually, I would say was our community's vision of saying, this is where our region started. Arguably, this is where, you know, the roots of our country started was on this site. And when we when we purchased the property was a fenced off locked off contaminated former industrial site that nobody had seen unless you worked at domtar. For probably 100 years, people didn't realize there's a waterfall in the middle of the city. What the community talked about in the vision that we had was no, we need to do something truly world class like something that people would come to our region and say Quebecers Ontarians, Canadians, look at the communities and the places that they create. And with that vision of being world class, we were fortunate that that politicians in the region, federal, municipal and provincial, all endorsed out the community endorse it. So when we started to bump up against bureaucracy and regulations, we were able to remind everybody that our commitment or contract to all of our stakeholders was, we're going to do some world class. Now world class, meaning different, and bureaucracies and regulations exist to enforce the same. So we were able to say, listen, you've got to empower, talk to the politicians, you've got to empower the bureaucrats who are paid to make sure that everybody does everything the same, to say, No, we've got to look at this one differently. We're not looking to do anything unsafe or unreasonable. But there's a better way and we've got to find it. And it was really that vision of world class and the endorsement that we got from all of the public stakeholders who said, yeah, we want to be world class. We don't want to just build another suburb of the City of Ottawa or Gatineau.   Dan Seguin  18:08 Now through a marketing lens, how did you position this alternative energy system that provides heating and cooling to your communities' new housing projects? What was the value proposition for prospective buyers and investors.   Jeff Westeinde  18:25 I think the key one, one of the lessons we've learned about sustainability and building sustainable buildings and building sustainable communities, is, most consumers don't, you know, while it's a nice to have being sustainable, it's not something that they're making a purchasing decision around. That's changing. I think more and more people are starting to look at that, but historically hasn't been important. So the key to sustainability is, we need to, we're going to allow you to be much more environmentally sustainable, socially sustainable, without any impact to your lifestyle. So when it comes to district heating and cooling, we said, listen, we're going to deliver you zero carbon district heating and cooling at the same market cost as a carbon based system, and you won't know. If you know you're going to turn your heat on, it's going to get hot, you're going to turn up your cooling on it's going to get cool, and you're not going to pay any more of the market. So that was that batten marketing. I mean, that's a no brainer to everybody that Okay, hold on, I get the exact same as I would get in a carbon based system but I'm zero carbon or more sustainable. That's a pretty easy sell at that point.   Dan Seguin  19:33 Okay, now I'd like to explore design aspects. District energy equipment inside a building occupies about one fifth of the area of conventional systems that boilers and chillers take up. I'm assuming this provides more flexibility in designing your buildings and community. By eliminating traditional HVAC systems, what building design options did this enable you to expand on?   Jeff Westeinde  20:06 There's some easy ones like if you think about rooftop patios, as a for instance, you know, if you have a rooftop patio beside a big chiller that's making a bunch of noise is not a great rooftop. So by  being able to eliminate that equipment. You know, our rooftop patios are much nicer. But really as a place maker, as a developer, the key aspect for us was if you know if you take all of that mechanical and electrical distribution space, and you end up with instead real estate that you can use, it's another added benefit to saying that that district energy makes financial sense or can make financial sense. It wasn't easy to unlock that but can make financial sense. So, so yeah, it obviously the less constraints you have on a building, the more flexibility you have and district is one tool for that for sure.   Dan Seguin  21:06 Now, wondering if you could zero in on the energy distribution system that harnesses excess heat from the Kruger paper mill on the Ottawa River and the temporary thermal plant that was or is built to serve residents businesses in your community.   Jeff Westeinde  21:24 Sure, yeah. So are, you know, like talking about the benefits, or sorry, the rationale behind district that if you have different energy cycles between neighboring buildings, you can share that energy. Our district energy system is actually based on that very same principle that Kruger operates a tissue mill, directly across from Parliament Hill. They, it's a very efficient, very successful mill. But as part of that process, they bring in millions of litres of water a day, heated up to over 40 degrees Celsius. Use it several times in their papermaking process, but then discharge it into the Ottawa River at about 30 degrees Celsius, anywhere from 25 to 30. So what we're doing is saying listen, you're discharging the millions of liters of hot water into the Ottawa River. Why don't we strip that heat so then what we're doing is we're taking it from 25 to 30 degrees down to seven to 10 degrees and discharging out into the Ottawa. River in our heating system or in the heating season. So that's the concept behind it's very rudimentary engineering, it's strictly heat transfer between water. So, so pretty straightforward from that point of view. What the temporary plane that you speak about is our district energy system. That backbone heating system at Kruger is not yet built that's getting built this season. However, we have users in our buildings right now. So, we have temporary plants that are providing that but the infrastructure for the district the pipes in the streets and hot and cold water system is there. So those temporary plants are going to operate for about another year, after which will be on our permanent system.   Dan Seguin  23:06 In addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving energy resilience. Is it fair to say that district energy deliver economies of scale in areas with high population? What are some of the short and long term benefits for the owner and end user alike? And how do these factor into the government carbon reduction targets?   Jeff Westeinde  23:33 Well, yeah, so the short term is if you can be more efficient, so if you have dense populations with different energy cycles, so different peaks and whatnot, as we talked about earlier, you need to spend less capital because you're peaking is at a lower level. And you're sharing energy between so that your overall initial energy utilization from the grid or from the gas system is lower because you're sharing more so overall that drives efficiency. And at the end of the day efficiency then drives lower greenhouse gas emissions and ideally, lower and more stable costs because your energy inputs are a lower percentage of the overall district. So say in our case, you if we're harnessing heat from Kruger, there are no escalation in the cost of that heat. It is waste industrial heat that otherwise wouldn't go anywhere. Whereas if we're connected to the Ontario grid, as you know, you know, costs have escalated very significantly. So that energy input if that is our key input, our energy costs are going to be higher. So we're fortunate that again, the combination of we sit in Ontario and in Quebec, so we have two different electrical and two different gas grids. We have waste heat and our cooling is going to come largely from the Ottawa River. So we have low cost inputs with waste heat and Ottawa River cooling. And we have four different grids we can tap into for alternative and for other energy if need be. So that then allows us to control our costs. So again, just an example of how you can drive efficiency and provide more price stability, while at the same time reducing emissions.   Dan Seguin  25:22 Okay. Do alternative energy sources like district energy reduce exposure to fluctuating energy prices? How are the rates/cost determined for residents? Are they comparable to current rates? And are they stable?   Jeff Westeinde  25:41 Yeah, so, yes, not all district energy systems are the same. Obviously, it depends on what those inputs are. But in the case of the Zibi community utility, our district energy system, but then our key inputs are that waste industrial heat and cooling base from the Ottawa River, both of which obviously have are stable. There's there is no Yeah, well, I shouldn't say we have some commercial transactions that go on without but not like the grid that allows us to decrease our reliance on the grid for other inputs. So to answer the question on rates, yes, our rates are comparable to market. And we've actually indexed them to the price of Quebec hydroelectricity. And for anyone that understands electrical grids, I would suggest that in North America, Quebec is likely the most stable grid in all of North America. I would say that it is a national utility for the province of Quebec. And I would say, you know, all Canadians are very proud of our healthcare and if they ever tried to take it away, there'd be riots in the streets. I would suggest that if anybody tried to raise electrical rates in Quebec, similar to what's happened Ontario, there would be even bigger riots in the streets. So, you know, we are expecting that will allow us to provide really stable pricing over the long term to our, to our customers.   Dan Seguin  27:09 Now, how important was it to find a strategic partner like hydro Ottawa, that had more than 100 years of experience and a strong track record to create safe and reliable utility infrastructure?   Jeff Westeinde  27:24 The partnership with Hydro Ottawa was critical. And again, consumer acceptance of that of the district energy system. You know, if you think about reliability if you're a consumer at Zibi, and you said, Okay, well what happens if my heating or cooling goes off? Who do I call if I see, well, you know, I am Jeff and here's my cell phone, you know, call me up at the cottage and I'll see if I can help you. That's not exactly reassuring. When you say 'Well, you call Hydro Ottawa" and they will is not who I would normally, you know, they, they're, they're, you know, the relative reliability stats of Hydro Ottawa better than me, but it's 99.999 something percent uptime, you know, 24 hour response, etc., etc. So, being able to bring that credibility of a utility operator to our district was absolutely critical for overall consumer acceptance and I would even say regulatory acceptance. You know, when we started talking about listen we're going to be moving hot and cold water in the you know energy in the form of hot and cold water around the around our community all municipal officials provincially "Okay, let you know if they did you have experience with this?" when we say well, Hydro Ottawa is our partner, it is an automatic acceptance of all know, okay, you guys are credible we understand let's carry on. So having Hydro Ottawa as a partner has been truly exceptional for us to be able to pioneer this.   Dan Seguin  28:50 Jeff, in addition to district energy, what else is he planning to feature in terms of other advanced technology and innovation to achieve zero carbon living for the residents and tenants on site?   Jeff Westeinde  29:08 Yeah, again, I know your podcast is not that long so I could talk forever about this, but I'll give you some key examples. So you know, again, trying to decrease reliance on carbon based transportation systems. So you know, the personal vehicle. You know, having car sharing, having excellent access to transit, when you're looking at other things that have a carbon footprint, how we build our buildings, the components that go into our buildings, the materials that go into our buildings, some are very carbon intensive. So again, we're targeting those that aren't carbon intensive. Even things like if you look at logistics, you know, when you buy a head of lettuce at the at the grocery store, the carbon it took to get that lettuce to the grocery store is embedded in that very product. So having urban agriculture, you'll see urban gardens, we've got a couple on site now. So all sorts of areas where anywhere where we can target things that are that use carbon to get delivered to or to, as part of the system that we're in. We're looking at incrementally changing all of those things. And those increments when they add up, turn into some big numbers. So that's really our focus.   Dan Seguin  30:27 Jeff, how about we close off with some rapid fire questions? Are you ready to go? What is your favorite word?   Jeff Westeinde  30:36 Serendipity. Yeah, I love serendipity. Because good things happen when you're not paying attention.   Dan Seguin  30:42 What is one thing you can't live without?   Jeff Westeinde  30:46 That was an easy one, my wife, I could be dead without that!   Dan Seguin  30:52 What is something that challenges you?   Jeff Westeinde  30:54 The word "No." I'm not good at taking the word 'No', it's how Zibi exists.   Dan Seguin  31:00 If you could have one superpower, what would it be?   Jeff Westeinde  31:03 I'd love to be a shapeshifter, be able to get inside different systems, different beings and understand how and why they work. I have endless curiosity. So I think being a shapeshifter would be amazing.   Dan Seguin  31:15 If you had to turn back time and talk to your 18 year old self, what would you tell them?   Jeff Westeinde  31:21 First, I would say smarten up and stop doing dumb things. But no, I think the one thing I would say is listen, relax. You know, something that has come to ring true with me, the Roman philosopher Seneca said, you know, "luck happens when opportunity meets preparedness". And I've been very fortunate to be lucky. But there's only one thing I can control in there. I can't control luck, I can't control opportunity. All I can do is control preparedness. So get prepared and just relax, pay attention, good things will happen.   Dan Seguin  31:52 And lastly, what do you currently find most interesting in your sector?   Jeff Westeinde  31:57 I love the fact that public health - so right now, you know, as you know, we're in the middle of a covid pandemic - public health is leading that across our country. But here in Ottawa, it's Vera Etches, I love the fact that our public health officials are starting to be included in our urban planning policies. So in Ottawa, Vera Etches participated in that. So remember I said earlier, you know, the way we plan is shortening the lifespan of our citizens. Public health starting to get involved in that. I'm really hoping that there will be an influence where they'll say, "if we planned communities this way, then here are the health benefits of it. If we do it that way, here's the health benefits." That's not currently happening. So I find that really exciting.   So, you know, we've been talking mostly about the Zibi project, which is one of the many things I do you know, if you go to Zibi.ca, then you can find more about Zibi and if you look to hello@zibi.ca anybody that wants to connect they're very good at getting people to me. I'm not much of a social media person, I do have a LinkedIn profile. I don't use it very often. But you can find me on LinkedIn and I'm good at responding to messages there as well.   Dan Seguin  32:41 Well, Jeff, we've reached the end of another episode of The ThinkEnergy podcast, last question for you. How can our listeners learn more about you and Zibi? How can they better connect?  Again, thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you had a lot of fun.   Jeff Westeinde  33:35 Well, this was fun, Dan, and thank you for your interest in Zibi and One Planet. That's fantastic.   Dan Seguin  33:42 Thank you for joining us today. I truly hope you enjoyed this episode of The thinkenergy podcast. For past episodes, make sure you visit our website HydroOttawa.com/podcast. Lastly, if you found value in this podcast, be sure to subscribe. Cheers, everyone.

In order to achieve Canada’s goal of being net zero by 2050, the future of energy will need to look a lot different than it does today. Vince Brescia, President and CEO of the Ontario Energy Association shared how controlling our emissions is a large part of the process, taking into account affordability and reliability of the energy supply, and six recommendations outlined by the Ontario Energy Association in a recent report. Relive this episode as part of thinkenergy’s Summer Recharge!    Related links Vince Brescia, LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vincebrescia/ Ontario Energy Association, LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ontario-energy-association https://energyontario.ca/ --- To subscribe using Apple Podcasts:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thinkenergy/id1465129405   To subscribe using Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7wFz7rdR8Gq3f2WOafjxpl   To subscribe on Libsyn: http://thinkenergy.libsyn.com/ --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: https://www.youtube.com/user/hydroottawalimited   Check out our cool pics on https://www.instagram.com/hydroottawa   More to Learn on https://www.facebook.com/HydroOttawa   Keep up with the Tweets at https://twitter.com/thinkenergypod   Transcript   Dan Seguin  00:06 This is thinkenergy. The podcast that helps you better understand the fast changing world of energy through conversations with game changers, industry leaders, and influencers. So join me, Dan Seguin, and my co host Rebecca Schwartz, as we explore both traditional and unconventional facets of the energy industry. Hey everyone, welcome to the summer rewind edition of the thinkenergy podcast. While we recharge our batteries during these lazy hazy days of summer, we're bringing back some blasts from our podcast past. We'll be reintroducing some of our most popular interviews that garnered a lot of attention and interest. There's been a lot of talk about the future electrification of energy on the path to net zero. The episodes we've selected are very future focused with themes around Green Innovation, renewable energy, and our impact on the environment. So I hope you enjoy the summer rewind edition of today's episode. In the meantime, have a happy summer. And we'll be back on August 15. To kick off another exciting season. Cheers. Dan Seguin  00:02 Hey, everyone, I'm Dan Seguin.   Rebecca Schwartz  00:04 And I'm Rebecca Schwartz, both from Hydro Ottawa.   Dan Seguin  00:07 And we'll be hosting the ThinkEnergy podcast. So are you looking to better understand the fast changing world of energy? Every two weeks, Rebecca and I will be taking you on a tour and discuss some of the coolest trends, emerging technologies, and latest innovations within the energy sector   Rebecca Schwartz  00:26 We'll be engaging in great conversations with game changers, thought leaders and industry leaders who welcome the opportunity to share their expertise and views with you, our listeners.   Dan Seguin  00:37 So stay tuned as we explore some traditional and some quirky facets of this industry.   Rebecca Schwartz  00:43 This is the ThinkEnergy podcast.   Dan Seguin  00:50 Hey, everyone, welcome back. This is the ThinkEnergy podcast and I'm Dan Seguin.   Rebecca Schwartz  00:55 And I'm Rebecca Schwartz. In November 2020, the Government of Canada introduced a bill setting the stage to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Dan, how old will you be in 2050?   Dan Seguin  01:08 I don't know, Rebecca, you have to ask me then, when I wake up from my cryogenically frozen state along with Walt Disney, that's the plan.   Rebecca Schwartz  01:17 Okay, good to know   Dan Seguin  01:19 When you try and wrap your head around what it will take to get Canada to net zero by 2050, do you wonder what kind of energy transformation that will entail?   Rebecca Schwartz  01:30 I'm still thinking about what you said about being cryogenically frozen. But yes, I think it's going to be a massive undertaking and necessary one. Ontario currently produces 163 megatons of greenhouse gas emissions. And 76% of that is from emissions stemming from energy use.   Dan Seguin  01:51 Right. But when we talk about energy, we're not talking about electricity. We're talking about refined petroleum, primarily used for transportation and natural gas to heat our homes and buildings.   Rebecca Schwartz  02:05 That's right. Those two sectors, transportation and buildings make up 76% of the provinces greenhouse gas emissions, however, the electricity sector makes up only 16%. So here's today's big question. What are the keys to net zero success?   Dan Seguin  02:23 It's interesting, because, as you know, despite what the electricity sector in Ontario has achieved in terms of renewable energy, and curbing its greenhouse gas emissions, the conversation almost always still revolves around the electricity sector when it comes to climate change. Which brings us to today's show.   Rebecca Schwartz  02:45 Recently, the Ontario Energy Association released a white paper that reviewed various elements of the provinces energy system and the options available to achieve zero emissions by 2050.   Dan Seguin  02:57 Our guest today is Vince Brescia, President and CEO of the Ontario Energy Association.   Rebecca Schwartz  03:07 Vince, welcome to the show. Perhaps you can start us off by telling us a little bit about yourself and what the Ontario Energy Association does.   Vince Brescia  03:15 Thanks, Rebecca, and thanks for having me on the show. I'm the president and CEO of the Ontario Energy Association. I've been active in public policy work and research since the late 1980s, I guess, inside the government and in various capacities outside of the government, then I've been here at the OEA for the last five years and really enjoying it. Here's of who the OEA is we represent the the breadth of Ontario's energy industry. We have power producers of all the different fuel types, you know, whether that's nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, etc. We have demand response and storage. We have the large electricity distributors representing 75% of Ontario's customer base. We also have the natural gas distributors representing over 99% of Ontario's customers in terms of what we do the OEA conducts Public Policy Research and advocates on behalf of its members. And we also provide forums for education on Energy and Environment issues. So that's a quick snapshot of me and the OEA   Dan Seguin  04:27 Now Vince with respect to the government of Canada's goal to reach net zero emissions by 2050. What is the role of the Ontario Energy Association in this initiative?   Vince Brescia  04:40 Thanks. Yeah, reaching net zero by 2050 will be a massive undertaking, perhaps the largest infrastructure projects in our country's history. So our role at the OEA is going to be to leverage the expertise of our members and advise governments at all levels about how we can make this transition happen. while still maintaining the affordability and reliability of our energy supply, it's going to be a big challenge. And we're all going to need to work together to achieve this goal.   Rebecca Schwartz  05:08 So what kinds of major transformation will it take to achieve the government's goals?   Vince Brescia  05:14 I'll break it down in a couple of different ways. In Ontario, 76% of our emissions come from the energy we use. So reaching our goals will require a major transformation of our energy system. 23% of those emissions come from industrial processes and product use 10% of agriculture, percent based so that gives you the full spectrum of the emissions in Ontario. But because we're an Energy Association, we've focused on the energy component and the transformation required in the energy system. Or there are some overlaps. For example, we're hopeful some of those waste emissions can be turned into energy just as an example. But then turning to energy. Currently in Ontario 80% of the energy we use comes from fossil fuel sources. 48% is from petroleum primarily for transportation uses. Another 28% is from natural gas primarily to heat our homes and buildings. 16% comes from electricity, which is now a clean energy source. So altogether, achieving our goal is going to require us to transform 80% of our energy system. That's a big project. And the three big sources of emissions in Ontario are transportation, buildings and industry. Altogether, those account for almost 80% of our emissions. So we're going to have to swap up the fuels that we use in transportation, we're going to need to decarbonize our building heating systems. And many of our industries and businesses are going to have to adapt to new fuel sources. This gives you a sense of the scale of the challenge. But also with comes that comes with that is a large opportunity of the to go to go hand in hand.   Dan Seguin  06:56 2015 is 30 years away. But it's fair to say that Ontario's emissions have changed a lot in the past 30 years. Vince, can you give us a snapshot of how our energy use has changed since 1990. What sectors and provinces have improved the most?   Vince Brescia  07:16 In 2019. Just to give you a sense of where we're at Canada emitted 730 mega tons of ghgs of that Ontario represented 163 mega tons or 22% of the national total. Over time since 1990, Ontario's emissions have declined from 180 megatons to 163, which is a reduction of about 17 megatons or 9%. We still have another 19 megatons to go to meet our 2030 target of 30% below 2005 levels. That's not factoring in the recent national commitment by our Prime Minister to reduce emissions by 40 to 45%. By 2030. In terms of you asked about how you know how the provinces have, have compared and fared nationally, Ontario has made the largest largest progress nationally. That came primarily from the elimination of coal fired generation in the province. That one policy change resulted in a 31 mega ton reduction reduction in emissions from its peak in 2005. However, a lot of those emissions reductions in Ontario have been offset by increases in emissions from our transportation sector since 1990. Nationally, to give you a sense of how other provinces have done, you know, to the east of Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Quebec together, have reduced emissions by 19 megatons in total since 2005. However, west of Ontario, the emissions profile has been rising. So altogether, nationally, our emissions have been flat since 2005. And if you look back to 1991, they're up from the 600 megatons to the 730 we're at now.   Rebecca Schwartz  08:57 Vince, the Ontario Energy Association outlines six recommendations in the report, can you walk us through what those are at a high level and why you believe they're the keys to netzero success,   Vince Brescia  09:09 I'll do a quick walk through. Our first recommendation is that we need to move as quickly as we can on transportation fuel switching. And that's because we have almost all of the technologies we need to affordably transform the sector and because transportation is our largest source of emissions. So that's what we need to tackle first, and we can do it affordably. Second is we need to start reducing emissions in our natural gas system is our second largest source of emissions. And if we get time later, we can talk a bit about some of the things we can do in that area. The third thing we're going to need to do is to plan to expand our electricity system, all this fuel switching. I've been talking about like for example in transportation, and we're going to need it in industry as well. We're going to need a lot more electricity and we're going to need every type of resource. We're going to need nuclear, hydro, wind, solar storage demand response transmission, you name it, we're going to need the whole package to meet the amount of electricity that's needed. Some people talk about a doubling or tripling of our electricity. Some, we're gonna need a lot more electricity as we transform our economy. The fourth thing that we recommended is that we start to accelerate accelerate hydrogen programs and pilots, we're gonna need a lot of hydrogen in our future, because there's certain types of industrial processes and activities, where it's not so easy to swap out the fossil fuels that we use. And hydrogen seems like a highly likely candidate, or hydrogen based fuels. But we have a bit of work to do to develop those and make them affordable for customers. So we need governments to lean in and help with pilot projects, and put their thumb on the scale, so to speak, to accelerate this economy and help build the infrastructure that we need to service the economy. Fifth recommendation we made is that there be comprehensive energy planning, not just electricity policy. In Ontario, we have tended to have a history of focusing just on the electricity system. And you've heard me mentioned earlier, it currently only accounts for 16% of our total energy use. We now now need to think about our whole energy system holistically. And make a detailed plan about what it's going to cost, what the most likely pathways are. The final recommendation is that we're going to need federal, provincial and municipal coordination. All three levels of governments are active in the space, all are having an impact and can have an impact. But we're not going to be successful if they're not coordinating their efforts, or if they're working at cross purposes, or fighting each other's or turning issues into political wedges, you know, against each other. We need to all work together because you know, as I mentioned earlier, this is a massive undertaking. And if we're going to be successful, we all need to work together in coordination. So that's a quick summary of our recommendations.   Dan Seguin  12:11 You note that in order for the transition to be successful in Ontario, careful attention needs to be paid to three core pillars that are the underpinning of the energy system. What are those?   Vince Brescia  12:24 Yeah, thanks for asking. Now we know from from experience that are three critical pillars that underpin public support for our energy system. The first is sustainability, which encompasses the net zero discussion we are having today. our energy system must be sustainable over the long term, and that includes ensuring that we utilize energy in a way that ensures the environmental sustainability of our communities, and of our planet. Of course, the two other pillars, though, are affordability, and reliability. We have recent experience in Ontario that significant increases in energy costs lead to very negative customer and voter reactions. We must keep our customers informed and supportive of the transition, or they will rebel against the effort. Finally, our modern economy is also very dependent upon reliable energy. customers expect and depend on energy being available when they need it. If we go too long, without energy to heat our homes or power to run our economy, or God forbid, keep our cell phones charged. It causes major disruption for all of us. So our transition must ensure we continue to provide an energy in the reliable fashion that our consumers have grown accustomed to,   Rebecca Schwartz  13:36 In your opinion, Vince, what are some of the biggest barriers and challenges to achieve the 2015 zero emission targets? For instance, are there any activities that we can't fully eliminate?   Vince Brescia  13:47 Yes, some of the biggest barriers and challenges to achieving our goals will come from what some call the hard to abate sectors. These sectors are characterized by high material volumes, and finding alternative processes that are affordable, it's going to be a challenge for us. These are also some of our largest sources of emissions globally. And the big three are cement, steel and chemicals. Cement is one of the largest sources of global emission each tonne of cement produces about a half a tonne of carbon dioxide. And this has two main components. One is from the chemical reaction of turning limestone, which is calcium carbonate, and to lime, which releases co2. The other is from the energy component that we use to cook the limestone to over 1000 degrees Celsius, which is typically fossil fuels. So you have two elements, you have both an energy element and a chemical element that leads to large emissions from that sector. And that's going to be a challenge to decarbonize that sector. Steel is another one steel is the highest emitting industry in the world. It produces 3.5 Giga tons of co2 globally. Like cement, they're both energy In process admissions, we make primary steel out of iron ore, which is iron oxide, we add coal to the iron ore for its heat energy to essentially boil the you're kind of like we did we do for the cement, and for its chemical properties that allow us to strip off the oxygen atoms. This results in a chemical process where you end up with pure iron and co2 emissions. We produce steel in Ontario. And we also produce a lot of cars, which use a lot of steel and steel and a lot of other processes. So we're Ontario is going to have to tackle this one head on and it's going to be a challenge. The third big challenging areas, chemicals, petrochemicals and plastic production are the other large area of emissions globally and Ontario. There's a more diverse range of products here, but the largest one is ammonia, which we use for fertilizer in agriculture. And the next are ethylene and propylene, which are the most important ingredients and plastics. Again, there's going to be some difficulties and challenges and a lot of technology required to decarbonize those sectors.   Rebecca Schwartz  16:07 Let's talk about opportunities and leveraging technology and innovation. What's exciting you or giving you hope for the future?   Vince Brescia  16:14 There are some activities, we're going to need a lot of Innovation and Learning before we'll be able to eliminate emissions. According to the International Energy Agency, almost half the emissions cuts necessary for us to achieve net zero will come from technologies that are not in the marketplace yet. Some of the more exciting areas that are important and looked like they have significant potential, I would say are the following three hydrogen and hydrogen based fuels. governments around the world are developing hydrogen strategies. It looks to be very competitive globally, every major western country is working on a hydrogen strategy. And Ontario in Canada have some leading companies in this area like we have Enbridge Cummins hydrogenics, new flyer Ballard loop energy, planetary hydrogen, hydro energy, it's going to be a very exciting area is watching the hydrogen economy develop. That's what I'm excited about. The other one is energy storage, particularly long duration energy storage. We store lots of energy, now we have the technology. The costs are coming down fast. But what's really going to help us transform our economy is the ability to store energy for a long period of times and learn to do that affordably. There's lots of people looking at that and working on it, it's going to be a significant growth area. And I'm very excited about it. The third big one is is carbon capture utilization and storage, we are absolutely going to need carbon capture and storage if we're going to meet our netzero goals. One of the examples is cement, which I talked about earlier, I talked about this process where we boil the limestone and the chemical reaction leads to a bunch of emissions. The only thing I'm really hearing about from experts who know a lot more about this stuff than I do is that we're gonna need carbon capture to capture the carbon dioxide that comes from that cement. And cement. You know, as I mentioned, it's a very large global emissions producers. And that's just one example. There are lots of places where we're going to need carbon capture in our future to meet our goals. So there's a there's there's three areas that I'm excited about where I think we're going to see a lot of growth.   Dan Seguin  18:21 How important is energy affordability for Ontarians?   Vince Brescia  18:26 It's critically important. History has shown us that Ontarians react negatively to energy cost increase. If the government's Transition Plans a significant negative impact on energy and affordability. Families and businesses will rebel against the plan and the plan will get derailed. Oh, it is critically important. We have to keep it in mind.   Dan Seguin  18:45 What lessons can be learned from when Ontario's electricity rates increase to pay for renewable investments? And how can these lessons be applied to Canada's goal for 2050?   Vince Brescia  18:59 It's a great question. I'll give you my perspective. I think one important lesson we can learn from that experience is that sudden large spikes in energy costs are very upsetting to people and they draw lots of attention. They draw lots of political attention, lots of media attention. I think you can socialize the idea that costs may have to arise incrementally over time and get people used to the idea. However, most households don't pay much attention to public policy discussions and debates. They just look at their bill. They compare their last bill to this one, or this month's bill compared to this month last year to see how it's doing. So whatever plan we develop, if we can avoid sudden spikes, I think you can invoke you can avoid the negative public reactions, like the one we saw. That's what we can learn from that previous experience.   Rebecca Schwartz  19:47 Ontario's electricity system is one of the cleanest in the world. What does removing natural gas from the provinces supply mean for the reliability of the grid?   Vince Brescia  19:58 It's a great question. It's one that's getting discussed more. In the current climate, Ontario's Nash natural gas plants were built only recently to replace the reliability service offered by the coal plants we were shutting down. Once we had the capabilities of these natural gas plants in place, we were able to add a large volume of renewables to our system, resulting Ontario having one of the cleanest electricity systems in the world. These gas plants are like a backup to our electricity system. Most of the time the plants are not utilized much while we power the system with you know, nuclear, hydro, wind and solar and other other sources. That's why our system is so clean currently, because the plants are set seldom run at full capacity, so we get fewer emissions from them. However, when we have a large spike in demand on a really cool day, or a really hot day, these plants kick in to help maintain system reliability. They can be deployed on relatively short notice to meet urgent needs. Like the coal plants that they replace, these plants have access to something that is critically important for grid reliability, vast amounts of energy storage, this capability is not easy or affordable to replace. So we're going to need the services of these plants for some time before we're going to be able to replace them,   Rebecca Schwartz  21:12 can we replace natural gas to heat our homes and buildings and what will it take to make it happen? Vince,   Vince Brescia  21:19 we are going to need to maintain our gases to heat our homes and buildings for some time, we can change what goes into the system to make it cleaner and we can reduce the amount of energy we need from the system. I'll try and put it into perspective for you. The natural gas system currently provides about three times the peak energy of our electricity system. In other words, we would need to quadruple our current electricity system to meet the current peak heat demand if we wanted to transition to electric heat across Ontario. To give you a sense of the scale of that, if we were going to replace all of the gas system with electricity that would require about 24 nuclear generating stations. Or it would take 30 to 50,000 wind turbines paired with long duration energy storage, acquiring about 1.3 million acres for siting, you get a sense that this would be a pretty massive undertaking, and would probably be very expensive for customers. At the same time, we are going to have to expand our electricity system to deal with significant electrification and transportation, which we've talked about, and an industry which we've also talked about. So if we were to add the electrification of the natural gas system on top of that, that would likely not be achievable. So this informs the view that we should be looking at ways to decarbonize the natural gas system. And we're doing that now. Firstly, we've begun to blend renewable natural gas into our system, which takes methane from waste that was otherwise go into the atmosphere. Methane is a very potent greenhouse gas, making this a carbon negative activity. We're also blending green emissions free hydrogen into our gas system. Going forward, we'll be continuously exploring technological advances that allow us to increase the amount of that blend of hydrogen and renewable natural gas into our system. In addition, if we were to pair our current heating system with heat pumps, we can make a significant reduction in the amount of natural gas needed to heat our homes and buildings. On top of all of that, you know, research has shown us that we can affordably achieve significant reductions in the amount of natural gas use through building energy efficiency measures. So when you put all of those things together, you know, our view is that we can deeply decarbonize the natural gas system, and do that relatively affordability which reduces the scale relatively affordably as well and it reduces the scale of the electricity expansion that is going to be required. In Ontario for all these other activities we've talked about.   Dan Seguin  23:52 As we know from your report, refined petroleum makes up 48% of Ontario's energy use mostly for transportation. Are electric vehicles the answer to the transportation sectors greenhouse gas emissions problem here in Ontario.   Vince Brescia  24:10 Yes, they are a large part of the answer. Transportation as you mentioned, it's Ontario's largest source of emissions. passenger vehicles currently make up 57% of our transportation emissions, electric electrification of these passenger vehicles and a smaller short haul trucks and transit uses this can be done affordably with current technology, very exciting. I expect this transition to really accelerate and the next while for heavier and long haul transportation, we may need other solutions to be part of the mix. Long Haul and heavy transportation is less amenable to electrification because the batteries get too big and heavy and refueling time, you know adds significantly to cost for these uses. You know, we could be looking at learning compressed natural gas and renewable natural gas to to get to net zero most analysts seem to think that hydrogen fuel cells will be an important part of the long term substitution for heavy transportation. exciting part, as I've mentioned, we have a number of leading hydrogen companies in Canada and Ontario that are, that are making these these fuel cells. So it's also an economic opportunity for our province. And also, you know, you think of the materials for batteries and some of the the steel and inputs to the these vehicles that we're talking about, there's another economic opportunity there for Ontario. For some other transportations like ships and planes, we're just going to need alternative fuels. And again, the batteries be too heavy, you need a high energy density of the fuel. And we have, we may be looking at variants on hydrogen fuels like ammonia, that are very, very dense in energy in order to the fuel all those activities. And what we're going to do to try and figure out as a way to develop those supply chains affordably to set out those users.   Rebecca Schwartz  26:04 Alright, then, how about we close off with some rapid fire questions?   Vince Brescia  26:08 All right,   Rebecca Schwartz  26:09 what is your favorite word?   Vince Brescia  26:11 Reason   Rebecca Schwartz  26:12 What is one thing you can't live without?   Vince Brescia  26:14 Air And Starbucks coffee.   Rebecca Schwartz  26:17 What is something that challenges you?   Vince Brescia  26:19 golf. I keep trying, but it keeps challenging me.   Rebecca Schwartz  26:22 If you could have one superpower events, what would it be?   Vince Brescia  26:26 Time Travel   Rebecca Schwartz  26:27 If you could turn back time and talk to your 18 year old self? What would you tell him?   Vince Brescia  26:32 Oh, with my new superpower, I'd say invest all your savings and Berkshire Hathaway and leave it there.   Rebecca Schwartz  26:38 And lastly, what do you currently find most interesting in your sector?   Vince Brescia  26:42 You know what I love the technological innovation that is taking place in our sector. I mean, we've been talking about it today. It's exciting. It's a very exciting time to be part of the sector. I'm learning every day about new technologies and processes. And I love it.   Dan Seguin  26:59 Well, Vince, we've reached the end of another episode of The think energy podcast. Thank you so much for joining us today. I hope you had a lot of fun.   Vince Brescia  27:08 I did have a lot of fun. Thank you so much for having me. This was great.   Dan Seguin  27:13 Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the thinkenergy podcast. And don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review wherever you're listening. And to find out more about today's guests, or previous episodes, visit thinkenergypodcast.com. I hope you'll join us again next time as we spark even more conversations about the energy of tomorrow.

In our last episode, we spoke with Loren McDonald about the shift in social perception when it comes to adopting EVs across Canada. However, it’ll take more than just a social shift for this adoption to happen. This week we’re revisiting our conversation with Cara Clairman, President and CEO at Plug'nDrive—and a prominent leader in the EV space, who shared her unique perspective on Canada’s readiness to adopt EVs, barriers the country is facing, whether Canadian businesses and municipalities have a role to play in EVolution, and more.    Related links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cara-clairman-84967318/ Cost of Ownership Tool: https://ev.plugndrive.ca/ Book a Test Drive: https://www.plugndrive.ca/electric-vehicle-discovery-centre/ Used EV rebate program: https://www.plugndrive.ca/used-electric-vehicles/ ZEVIP (NRCan funding program for infrastructure): https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/energy-efficiency/transportation-alternative-fuels/zero-emission-vehicle-infrastructure-program/21876 Federal EV incentive program: https://tc.canada.ca/en/road-transportation/innovative-technologies/zero-emission-vehicles   --- To subscribe using Apple Podcasts:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thinkenergy/id1465129405   To subscribe using Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7wFz7rdR8Gq3f2WOafjxpl   To subscribe on Libsyn: http://thinkenergy.libsyn.com/ --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: YouTube   Check out our cool pics on Instagram   More to Learn on Facebook   Keep up with the Tweets at Twitter   Transcript      Dan Seguin  00:06 This is thinkenergy. The podcast that helps you better understand the fast changing world of energy through conversations with game changers, industry leaders, and influencers. So join me, Dan Seguin, and my co host Rebecca Schwartz, as we explore both traditional and unconventional facets of the energy industry. Hey everyone, welcome to the summer rewind edition of the thinkenergy podcast. While we recharge our batteries during these lazy hazy days of summer, we're bringing back some blasts from our podcast past. We'll be reintroducing some of our most popular interviews that garnered a lot of attention and interest. There's been a lot of talk about the future electrification of energy on the path to net zero. The episodes we've selected are very future focused with themes around Green Innovation, renewable energy, and our impact on the environment. So I hope you enjoy the summer rewind edition of today's episode. In the meantime, have a happy summer. And we'll be back on August 15. To kick off another exciting season. Cheers. Hey, everyone, I'm Dan Seguin.   Rebecca Schwartz  01:30 And I'm Rebecca Schwartz, both from Hydro Ottawa.   Dan Seguin  01:33 And we'll be hosting the thinkenergy podcast. So are you looking to better understand the fast changing world of energy? Every two weeks, Rebecca and I will be taking you on a tour and discuss some of the coolest trends, emerging technologies and latest innovations within the energy sector.   Rebecca Schwartz  01:52 We'll be engaging in great conversations with game changers, thought leaders and industry leaders who welcomed the opportunity to share their expertise and views with you, our listeners.   Dan Seguin  02:03 So stay tuned as we explore some traditional and some coffee facets of this industry.   Rebecca Schwartz  02:09 This is the thinkenergy podcast.   Dan Seguin  02:12 Hey, everyone, welcome back. This is the thinkenergy podcast. And on today's episode, we'll tackle EV-lution of transportation. I'm Dan Seguin.   Rebecca Schwartz  02:28 And I'm Rebecca Schwartz. Hey, Dan, you have an electric vehicle,right?   Dan Seguin  02:32 I sure do.   Rebecca Schwartz  02:33 I'm curious. What's your experience been? Like? Would you recommend an EV for your one and only favorite co host?   Dan Seguin  02:39 Mm hmm. I would 100% Recommend one. I love my little EV. I've actually owned two. And now my wife has just ordered her very own. I have no regrets.   Rebecca Schwartz  02:54 That's good to know. Now, if I could just get a solid pay raise, I'll be able to afford one hint hint nudge nudge.   Dan Seguin  03:01 Hmm. I have some great news about that Rebecca. First. Both the Feds and some provinces have great incentive programs. With these rebates EVs are really much more affordable. In fact, as part of Canada's goal to help fight climate change, there are plans to make owning a zero emission vehicle more accessible than ever before, through addressing affordability and adequate infrastructure. Today's guests will have lots more to say about that.   Rebecca Schwartz  03:35 Oh, visions of having my very own EV are getting a little bit more clear. You have my attention go on.   Dan Seguin  03:41 In fact, the pressures on; the Government of Canada has mandated 100% of car and passenger truck Sales be zero emission by 2035. All kinds of measures will be required to support this transportation evolution. Everything from incentives for zero emission vehicles, to investments in infrastructure to partnerships with auto manufacturers are being pursued.   Rebecca Schwartz  04:06 Wow, that seems so soon. But that's exciting. There are so many more things I'd like to know when asked. So here's today's big questions. Are Canadians ready to embrace this relatively quick transition over to EVs? What are the barriers and do Canadian businesses and municipalities have a role to play in the EV evolution?   Dan Seguin  04:26 Joining us today we have Cara Clairman, CEO and President at Plug'n Drive and a prominent leader in the EV space. She's here today to provide us with all of the answers. Cara, welcome to the show. Maybe you could start by telling us a bit about your organization and its mandate.   Cara Clairman  04:52 Well, thanks so much, Dan, for for inviting me to do this. Plug'n Drive is a not for profit. So we're out there trying to educate consumers on the environmental and economic benefits of switching to an electric car. And so most of our work revolves revolves around that outreach and education to help people make the switch.   Rebecca Schwartz  05:12 The Government of Canada has set what some might call an aggressive mandate for 100% of new light duty vehicle sales to be zero emissions by 2035. Why has Canada set this mandate? And how does it play into the larger picture of net zero by 2050.   Cara Clairman  05:27 So I'm sure a lot of your listeners will know that transportation is actually one of the largest emitting sectors not just here in Canada, but pretty much everywhere around the world. And in fact, in many provinces of Canada, transportation is the number one largest emitter larger than industry larger than buildings. And so we really can't achieve our climate goals if we don't tackle transportation. So of course, tackling transportation is a few, a few different things, not just EVs. But EV is a ready technology that's here that would really, really help in terms of reducing emissions from consumer vehicles, as well as now some medium and even heavy duty. And this opportunity is huge. Because if you just take Ontario, for example, you know, our number one emission source is transportation, and our electricity grid is already extremely clean. We're about 95% emission reduction if we switch to EVs, because our electricity grid here is already about 90 plus percent free of greenhouse gas emissions. And that's true in many provinces of Canada. So if you look at our electricity grid across the country, you have, you know, a number of provinces that are hydro only. So it's, you know, BC, Quebec, Manitoba. And so if you look across the country, we're already about 80% GHG, free pretty much. And so it's just such a perfect match with the with improving the emissions from transportation across Canada, we have an extremely clean energy grid. And if you think about our electricity, here in Ontario, it's mostly nuclear and hydro, a little bit of, of solar and wind, very small amount of natural gas. So we're already about only 5%, five to 8% fossil fuel on the grid. So plugging into our cars into that grid offers a huge emission reduction at about 90 to 95%. So as a long way of saying, you know, requiring new EV sales is a relatively easy way for the government to start making the transition for the transportation personal vehicle fleet, and would allow Canada actually to achieve the net zero by 2050, which it really can't do if it doesn't tackle transportation.   Dan Seguin  08:00 Now, Cara, are you able to expand on how Canada's zero emission vehicle mandates compare globally? Are we on par with other countries?   Cara Clairman  08:10 Well, I'll answer that question sort of in two parts. How we are now compared to the globe and other countries and how we will be right now I'd say we're a bit behind. Because we don't have an aggressive enough, EV set of EV policies, and we have quite a patchwork across the country in terms of provincial policies. And so our adoption rates are actually on the low side relative to a lot of other countries. I'd say we stand around 10th Right now, you know, in comparison to other countries that have, you know, better policies than we have. However, the policy of zero emission new sales, right, that's just new sales, we'll still have gas cars around for quite a while. zero emission, new sales by 2035. Is, is quite progressive. And I would say it's not the most aggressive policy, there are a few countries ahead of us, like Norway has, you know, a mandate for 2025. And there are a number of European countries that have set 2030. But 2035 is definitely in the pack, I would say in terms of of leadership in the top, you know, 10 or 15 countries. What we really need to do though, is make this a law. You know, right now, we just have a sort of a vague commitment to it and until it's legislated, it really doesn't have a lot of meaning.   Rebecca Schwartz  09:42 What are some of the main barriers to zero emission vehicle adoption?   Cara Clairman  09:47 Okay, well, there's lots of barriers still remaining, although we're making lots of good progress. We did a survey about four years ago, and I think the results probably would hold true today as well. While asking people about about what was preventing them from choosing an electric vehicle, and actually the number one barrier was price, which surprised us, we expected people to say range or lack of public infrastructure or something like that. But three to one, they actually said, they thought EVs were too expensive. And so we know that the upfront sticker price is is a problem for people, it is still a bit more expensive than the equivalent gas car. What people don't really know is that the total cost of ownership of an EV, even at today's prices is less. But it's always a challenge to help people understand you're going to pay more now and save later. And we have to help people see the advantage of doing that. So I would say you know, cost and then also education because you have to help people understand that total cost of ownership over time. And actually, to help consumers on that specific point, we've, we've put a really great new tool on our website called Find your EV match, which really helps you see the total cost of ownership for for electric vehicles income, and you can even compare an EV to your existing gas car that you currently drive and see your monthly savings. And so this is a really, really important point. I would also say, of course, you know, we do need more infrastructure, and they're still in some range hesitancy concern, but I really believe that the range issue is going away as an issue as the battery technology improves. And of course, as public infrastructure improves.   Dan Seguin  11:40 Okay, Cara. How is your organization working to build consumer awareness and education to help remove consumer concerns around EVs?   Cara Clairman  11:50 Well, I mean, Dan, this is what we're doing every single day. You know, we've built our whole program around helping the consumer get over their concerns. And so we're quite accustomed to every single concern and question people have. And basically we do it in a couple of ways. We have our EV Discovery Center in Toronto, which is you know, a bricks and mortar facility, people can come learn all about EVs, no pressure to buy anything, and test drive the latest make some models. And we have found through our research that test drive is key to helping people get over their concerns. And that's been a bit of a challenge during COVID, although we are back to doing test drive. And then secondly, we have our mobile EV Discovery Center or our meet, which we take to smaller cities and towns all over to sort of bring the EV Discovery Center concept to them. And so that's a great opportunity for people to learn again, and a no pressure environment is fun. And then we have our roadshow, which you know, where we go out to even farther afield locations for a day or two days to give people that chance where they may not have any, for example, and EV dealers in their community. So we're really trying to reach everyone. And so that so those are the main things that we do. And I would just add the the other program that we have that we find is really helping consumers is our used TV program, which has a rebate attached to it and we're doing this online through webinars, but it's to help people understand who who had that idea. Oh, you know, I love TV, but I think it's just too expensive for me to help them understand that use these are a great opportunity affordable and available and in the webinar we run through a you know sort of everything you need to know to choose the used EV that's right for you. And then Plug'n Drive is offering $1,000 rebate to anyone who lives in Ontario. If you buy a used EV.   Dan Seguin  13:53 Wondering if you can tell us about Plug'n Drive's Electric Vehicle Discovery Center and what goes on there?   Cara Clairman  13:59 So the Discovery Center is as I said, at bricks and mortar facilities, a sort of imagined Science Center meets cars showroom, you want to see some photos of it, you could just check it out on plugndrive.ca. And the great thing there is it's you know, interactive fun, like I said, like a science center. People come just for fun to learn. And of course, we aren't selling cars. So people don't have that pressure that they feel they sometimes have when they go to a dealership. And then we have all the makes and models sitting right there for people to test drive. And that test drive is so key to helping someone get over their concerns. Because a lot of the times people have a preconceived notion about what an EV might be like, and they don't realize like how fun it is to drive and that these are really fantastic vehicles with great pickup. And it kinda just reminds people of the quality and the fun. And then we can run through with them how much money they're going to save and the emission reductions and our stats tell the story about 35% of the people after visiting the center, within six months have bought an electric car.   Rebecca Schwartz  15:07 How can Canadian businesses support the transition to electric vehicles? And how can they acquire access to the proper funding?   Cara Clairman  15:14 Yeah, we've started doing a lot of work with businesses. And what we find is, you know, number one, what they can do is look at workplace charging, we know that the home is the number one place, people want to charge about 80% of us plug in our cars at home at night, take advantage of low time of use prices. It's where it's convenient, all those reasons. But the second place people want to charge is that work. And actually, studies at UC California have shown that if someone sees a charger at work, and then talks to a colleague who has an EV at work, they're six times more likely to adopt an electric car. So one of the great things that a business can do is put in some workplace charging, and then also do some education around using that charging and help their employees get on board. And some businesses are even offering an incentive to their employees to consider an EV, especially companies that are looking at their own GHG reduction targets. And transportation might be one of the main emitters of their of their organization. So they can use those chargers for their own fleet. They can electrify their own fleet that way, and they can help their employees. So those are a couple of ways. Businesses can help support the transition. And then you've asked about access to funding there, there is some funding through enter can the program is called ZEVIP Zed E VIP where businesses can apply to get some funding for workplace type charging systems.   Dan Seguin  16:51 It would seem that municipalities across Canada have a large part to play to support the government's mandate and to make charging stations more accessible. In your experience. Has this been the case? What's your view on the role municipalities play in the electrification of transit?   Cara Clairman  17:09 Yeah, municipalities do have an important role to play. And I think they are starting to recognize it more and more. So for example, one role that municipalities are playing and it's proving really important is in terms of standards for multi unit buildings. So for example, a municipality can require a certain green standard for condos or multi unit buildings being built in their in their territory, and that will ensure that the you know, rough in is there for the plugs in future and that new buildings will get built with you know, with the ability or sort of EV ready to help their citizens because let's face it, especially in the Greater Toronto Area, a lot of people live in multi unit. And we need to make it possible for these people to plug in. There's other roles they can play, for example, we're seeing a lot of municipalities set up you know, their own EV policies for their, you know, for public parking, for example, street parking for for different, making certain municipal lots available for charging, there's there's lots of ways that municipalities can help. And there are, you know, through the associations, there's sharing, I know of EV policies across municipalities that don't have to reinvent the wheel.   Rebecca Schwartz  18:32 All right, Cara, can you talk to us about Canada's electric highway? Can we actually drive our EVs coast to coast?   Cara Clairman  18:40 Yes, you can. It's still not that easy, I have to say. But the thing I always want to remind is that this is not a trip that many people are doing. You know, maybe some of us have done it once in our life, or, you know, it's the thing that happens very rarely. So it's not as critical. It's more of again, it's a nice to do. It's sort of a psychological thing. People think, oh, it's great if you can, it's still a challenge, but doable and getting easier. You know, it's something that I would say, no, it's not a trip I'm ever going to do and I mean, I drive my car just more locally. So I wouldn't want people to hesitate getting an EV because this isn't the easiest trip to make.   Dan Seguin  19:28 It seems that national sales of EVs are closing in on 4%. What are your recommendations to accelerate the deployment of electric vehicles in Canada?   Cara Clairman  19:38 Well, there's just a whole bunch of things we need to do. So for example, right now in British Columbia, we're hovering around 10% of new sales, Quebec, close to 8%. Ontario, we're down at 2%. And so you can see that the variability in the different policies are leading to very different results. And so there's a couple of things, we need to make some consistency across Canada because what happens when you have certain provinces with really aggressive policies and certain policies, provinces without it, the vehicle supply goes to those provinces with the more aggressive policies. And then it's really hard for people, for example, in Ontario, to get vehicles, and so that ZEV mandate, or ZEV standard that the federal government is talking about is really important for making, you know, some more consistency across the whole country. So I'm very supportive of that. I'd also like to see some consistent building codes across the country, it seems ridiculous that in 2021, where we still have condos and apartment buildings being built with no potential for EV charging in the future, and it's so much more expensive to do a retrofit than to do it when you're building a building. So the building codes need to be updated, to make sure that the buildings are required to at least rough in for evey charging in the future. So that's another really, really important one. And then, you know, we, you know, I'd like to say that the time of needing incentives is over, it isn't over. We still do need incentives for the next couple of years. I think we're going to hit price parity in a few years time, and then we won't need them anymore. But but for now, I think we do. And because the environmental benefit is so large, I think it makes sense that governments continue to support it.   Dan Seguin  21:32 What about charging stations, is charging infrastructure rolling out at the pace to support the transition to 100%, zero emission vehicle sales by 2035.   Cara Clairman  21:44 Well, we do still have more work to do in the area of public charging, but again, I'm one of those people who doesn't think this is as critical to the rollout as some other things. You know, as an EV, driver, and Dan, you said, you're also an EV driver, we are charging at home, most of us are charging at home. And we are very occasionally using public charging. I only use public charging a few times a year. And I think I'm pretty typical on a road trip or work trip. And so you do need more infrastructure, we can't have single chargers out there. You know, we need to multiply those we need them to be in strategic locations. We need them to be in places where you can grab a bite to eat and use facilities and all that. So there's work to do, but I am not of the view that this is a primary barrier to evey adoption. Really, the infrastructure you need is at home and it's ready right now.   Rebecca Schwartz  22:44 Cara, can you tell us a bit about the sentiment among automotive manufacturers? Are they embracing the transition to EVs at all?   Cara Clairman  22:51 Well, we're certainly I mean, you really can't turn on your news or open your your apps, which is how most of us probably get our news these days without seeing a new announcements. So we certainly are seeing the commitment to EVs. In the future, where there's a bit of a struggle, I would say it's sort of right now. Right now in Canada supply is extremely low. It's quite difficult to get vehicles, all the manufacturers are ramping up. But that doesn't happen overnight. And so, you know, we need to do a bit more to get the vehicles in here right now. The exciting thing is, you know, here in Ontario, we're going to be making EVs in the next couple of years. And so the supply challenge will get fixed. And and then we're going to see, I think, you know, just massive changes, but for now the next year to two years, we definitely have a struggle to to bring in the vehicles. And we have to show to the automakers that Canada is a good place for evey adoption, because of course they send the vehicles where they think the best opportunity is to sell them.   Dan Seguin  23:55 Cara, just wondering what should consumers know about zero emissions vehicles today? How has technology evolved over the past few years? And are there funding opportunities for consumers looking to purchase one?   Cara Clairman  24:09 Well, of course, I want people to know that EVs are a fantastic option right now, what I hear from a lot of consumers, which which is helpful, is you know, yes EVs are the future, I'm sure that we're all going to be driving EVs. But what I think a lot of people don't realize is that they're totally ready for primetime right now. Fantastic quality, good range, everything you really need is already there. And of course, the fun and the super great pickup and all those things too. And so I think, you know, people shouldn't hesitate, that that when they're ready for a new car, this should be good. In terms of funding opportunities. I would say, you know, of course the federal government still has its $5,000 rebate available. And as we you know, in the election, we basically got the same government and they have committed to continue that. So we know that will continue. Some provinces have a provincial incentive that layers on top of that, unfortunately, we don't have that in Ontario right now, which is makes us a little bit of a laggard. Compared to other provinces, there are now six provinces with rebates, which makes it hard for Ontario to attract vehicle. So when people go looking for a vehicle, they're challenged to find one. What I would tell consumers that are looking for one and don't want to have to get on a waiting list is to look at the US market. There's a lot of great options in the US market right now. And of course, as I said, Plug'n Drive has $1,000 incentive to buy a used EV, and an extra $1,000 If you scrap an old gas car and buy a used EV so that's a great option. If you can't find the new vehicle that you're looking for.   Rebecca Schwartz  25:54 In your view, Cara, what does the future of Canada look like when it comes to zero emission vehicles?   Cara Clairman  26:00 Well, I think I think pretty much everyone has realized even the most Die Hard sort of auto analyst who really really hesitated on EVs. In terms of their reporting. I think even they have realized like this is coming, there's no stopping it. It's, it's the question mark is like how fast and I think groups like mine and other other EV sort of advocacy type groups are really it's all about how can we get this transition to happen faster, because if you agree that climate change is a crisis, we really can't wait for sort of a slow market transition, we need to do everything we can to speed it up. So that includes incentives, that includes building codes, that includes ZEV mandate policies, that includes all sorts of local initiatives to try to encourage people to speed it up. But I do feel very optimistic that you know, we are going to see a huge swing in the direction of EVs even by 2030.   Dan Seguin  27:03 Okay, Cara, how about we close off with some rapid fire questions?   Cara Clairman  27:08 Okay, skip the skip the favorite word. I really didn't have one.   Dan Seguin  27:12 What is the one thing you can't live without?   Cara Clairman  27:16 Coffee!   Dan Seguin  27:17 What is something that challenges you?   Cara Clairman  27:19 Something that challenges me? Well, I mean, I guess the reality is in a nonprofit setting, you're always you're always having to raise money. And so that's always a challenge for anybody in the NGO sector. That's that's probably our biggest challenge.   Dan Seguin  27:35 If you could have one superpower, what would it be?   Cara Clairman  27:40 Well, I think I would love the teleportation oh my gosh, you know, I love EVs. But let's face it, there's still cars. And, you know, they still contribute to gridlock and traffic and all that. And it would just be so awesome to be able to just teleport to some other location.   Dan Seguin  27:58 Now, Cara, if you could turn back time and talk to your 18 year old self? What would you tell her?   Cara Clairman  28:05 I would tell her to do more public speaking. Who knew I would end up doing so much public speaking in my career, I really didn't get started in that till I was much older. And I feel like it's a useful skill for any job just to feel confident talking in front of other people, whether that's five people or 500 people. So I would definitely say get yourself in front of an audience and practice public speaking.   Dan Seguin  28:32 And lastly, what do you currently find most interesting in your sector?   Cara Clairman  28:38 Oh, my gosh, my sector is so fascinating. You know, it's funny because I come from the electricity sector as you do. And I think there's a lot of people with this idea. That's kind of an old, stodgy, boring sector. And so I find it so exciting that there's so many opportunities for innovation. And it's not just EV, it's storage, and renewables and there's just there's just so much of interest happening in the electricity sector. I hope young people are really looking at it for future career options.   Rebecca Schwartz  29:09 All right, Cara. We've reached the end of another episode of The thinkenergy podcast. Thanks so much for joining us today. We hope you had fun.   Cara Clairman  29:16 I did. Thank you so much for having me.   Dan Seguin  29:18 Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the thinkenergy podcast. And don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review wherever you're listening. And to find out more about today's guests, or previous episodes, visit thinkenergypodcast.com. I hope you'll join us again next time as we spark even more conversations about the energy of tomorrow.

The adoption of electric vehicles continues to rise in Canada, with many automakers reporting their EV stock is completely sold out. This shift in social perception from being EV-hesitant to embracing their benefits seems like a big win for society, but are we really ready for this boom in popularity? Loren McDonald of EVAdoption has spent decades analyzing trends in EVs and charging technology, and he joins this episode of thinkenergy to share his thoughts.    Related links https://evadoption.com/ https://evstatistics.com/ https://twitter.com/LorenMcDonald https://twitter.com/EVAdoptionTweet https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorenmcdonald/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/evadoption/   --- To subscribe using Apple Podcasts   To subscribe using Spotify   To subscribe on Libsyn --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: Youtube   Check out our cool pics on Instagram.   More to learn on Facebook.   Keep up with the Tweets. Transcript: Dan Seguin  00:06 This is thinkenergy, the podcast that helps you better understand the fast changing world of energy through conversations with game changers, industry leaders and influencers. So join me, Dan Seguin, and my co host Rebecca Schwartz, as we explore both traditional and unconventional facets of the energy industry. Hey everyone, welcome back. Get ready to start your engines folks. We've got the EV evangelist on the program today to talk about the current state and future prospects of electric vehicles in North America. Lauren McDonald, known to his followers, as the EV evangelist, has been in the electric vehicle advocates since 1990.   Rebecca Schwartz  00:56 As our guest today, Loren will discuss why governments, businesses, the auto industry and the general public are or should be converting to this cleaner and more sustainable mode of transportation.   Dan Seguin  01:09 I think we can all foresee that the mass adoption of EVs is imminent, and something that is going to transform the auto industry, but also many, many other sectors including energy.   Rebecca Schwartz  01:24 Definitely. A lot has changed in the last few years when it comes to EVs. They were once viewed as an expensive novelty item and something you would buy and use only around the city as simply a secondary vehicle. But technology and attitudes have evolved.   Dan Seguin  01:41 You're so right, Rebecca. A few years ago, there weren't a lot of models to choose from, and there still seem to be uncertainty about their viability. But all that is changing fast. General Motors recently announced that by 2035, their entire fleet of vehicles will be entirely electric.   Rebecca Schwartz  02:05 And they're not the only ones. Nearly all major automotive companies are committing to electric vehicles, including legacy luxury brands. Jaguar is targeting 2030 to be fully electric. Bentley plans to only have electric and hybrid models by 2026, Mercedes Benz and Porsche also have 2030 in their strategic plans, and who knows, maybe by then I'll be able to afford one of them.   Dan Seguin  02:31 I love that you're such an optimist, Rebecca. Even more stunning is that many automakers are reporting that they are completely sold out of their existing EV stock and are now either taking orders or due to demand not taking orders for the next few years. So here is today's big question. Are we finally seeing a social change that will drive electric vehicles into the mainstream? If so, what is behind the gearshift? And are we really prepared to accelerate from zero to 60?   Rebecca Schwartz  03:15 Joining us from San Francisco Loren MacDonald of EVadoption.com is a lifelong advocate for the environment and has been analyzing EV and charging trends for decades. He's a thought leader, speaker and content marketer with a passion to help move the world to electric vehicles.   Dan Seguin  03:35 Welcome to the show, Loren. Let's start with you telling us a bit about EV adoption. When did you start it? And what was this goal?   Loren McDonald  03:46 Yeah, so first of all, thank you so much for having me. Excited to be on the thinkenergy podcast. So the derivation of EV adoption, so I was a lifelong marketer. I won't say how many but many, many decades as a as a marketing executive and marketing evangelist. And so I looked at sort of the EVs and where it was going with that kind of lens and context of it's really a marketing and behavioral economics question, right is of when will EVs cross the chasm into the mainstream if you're familiar with you know, the book and everything around crossing the chasm and so that's really what I saw was missing. You know, if you look at all of the the websites and everything like that, that were covering electric vehicles, it was all about the models and technical stuff. And most everybody was just pure EV advocates and sort of what I like to say sort of pejoratively fanboys right, and everything was going to be up into the right you know, on the on the chart and I'm like, actually, especially in America, you know, we have this thing called the middle of the country and pickups and you know, of late adopters and stuff. So I really wanted to solve and address that question of what are all going to be the hurdles, and the drivers of of sort of mass adoption of EVs. And so that was really sort of the point in goal of it. And it's, it's really taken off.   Rebecca Schwartz  05:21 In 2018, you published your three part series on the 24 factors that will affect the rate of EV adoption. Of course, a lot has happened in four years. So how does your list of factors stack up in 2022? Has the needle moved? Or are you still seeing the same issues?   05:40 Yeah, so I would say that, you know, pretty much all of the issues are still there, it's just a matter of scale, some of them have become sort of more or less critical or unimportant. And let's take a look at one, Rebecca is that if you look at range as an example, right, so, uh, you know, in 2011, sort of the first full year that the Nissan LEAF was available in America, the first version, it's 73 miles of range, you know, we'd sort of laugh at that today, you can now get a Nissan LEAF with 225 miles of range, I think it is in the lucid air, you know, it's 520 miles of range, so and then you sort of overlay that with almost every survey of consumers done in the last, you know, half dozen years around EVs, and will, you know, take them to consider an EV or buy an EV, that, you know, that typically around half or more people say 300 miles 300 US miles, right? Because there's a global audience, I'm always be clear on that. And we're actually by the end of this year, we're going to average probably around 285-290 miles of EVs. Right? So we're not quite at that 300 miles, and there's still several below it, and several above it that's, you know, skew that average. But, you know, the first thing is fundamentally, we're switching from range anxiety, to charger anxiety, right? What's what's happening is we're getting close to that magic 300 number. And so most people now are like, yeah, I can buy an EV and and, you know, driving to Grandma's or Disneyland or whatever it is. But can I charge? And how long is it going to take me to charge? And what are the charges work and those kinds of things? So I think that's sort of the sort of the first thing. The second thing I'd say that sort of new, if you will, is I don't know that we necessarily predicted sort of the supply chain issues. Right? And not just, you know, wiring harnesses that are critical to EVs and chips that are critical to EVs. But the latest one that's really been the hottest topic recently is battery, supply chain and minerals, is there going to be enough, you know, lithium and sort of the different minerals that go into it. So that's one that we didn't see. And, you know, both of you are probably familiar with a lot of those charts that showed the price parity, right, that that the price of batteries and EVS and as would come down and and get get close in the next few years with, with ice vehicles, as we like to call them. Internal Combustion Engine, this industry loves acronyms, as you guys know. And there's been some recent studies that are showing that actually, battery costs are going up, right. And so we may not hit price parity until, like, you know, late this decade and stuff. So I know that was a lot. So I'll sort of stop there. But those are some of the I think the key key differences that I'm seeing   Dan Seguin  08:49 What has been the most important or significant recent event, in your opinion, that will positively change the future for electric vehicles.   09:00 The I would say there's sort of two things that are that are kind of closely connected. One is the Ford F 150 Lightning, as you as you both probably know, you know, and pickups are pretty popular in Canada as well. But you know, the F 150, the regular F 150 internal combustion engine has been the top selling vehicle, not just pickup, but the top selling vehicle of any type in America, and actually the world for 40 straight years. And so, the fact that this sort of mainstream popular vehicle, a pickup truck, is actually and it's being delivered now, the first deliveries they're starting, like this week of the electric version, is I've called it this the game changer, the single most important EV in history, right? And you could make arguments for lots of different ones for different reasons right? But I think, to go mainstream this signals to those people in the Midwest as an example. Oh, I guess this isn't just for wealthy, you know, granola eating people in California. This is a work truck. This is, you know, this is actually acceptable. And the second part of it, obviously, which, you know, we'll we'll talk a bit about about more later, I'm sure is, you know, the bi-directional charging capability is sort of an eye opener. And then the last thing I would say is just sort of gas prices, right. And so gas prices, again, which I know we'll talk about some more, is making people more aware of alternatives to the internal combustion engine, and so EVs are kind of having their moment right now because of that.   Loren McDonald  09:00 Okay, this next question is kind of fun, kind of Mad Libs style. I'm going to ask you to finish this sentence. You can't have electric vehicles without blank..?   11:03 Convenient access to reliable charging.   Dan Seguin  11:06 Loren, you were recently interviewed in USA Today about range anxiety due to the lack of EV charging infrastructure. What do you think is hindering a massive North American installation of EV stations? What's the biggest hurdle?   11:24 So I actually don't agree with that assumption. There is you know, as as you probably know, there's about seven and a half billion dollars from the federal government that's going into building out infrastructure there's a lot of publicly held EV charging networks. I literally talk to companies every day that are looking to get into the EV charging industry, I have never seen, you know, one of the my quotes in the USA Today articles was that it's the wild wild west right now, it's this is literally the modern version of 1849, right of the Gold Rush. And that there is so many companies and entrepreneurs and billions of dollars going in. Because this is probably the single biggest business opportunity in the last 100 years, the combination of EVs and EV charging infrastructure, we're fundamentally changing. The, you know, the not only the power train of transportation, but how they're refueled, right with moving from, you know, gas, liquid fuel to electric fuel, right. And so there is just an inordinate amount of energy and focus and money going to it. My concern is, is that we're spending it the wrong way, we're making a lot of a lot of decisions. And we'll talk about this when we talk about Canada in a little bit, but most of the money in the US is going to building out the DC fast charging highway corridor networks, right, which are needed to get the consumers comfortable that they can go from, you know, Seattle to you know, somewhere in Montana or whatever, and stop along the way. And we need that obviously, at some level because people like to take road trips, but the bigger challenges are, you know, how do people charge every day? Right. And you know, there's these you know, your you know, your EV drivers and owners and you know, this for most people, you know, 90 to 95% of your charging is done at home overnight while while you're asleep. Except for those like in America, my estimate is about 40% of US households do not have convenient access to charging overnight, they live in an apartment, they live in a condo, maybe they live in, you know, Manhattan, or Boston or downtown San Francisco and so they don't have a garage, they they're on street parking, right. So, you know, almost half of US households do not have what most of us have, which is you know, we we come home, we pull in the garage, plug in our car, close the garage door, wake up in the morning with a with a full tank, if you will, right. And so if you think about getting over that, you know getting crossing that chasm, getting people over their hurdle of understanding, charging and, and losing sort of fear around it. We have to we have to solve those problems at the same time, right. And so if you look at the money being spent, by the by the you know, the federal government and state government, not enough is going to workplace is going to you know, the multifamily issue, off street parking on street parking, those kinds of things. So I don't think I don't I think the biggest hurdle is that we're not actually solving some of the bigger problems where we tend to be overly focused on sort of those high the highway corridor DC fast charging challenge.   Dan Seguin  15:10 Pardon the pun, but who do you think should be leading the charge when it comes to charging infrastructures?   Loren McDonald  15:18 You know, that's the $7.5 billion question. I guess we might might say it's a tough one. And I don't I'll answer it several ways. The first is consumers, right. So the consumers and are sort of being left out of a lot of this, this discussion, right. And no offense to a lot of our elected officials, but and I'm just going to make up a number here. 99% of them don't own and drive EVs and they show up for the photo ops, but they actually don't know what they're talking about. Right. They literally don't, there was not going to pick on one, but I think it was our Secretary of Transportation or something. I forgot the secretary of I forget what her role. Anyway, she showed up for a photo op video. And, you know, she mentioned on mic, how do you plug this thing in? Right. Right. And so that's part of the challenge is, you know, going back to my earlier point is that, you know, what, will government, federal, state, local, have to play your role in this, right, because this is this massive transportation. And so we need government involvement for investment, for driving accountability and regulations and things like that, at the same time. You know, most governments are not known for getting things right, all the time. Right. And so I think, you know, as I mentioned earlier, I think a lot of the money is being spent on sort of the easy things and not solving sort of the the hard problems. So I think, you know, it's a collective thing we need, the automakers need to step up more, I mean, one of the things that, you know, is pretty common knowledge is that, you know, and I'm on my second Tesla, and, you know, if you drive a Tesla, charging is seamless, right? Because they designed the car, the charging, in for integration, the, the connector, they own, the networks and stuff. So it's that Apple seamless, closed loop. And so you don't even think about charging. If you own any other brand. It ain't exactly always the best experience, right. And so the automakers are not used to being part of the refueling process, right? Because they outsource it to the oil companies and the gas station operators and stuff. And so this idea that they need to be much more involved directly. In at least in the first couple of decades, right of building out the EV charging infrastructure in the grid, is, you know, they're sort of ret, many of them are reticent to doing it, but we're seeing it like Ford, as an example is getting very involved with Electrify America who they've partnered with, right. And so we are starting to see once they've seen a lot of the problems is that they are stepping up and investing more. GM has invested money, you know, with an EV to build out infrastructure and stuff, but it's, it's nowhere where it needs to be. And the last thing I would say is, I'll sort of throw something out of left field field here a little bit, is that none of the companies we've, we, you know, that are in this mix, including utilities and stuff, have any experience in the refueling business. The ones that do are convenience store chains, convenience stores. Most people don't know this, but like 99% of where people refuel their gas powered car is that convenience store chain, we used to call them gas stations, and then they started adding these little stores. And now they're convenience stores that also have gas pumps, right? They've sort of switched so now those those chains are in the business of selling coffee and cigarettes and beverages and sandwiches and hamburgers and you know, gourmet meals even and they understand that low margin business and so we're starting to see Circle K just announced today you know that they're they're launching their national network in the in the US and you know, 7/11 already announced it so I think we're gonna see and what I'm excited about is the companies that are actually consumer focused and understand how to sell refueling or are going to, you know, get get much more involved in this. And I think that'll help improve the customer experience.   Rebecca Schwartz  20:06 Curious to see if there's a wait and see game happening with customers and Evie technology in that tech is changing too quickly and they think a better model is coming and that they should wait. Is this thinking justified?   Loren McDonald  20:20 Yeah. I mean, that's sort of natural behavior. You know, you think about, you know, sort of other other technologies. I was one of those people back in March of 2010, that was down standing in line to pick up my Apple iPad. Right. And so, you know, I got it. Like I said, I immediately before even had one I got what the iPad was was all about, I understood it. And I talked to a lot of people that just like, I don't get it, you know, I've got a laptop, I've got a, you know, a smartphone, why? Why would I need this thing in the middle. And so I think kind of any new technologies like that, it's about the technology adoption curve, and it's about early adopters and the innovators. And so EVs are just the same, right? Like these, these early people that were like 12 years into the modern era of EVs, right? And the early people, they're okay, with only 200 miles of range. They're okay with not a great charging network and experience and things like that, right. But the main stream, so you know, the way I think about it, Rebecca, is, we can't worry about those late adopters, like we have this joke that we talked about in the industry that, like if you're on Twitter, and social media, there's always these these people are like, I'm not going to get an EV until an electric truck that can go 500 miles without stopping, and I'm pulling a boat uphill. Right. And, I mean, there literally are lots of people that say that they don't necessarily talk in that tone of voice. But you know, we can't worry about them, because they're not going to buy an EV until 2035 or 2040, or whatever. Anyway, what we have to worry about is, you know, is is like those suburban households, right, that are that are driving a Ford Explorer SUV taking their kids to soccer practice, and school and stuff, like there's no reason, there is literally no reason they shouldn't be driving an EV. Right. And so, but they're not right, so we have to focus on just convincing that sort of low hanging fruit that people that are of, you know, decent incomes, living in a suburban, you know, three, you know, suburban house with a three car garage have to 2.3 cars, like there is no excuse for them. So I think that just sort of the last thing, Rebecca is just that, you know, if you think about like, I don't know, if either of you have solar I you know, we actually went we did solar first before we got our electric car, right? And I've talked to a lot of neighbors, it's like, well, yeah, solar prices, they keep coming down, right? And it's sort of the same thing with with EVs, right? The costs, except for the you know, how we talked about earlier with the rising cost of batteries and stuff, but but EVs are definitely you know, they're the, the batteries are getting more efficient. So there's gonna be more range, there's greater, you know, things like bi directional charging that are coming out all of those things, but, you know, when do you when do you- how long do you wait, the same was solar, right, like, we could have waited another 10 years before we got solar. But, you know, at some point, you just, you know, you have to target the people that are that are ready. And so the other thing of last thing I would say on this is, is something that, you know, that we've done is we've leased our two Tesla's and and here's an interesting anecdote. So our first Tesla was the Model S 60. That had 210 miles of range. And three years later, we got a Tesla Model S 100 D that has 335 miles of range, and we lowered our lease payment and so I think one of the things Rebecca that we're gonna we're gonna see is is that a lot of people because of this sort of technology obsolescence so this idea that you know, every year there's going to be you know, greater autonomous driving technology in the car there's going to be better bi directional charging capability- the car will be able to charge faster, you know, more range, all that kind of stuff. So I think we're gonna probably see, not everyone but but some segment of the argument or some segment of the market you know, opting to lease because then they know every three years, I'll just get the latest and greatest thing. So I think that could be an interesting twist in the market.   Rebecca Schwartz  25:08 Now, what do you think customers are waiting for? Exactly? Does the technology already exist? And they're just holding on to some myth of EV from the past?   Loren McDonald  25:19 Yeah, I the latter is I think no, like, I don't think most consumers aren't aware of the really cool stuff that's coming, like the bidirectional you know charging and being able to do you know, vehicle to home and stuff like that. I mean, they're starting to hear about it with like, the F 150 and stuff. So and you know, we'll get into that in a few minutes. But I think it's really simple. You know, and not all consumers are the same, but I think what most of them want, is faster charging, right? Most consumers who don't own an EV assume that charging your EV should be sort of the same experience, as you know, refueling a gas car. And so most people are not necessarily expecting that five minutes of refueling time, but most are expecting to add, you know, two to 300 miles of range in, you know, 10 to 15 minutes and stuff. So I think that from a perception perspective, because as EV drivers, you know, and I know, you know, that Dan had said that's not necessarily what you need. But from a from a perception perspective, I think most consumers are waiting for that faster, superfast, high power charging.   Dan Seguin  26:38 Loren, are there more similarities or differences between Canada and their US, EV adoption? And their rollout? If so, what are they? Is either country getting it right?   Loren McDonald  26:54 Yeah, great, great question. So first, I'd say you know, California and California, US, and, and Canada are, are actually, you know, from a consumer, you know, mindset. And, you know, demographic, psychographic and things like that, I think, I think they're, they're fairly similar, right. And the automakers, I think, tend to look at both markets from, you know, the models, they design and focus on something pretty, pretty similar. So I think, you know, that the, which, which translates to sort of, they want the same things like we've been talking about, you know, more range, faster charging, and things like that. So I think that they're the similarities between sort of the consumers and the automakers and kind of ecosystem is pretty similar. And when you look at sort of where we at from adoption perspective, again, it's pretty similar. Canada was about 5%, in 2021, meaning, you know, one out of 20 new vehicles purchased were electric, and the US was just under 4.5%. So we're, you know, we're, we're pretty close. But if you took California out of that, you know, it drops down to like under 4%, and stuff like that. And so we're, you know, we're a little bit behind on that perspective. But I think, you know, if you think about, you know, and we touched on this, Dan, a few minutes ago, is that, that I think, you know, from the incentive perspective, I think the you know, sort of more of the sort of the point of sale rebate, and something is something that Canada got right. And we haven't gotten right here at the federal level. And the other thing is, and we touched on this is the the investment, the billions of dollars, we're investing in the EV charging infrastructure and how I talked about that a lot of it is focused on those highway corridors and DC fast charging, and the Canadian investment, I'll be it from a dollar perspective, much, much smaller, is is is much more focused on solving real problems. So there's components of it just to build an infrastructure workplace just to build out at apartment complexes and retail locations. And so I think it's a much more balanced approach. So I think Canada's really got those two things right, and that we haven't gotten right here in the US. But the other thing that I think that that both countries are probably getting wrong, or at least the US is there's this focus on EVs as as solving all the world's problems. And the reality is I've done the forecast in in 2030 by my latest forecast in the US 11% of the vehicles on the road will be either an EV or PHEV meaning you know, roughly 90% of the cars on the road are still going to be, you know, gas powered cars. And in fact, there will be more gas powered cars on the road in 2030 than there are today. And, you know, if our goal is to reduce greenhouse gases 50% by 2030, we actually have to look at a much more macro approach to this and BEVs -because I've done them just don't get us there. So we've we've got to look at everything from, I think, a bigger focus on plug in hybrids, because they have lower consumer adoption hurdles, right, you plug in overnight at 20-30 miles, and then you go on a road trip, you go on a road trip and fill up at the gas station, which which the infrastructure is already there, and you only do it a couple times a year, right. But most of the year, you're you're driving on electric, regular hybrids, right? Regular hybrids can actually reduce GHGs by half, right, because, you know, if you get the right, right hybrid, but the other thing that we're just not focused enough on is, is we have to reduce the what what we refer to as VMT, vehicle miles traveled literally by about half in order to stand a chance to get there. So we've got to focus on mass transit, we've got to get people out of cars, walking, biking, you know, ordering from e-commerce companies that use electric vans to deliver the products. So there's sort of less impact there and stuff. So you know, I think that's what probably both our governments are are missing is, is there's too much focus on BEVs as the silver bullet. And in fact, they are going to do nothing to reduce greenhouse gases in the next 10 years. That will slow the increase, but they won't actually reduce it.   Rebecca Schwartz  32:04 Are we finally seeing a social change that's driving electric vehicles into the mainstream? And what do you think is the main driver for people? Is it climate change, soaring gas prices? Maybe?   Loren McDonald  32:17 It's, you know, it's sort of, you know, Rebecca, it's a, it's a mix of depending on you know, the sort of the psychographic of the consumer, there's sort of get them motivated by different things, a lot of the early adopters have been motivated by, you know, I want to save the planet, I want to do, you know, I want to do something good, just like, you know, those of us that have gone solar, right. Although, actually I went solar, because that part of it was a side benefit, I actually wanted to reduce my utility bill, right. And so I think we're starting to see people motivated by that this idea of, you know, lower total cost of ownership, although I don't think most consumers actually get out their Excel spreadsheet, and do like a 10 year TCO analysis, like a fleet manager would. But I think increasingly, you know, especially with this correlation with gas prices, right now, that people more people are starting to go, oh, EVs aren't just faster, more fun. You know, help save the planet, for lack of a better term. But actually, I don't have to go to gas stations, and I can actually lower my my monthly fuel bill and stuff like that. So I think sort of the, you know, people are starting to get motivated by that. And that's why gas prices, I think, are so critical, especially in America, because they are forcing people to think about what they spend on fuel. And then they starting to understand Oh, you mean, I pay less with my electric car. And so I think I think that's going to start motivating people more and more, besides all the other sort of cool factors and then longer term, you know, which we'll get into as the whole bi directional charging aspect, but we're just not we're not there yet. For that to be a factor.   Dan Seguin  33:50 The trend towards beneficial electrification, getting rid of fossil fuels and replacing them with other forms of clean electricity to reduce emissions and energy costs includes the electrification of transportation, are local electric utility companies, the right partner, perhaps?   Loren McDonald  34:40 So, like a lot of my answers to that it's going to be a yes and a no. Utilities obviously have to play a critical role in the electrification of transportation since for most people, they are the provider of the electricity to charge your, your electric vehicle, unless you're, you know, completely off the grid. But that's, you know, a very tiny percentage of the population. So they're- the utilities are fundamentally critical to this. And, you know, the electrification of vehicles and electrification of everything, you know, we're moving away from gas stoves to, you know, electric stoves, we're moving away from gas powered leaf blowers to electric lawnmowers, and leaf blowers, etc. So this sort of broader electrification thing is actually the single biggest opportunity for growth for utilities, in probably, again, 100 years, right, because even though we have more devices, they've been getting more efficient, right? Every year, refrigerators, as an example, get more efficient and stuff. So even though we have more of these different, you know, the technology devices and stuff, they're actually using less less power and our lightbulbs, right. And so they're excited and onboard and are key to electrification. And, you know, they're excited because it is this growth opportunity. The problem with utilities is, is that they are utilities, they are in generally speaking, monopolies. And so they have, by and large, there are exceptions in certain states and markets. By and large, they don't have competition, and they are not customer focused, they don't know how to market they don't know how to build great customer experiences and educate and stuff. So they're, and they're also tend to be quasi government like slow moving entities, and they're risk averse, right? So they can be real challenges to this, right, and many of them, many of them, they're sort of scared, and they're scared about bi directional charging as an example, right. And many of them are scared about what this is going to do to their infrastructure costs, because now they're gonna have to beef up, you know, transformers and transmission and all this stuff to be able to, you know, reliably supply, you know, an entire block that all of a sudden has, you know, an EV, in every garage type of thing, right? So, they're, you know, I mean, I don't want to be overly negative towards utilities, they're some of my clients. But, you know, they just, there's this inertia of who they are their DNA. That is, is not ideal set up to be the fuel supplier to owners of EVs, if that makes sense.  Loren, as a lifelong advocate for the environment, and in the last many decades for electric vehicles. What does success look like for you? What do you ultimately hoping will be achieved with your advocacy work? So this is easy, smarter decisions. I think, you know, and this is hopefully coming through so far and in the conversation, but I just think there's a lot of decisions and policies being made, that are flawed, and that this has become sort of what you know, what's exciting for me and one of the biggest opportunities is just to be data driven, right is to provide organizations with with data and hopefully accurate forecasts and stuff that help make better decisions about you know, how to scale EVs with consumers and and how to right size and get EV charging at the right, you know, right level and in the right use cases and stuff. So smarter decisions is really my hope and goal.   Dan Seguin  38:52 Now, Loren, I have a follow up question for you. What's your prediction based on the current trajectory on the future of EVs? And do you feel more hopeful now than you did say in 2018?   Loren McDonald  39:08 So another one of these yes and no answer. So yes, I'm hopeful we might, you know, my my forecast is that so today in the end, I tend to focus just just on the US so today in the US, as I mentioned, in 2021, we had about a little under 4.5% EV sales share, meaning, you know, less than five out of 100 new vehicles purchased last year were either a BEV or a plug in hybrid. My forecast my sort of base level forecast is that we'll hit about 44% it by the end of 2030. Now a year ago, I was in I was at about 30%. And that's how fast things are changing, right because you know, a little over a year ago is an example, Ford was considered a non player in the EV space. And now they're considered perhaps the leader after Tesla, right? I mean, you could argue it's, you know, it's GM, or actually, we could, we could argue about that. But, you know, they're they've, they've gone from sort of and also ran to arguably headed towards being, you know, one of the leaders and definitely, you know, number two spot after Tesla, so a lot of things like that have just like overnight, changed things, and every automaker has, you know, got religion and is announcing, you know, dozens of, of, you know, new models and factories and stuff. So it's, it's, you know, so a year from now, I might be upping up and get again, but right now I'm at that 44%, which is, you know, think about it that's approaching half of the new vehicle sold in America at the end of 2030 would be electric. But as I mentioned, the sort of the downside of that is, is that with that would get us to only 11% of cars on the road being electric. Right? And, and, and if you're just looking if you remove PHEV's from that, you know, it's probably around 8%, or something like that. So, you know, the, the exciting part is, is that we're moving in the right direction direction, we're moving towards, you know, a large number and percentage of vehicles having no tailpipe emissions. On the other hand, gas cars are not going away for another 40 years. Right. And so it's just this, you know, you have, you know, almost 300 million gas powered car, you will have 300 million gas powered cars on the road in a few years. Right? Just look at the math, right? It takes decades to get get rid of all of them unless we did this massive, massive cash for for, you know, clunkers thing and just bought them all and crushed them all, which I don't think we're going to do.   Rebecca Schwartz  42:14 Okay, I asked this in another podcast, but we would love to hear your thoughts on vehicle to grid and vehicle to building systems. And if you think they'll become mainstream when regulatory or government barriers are lifted?   Loren McDonald  42:26 Yeah, so this is this is one of my my favorite questions and topics. This is to me, the game changer for electric vehicles versus, you know, ICE gas powered cars, right? We talked about you know, EVS being more fun to drive, faster, you know, less less maintenance, all those types of things, but but the one thing that EVs can do that gas powered cars cannot do is become what I call mobile storage, you know, energy devices, right? Energy vehicles, if you will, right and so this is where you know, we're years from this going mainstream Rebecca but but the fact is, like, I have this big Tesla sitting you know, 20 feet from me in the garage that's got 100 kilowatt hour battery, you know, and we drive the car to the supermarket it's a complete waste, right? I mean, it's just the only time we use that battery pack is when we go on a 500 mile road trip the rest of the time, you know, that capacity is is is actually in an inefficient and so the opportunity to leverage that you know, that power wall for you know, to use a brand name to use a battery storage device in your car to power your home to send it to the grid to reduce peak demand and help out the utility and when you know when it when it's hot and vehicle the building which you know, you specifically mentioned is one of my favorite areas because it provides a real ROI to companies so for the audiences not aware of and understands what vehicle the building is, it's where you as a company, incentivize your employees who drive electric vehicles to drive their EV to work park in the parking lot and then you have these bi directional chargers in the parking lot. They plug in and then they're gonna charge but let's say it's the summertime and it's really hot and it's the late afternoon. The employees agree to send extra power that they don't need, you know, they're gonna save enough to the to get back home. But but they send power from the EV basically, into the building. And so instead of that building, running that very expensive air conditioning in a hot summer afternoon to cool it down to 70 degrees or whatever. They're powering the air conditioners with, with with the power from the EVS and, you know, we refer to that as sort of flattening the, you know, the demand curve, right. And that can literally save that that company 10s of 1000s of dollars a year. You know, I was I was down at Lucid Motors a couple years ago, and talking to their CEO and about this, and he joked that he was going to buy a lot of his employees, the, you know, the $100,000, Lucid Air, just so that employees could could plug in and he could save what he thought was maybe a million dollars a year on their PGE, our local, you know, California utility bill a year, I think, you know, I'm not sure quite sure he'd saved a million dollars, but you but you get the idea is that, you know, you can actually use that, that power to cut costs. So I think that that ROI factor is is sort of a real game changer. And then the second thing from a consumer perspective, right, like the headlines right now are about like, you know, Texas again, right, of not having enough power, I was just listening to, you know, the radio this morning, and one of the top stories is about is are the utilities going to have enough power? You know, during during the hot summer, we have things like, you know, a lot of utilities that rely on hydropower, something probably close to your hearts there. The rivers are down, right? And so there's not as much electricity being generated from hydro right? And so you take all these sorts of trends, and, you know, consumers are looking at backup power. And so like one of the hottest things going right now, these backup natural gas generators, right? Well, better would be, you know, just when you need to tap into, you know, power in your EV if the power goes out for two hours or something like that, you can backup your house from the car. So I think that's, you know, Rebecca like the most exciting thing about EVs is that we will be rethinking them as just transportation devices as as becoming, you know, energy storage vehicles.   Dan Seguin  47:29 Okay. Now, time to leave it all on the floor. What is something you want the average combustion engine car owner to know about EVs, that maybe they don't already know, Loren, gloves off, go for it!   Loren McDonald  47:47 Really, I think pretty, pretty simple that charging your electric vehicle is more like how you charge a smartphone than how you fuel your gas car. Right. And just to expand briefly on that is, you know, most consumers their perception is is that refueling recharging an EV should, is the same as going to a centralized gas station and stuff. And it's not till you own one, and experience it and drive it a lot that you realize no, it's actually more like a smartphone where you know, you, you know, put it in your your bed stand and plug it in, you wake up in the morning, and it's recharged or whatever. And that's the same thing with with your EV. So you have access to home charging, right? Go into the garage plug in, wake up, and it's charged. And, you know, the the, the nuance to that is, is that and I've got this amazing chart that I that I use in presentations that shows like a fuel gauge, for you know, like most consumers when they drive a gas car, what do they do? They drive the car down to empty, quarter of a tank, below empty, whatever they're comfortable with. And then they pull into a gas station and fill it up to full. And you know, this, Dan, that's not how you you refuel an electric vehicle, you replenish what you use, right? So if you drive 30 miles today, you plug in and you replenish that third maybe actually even don't maybe you wait a couple of days, right? You drive it down and then you do it right. It sort of depends on your comfort zone. The only time the refueling experience for an EV is is analogous to gas car is when you go on those road trips, right and those either so you know, a weekend one or a long road trip, and then you do have to do that centralized thing but but otherwise, I think this is the single biggest education hurdle that we have is because it's not something you can explain to people. They actually have to like experience to them. The light bulb goes oh yeah, this is like my Smartphone.   Rebecca Schwartz  50:01 Okay, Loren, we always end our interviews with some rapid fire questions. And we've got some for you. Are you ready?   Loren McDonald  50:08 I am pumped if I can use that, that term and ready to go!   Rebecca Schwartz  50:14 What are you reading right now?   Loren McDonald  50:16 I'm reading a book called Hella Town by Michel sporter. And it's all about my hometown of Oakland, California.   Rebecca Schwartz  50:23 If you had a boat, what would you name it?   Loren McDonald  50:26 I'm gonna go by the Modest Mouse song title of Float On.   Rebecca Schwartz  50:31 Who is someone that you admire?   Loren McDonald  50:34 Benjamin Franklin. I love Ben Franklin.   Rebecca Schwartz  50:39 What is the closest thing to real magic that you've witnessed?   Loren McDonald  50:43 The birth of my first daughter.   Rebecca Schwartz  50:46 What has been the biggest challenge to you personally, since the pandemic began?   Loren McDonald  50:51 This is an easy one travel. I used to when I worked in the corporate world, I traveled around the world. And, you know, got to you know, see a lot of friends and make new ones. And although yes, I know that was not good for the planet being on on jets. But I really miss I really miss traveling the world and meeting people and seeing friends. That's been the biggest, biggest, the hardest part.   Rebecca Schwartz  51:21 Okay, what are you watching? Or rather binge watching on Netflix? And what's your favorite movie or TV show?   Loren McDonald  51:28 So I am actually not much of a TV guy. So a thing I'm binging on right now as I'm watching my Golden State Warriors in the NBA Playoffs. But I'll but I'll mention one show the one show that that I did watch. And I'm not sure if it was on Netflix or a different different network. That's how little I watch the things but I watched the series called Unbelievable. That was that was pretty amazing.   Dan Seguin  51:54 Lastly, Loren, what is exciting you about your industry right now?   Loren McDonald  52:00 The most fascinating thing I think, right now is that when I got into this, the question was, you know, an if question. Right? It was, will EVs become the future, there was even you know, this idea that maybe fuel cell powered vehicles, were going to be the future. And we've really hit this point here in 2022, where there are very few people that are not convinced that EVs are the future. There's still some holdouts and stuff but but most everybody has transitioned from if, to now it's when and so and as a sort of somebody that's really focused on the, you know, the data behind that and behavioral economics I just love working with with clients and companies that are trying to understand how it's going to impact them from a negative perspective, but also more, more excitingly, what are the opportunities for them out of it?   Dan Seguin  53:01 Loren, this is it. We've reached the end of another episode of the thinkenergy podcast. If our listeners wanted to learn more about you, and your organization, how would they connect?   Loren McDonald  53:16 They can go to evadoption.com they can follow me on LinkedIn. I guess just just search on LinkedIn for Loren McDonald and look for the really handsome guy that has EV somewhere in his in his in his description or whatever. And I'm on Twitter, at Loren McDonald and also EVadoptiontweet.   Dan Seguin  53:43 And Loren, again, thank you so much for joining us today. I hope you truly had a lot of fun. Cheers.  I did it was it was a real honor. Thanks so much for having me on the show. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the thinkenergy podcast. And don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review wherever you're listening. And to find out more about today's guests or previous episodes, visit thinkenergypodcast.com. I hope you'll join us again next time as we spark even more conversations about the energy of tomorrow.

Energy storage means more than just batteries. There are many different technologies that could offset peak electricity consumption periods, ultimately preventing the need for expensive, emissions-heavy infrastructure that could lead us away from our clean-energy goals. Justin Rangooni, Executive Director of Energy Storage Canada, joins thinkenergy to explain how energy storage can help meet demand spikes, the importance of supporting wide-scale deployment of renewable energy sources, and much more.    Related links https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-rangooni-5063b542/ https://www.energystoragecanada.org/   --- To subscribe using Apple Podcasts To subscribe using Spotify To subscribe on Libsyn --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: YouTube Check out our cool pics on Instagram More to Learn on Facebook Keep up with the Tweets Transcript: Dan Seguin  00:06 This is thinkenergy, the podcast that helps you better understand the fast changing world of energy through conversations with game changers, industry leaders, and influencers. So join me, Dan Seguin, and my co host, Rebecca Schwartz, as we explore both traditional and unconventional facets of the energy industry. Hey, everyone, welcome back. Today we're going to talk all things energy storage in Canada. We're welcoming back a guest we had on the show in 2020. To see what are some of the recent developments and insights in the energy storage industry that have occurred since our last discussion.   Rebecca Schwartz  00:51 Well, when I think of energy storage, I immediately think of batteries, you know, like Duracell, the Energizer Bunny, or even the battery pack in our cell phones- and mine that dies way too often. Honestly, it's pretty cool how we can just carry around these little capsules of energy anywhere we need or want.   Dan Seguin  01:09 It's actually a good comparison. But instead of charging your smartphone or powering your flashlight, energy storage is being leveraged on a whole other scale that could hold the key to many of our environmental and energy goals. According to urban insight, energy storage has been identified as the key to climate change mitigation. But globally, only 3 to 4% of electricity generated by utilities is being stored. They estimate that to limit global warming to below two celsius, energy storage capacity needs to triple overall by 2050.   Rebecca Schwartz  01:55 Recently, an article was published by Energy Storage Canada about our country's evolving electricity grid, and how energy storage and distributed energy resources are putting increasing expectations on our electricity grid to be more adaptable.   Dan Seguin  02:11 Power grids, by their very nature are designed for the fluctuation in electricy demand throughout the day by increasing and decreasing supply when necessary. Energy storage could offset peak electricity consumption periods like in the afternoon, and in early evening when people are returning from work or school. Not to mention our hot and humid summer days when everyone is running their air conditioning units.   Rebecca Schwartz  02:42 Storing energy and integrating it when it's needed into the system would prevent more expensive and potentially emission heavy infrastructure from being built.   Dan Seguin  02:52 So here's today's big question- what are ways countries like Canada can speed up its storage capacity to suit its demand? And are we on track to make it happen in time?   Rebecca Schwartz  03:09 Energy Storage Canada is the national voice for the energy storage industry. They are the only association that's dedicated to advancing energy storage in the country. Justin Rangooni, the Executive Director at Energy Storage Canada is here to talk about how Canada is and isn't charging up the energy storage revolution.   Dan Seguin  03:30 Nice to have you back, Justin. Let's dive in because I'm anxious to chat with you about what has changed within the energy storage industry here in Canada since we last spoke in back in November 2020. So let's kick this off with this question. What's been the most significant change in your industry since we last spoke in 2020?   Justin Rangooni  03:55 Thanks for the question. Great to be back in two years felt like not even that long ago. So it's really good. Good. Good. Good to chat again. So a lot has happened since we last chatted. So I think when we last spoke, it was all about talking about how at Energy Storage Canada we are trying to talk with decision makers in Ontario and the rest of Canada, about the benefits energy storage provide the system. Reliability, affordability, what have you and all the various services that energy storage can provide. So it's a matter of, of really educating decision makers. So flash fast forward, fast forward two years to today. It's more now, what's really changed is that the decision makers have now recognized that and now as they're doing their system planning and will focus in on Ontario specifically, is as they're talking about system planning and what is going to meet capacity needs and what's going to be used for any decarbonisation efforts. Energy storage is part of that conversation. It's part of that calculus. And this is exactly what we wanted to see and that's what- that's what's really changed. It's now part of that calculus in terms of what's going to happen next.   Rebecca Schwartz  05:03 How important is energy storage and supporting wide scale deployment of renewable energy resources so that Canada can meet its net-zero goals?   Justin Rangooni  05:11 I think the best response would be I found a new analogy. And it was from the New Yorker in a recent article that talked about the old energy storage provider in terms of optimizing the grids, the assets that are already on the grid. So what they talked about is when in situations when the wind is blowing, the sun is shining, the hydro, the water is flowing, the nuclear plants are humming, energy storage allows electricity grid to inhale. And then when the sun's not blowing, or the winds, that winds not blowing, or the sun's not shining, or the water is not flowing, or the nuclear plants aren't humming, what energy storage allows the grid is to exhale, and deliver that electricity to homes and businesses and to charge devices. And so that's what energy storage can do is to optimize.   Rebecca Schwartz  05:56 All right now, is there concern though, that energy storage will affect the grid? Like cause instability or create potential imbalances of supply? And is this maybe where energy storage and renewable energy intersect?   Justin Rangooni  06:09 Well, I think what energy storage does is solved some of those problems. What it does is, if it's part of the solution, the overall solution in terms of balancing the grid and optimizing what you have, energy storage can do that. Because one of the benefits of energy storage is that it's portable. It can be it can be situated anywhere in the province or in the country, and of every size and of all the various technologies available, there's lots to choose from. And as system planners can use that as a Swiss Army knife to make, make it work where it has to so we can balance the grid and optimize the assets and provide reliability. So energy storage is is that solution provider for the energy system.   Dan Seguin  06:47 Okay. In your opinion, Justin, what's impeding the wider adoption of energy storage across Canada's provinces and territories?   Justin Rangooni  06:57 So I think one of them, would it be just an- I think we talked about this two, almost two years ago. It's just a matter of for some systems, operators and governments in certain jurisdictions now, in terms of changing their mindset into away from traditional generation, traditional poles and wires, to see what energy storage and other DER types or non wire solutions can provide to the system. Credit to Ontario and Alberta. And we're seeing this a bit in Nova Scotia. And obviously, in Quebec, they're understanding the role now that energy storage and other non wires alternatives can provide. So they're developing roadmaps, they're reducing regulatory barriers, and they're creating the market mechanisms to really enable energy storage, I think other provinces across the country who are a little bit behind will start to follow suit, as well.   Dan Seguin  07:47 Okay, another question here. I think it's safe to say that the economics of storage is improving, and in some cases, has reached cost parity with conventional technology alternatives. Are the high upfront costs a factor that's discouraging more investors? Or is there something else?   Justin Rangooni  08:08 I wouldn't say it's- I think what's discouraging investors necessarily with would just be the certainty of where that, where the market mechanisms are going to be for energy storage. So in the US, you have, I think, almost a dozen states, who have a energy storage procurement or energy storage targets. So that's sending a signal to the to the sector and investors that we're looking for energy storage, we're looking for non wire alternatives to put on the grid. So what that's I think that's the biggest thing that others are looking for in Canada is, where's that certainty? Where's that? Where's the path forward for energy storage in the country? So I think in Ontario, we're starting to see that with their capacity needs that are coming up, people are looking at it and saying, okay, energy storage can definitely fill that role. So they're seeing the interest in that. So you're seeing a lot more interest in Ontario for the role of energy storage.   Rebecca Schwartz  09:03 All right, Justin, if you had to break it down super quick for someone, what would be your elevator pitch for why we should integrate energy storage into a broader system framework? So if you had one minute to convince them that energy storage is the missing link to accelerating our path, to net-zero, what would you say?   Justin Rangooni  09:20 So I won't do the analogy again. But if it was the first time of the elevator, that first I would use the inhaling/exhaling analogy. But what I would say quickly is simply that energy storage is a solution provider. It provides different solutions depending on what the need is. If you need it for reliability reasons to make sure that the lights are going to be on energy storage can play that role by saving that energy when it's needed. Storing the energy when it's when it's when it's needed, and then issuing it and then also for affordability reasons to defer investments and new generation or new poles and wires. There's a lot of different reasons for energy storage, but again, I think that analogy is the best one I've seen so far.   Dan Seguin  10:04 Some might not like me for this next one. But here goes Justin, how can energy storage help meet demand spikes, and also reduce or even eliminate the need to maintain or build new gas plants, which are among the dirtiest generators on the grid here in Ontario.   Justin Rangooni  10:27 So where energy storage can play that critical role is storing electricity when it's generated at times when maybe you don't need it. So instead of curtailing or spilling water, or unnecessary or maybe importing it, or exporting it at a loss for that excess surplus generation, energy storage can step store that electricity. So when there's peaks in demand, and energy storage can, you know use that the system planners can use the electricity that is stored during those peak demands, and to really start leveling out that need for the new peaker plants or existing peaker plants for that matter. So it's really storing the energy for a future use. And that's, that's why we're so excited about energy storage.   Dan Seguin  11:12 Now, in an article you wrote in 2021, you reference that the Independent Electricity System Operator was undertaking a study on the potential phase out of Canada's gas generation. You noted that energy storage Canada was keen to participate in the study. Has there been any movement? What are you hoping to achieve?   Justin Rangooni  11:39 So what happens is we last talked is the IESO did kind of, I would call it a preliminary report, on their decarbonisation efforts or the phase out of natural gas. And a lot of stakeholders took issue with it because of the some of the assumptions that were made. And even the Minister of Energy, looked at it and said, you know what, go back and develop the path. So we are eager to see what that path will be now coming out in November, I think the report is due from the IESO. And what we would like to see is a various, a long range of assumptions and scenarios that really get us to that proper path that is cost effective and reliable. The first path kind of just used one scenario. But I think there are very much very different paths to achiev net-Zero in Ontario and in Canada, and what energy storage can provide because there's different technologies because it could be short duration, or long duration, could be pumped storage or flywheels, or batteries, or what have you. And it can be in different locations, throughout the province or throughout the country. There are many different pathways to get there. So that's what we would really like to see in that report. Show us all the different scenarios; show us the cost effectiveness so you have a wide menu, a variety of a menu to choose from. And we think it can be done. In fact, energy storage, Canada will be issuing a report, working on a report right now, that will be done later this year, with regards to how much energy storage will be required in Canada to achieve net-zero by 2035, that the federal government targeted. Because we're hearing a lot of other numbers of saying how we're gonna get there. So we're trying to say as well how much energy storage is going to be required to make that happened. So we look forward to sharing that report with you in the next few months.   Rebecca Schwartz  13:22 All right, Justin, are you seeing policy or regulatory movement at the municipal, provincial or federal level, to help facilitate energy storage into future plans? And could you talk a bit to what's encouraging you and maybe touch a little on what's discouraging you?   Justin Rangooni  13:38 So I would say encouraging is the example set out in Ontario and Alberta. They they took a concerted effort credit to the Alberta System Operating and credit to the Ontario's IESO for developing a roadmap to say, okay, we know energy storage is coming. So what do we have to do to get our house in order with market rules with regulatory rules with system tool upgrades? So they've really set out a nice path? Obviously, maybe discouraging, we would say and Ontario is okay, you're not, maybe you can get a little faster in terms of really that opportunity of value stacking all the all the values that energy storage can provide, we probably want to see that timeline accelerated a little bit, but at least it's out there. We and we hope that this could serve as a good signpost for other provinces to follow. And we're seeing that hopefully in Nova Scotia, and hopefully maybe we'll see that in Saskatchewan and New Brunswick, what have you trying to say? What is that roadmap to really enabling energy storage because we know it's coming.   Dan Seguin  13:38 Now, let's tackle a catchy subject. Cost. How does energy storage protect provinces, cities, utilities and customers against rising demand and energy costs?   Justin Rangooni  14:50 So I would probably hark back to our report that we did in the summer of 2020 by Power Advisory for Ontario. We looked at and said well, how if there were at least 1000 megawatts of energy storage on the grid, what would be the impact for ratepayers. And what the power advisory report concluded was with with at least 1000 megawatts of energy storage on the grid, it would save ratepayers approximately $2 billion over the over the next decade. And what they looked at was ways that it was saving ratepayers money. It was deferring invest poles, a traditional poles and wires investments, maybe they don't have to be made right now you can defer some of those. Avoidance or deferral of new power generation, which is costly. So it's, it's those mainly two and again, it's also price, perhaps arbitrage, too where we're seeing, with some larger commercial industrial customers, who have behind the meter storage installed, and are avoiding the high demand times by using the energy storage and it's stored behind the meter to save, save on cost as well. So that's where we're looking at the really the what, what energy storage can provide in terms of affordability issues. And as you mentioned before, the costs of energy storage are going down. And we're talking about batteries, we're seeing a continued decline, and forecasts are showing a decline continuing for the rest of the decade. But again, as with other technologies of energy storage technology, it's all a matter of when do you want to- where do you want to use it and what benefit it's providing?   Dan Seguin  16:19 Justin, is it fair to say that most renewable energy, like wind and solar, may require daily energy storage to maximize their benefits and secure against seasonal shortfalls in Canada, when the wind doesn't blow as much like in the summer, and the sun doesn't shine as much like in the winter?   Justin Rangooni  16:41 So yes, I think energy storage could definitely optimize that variable, renewable generation. And depending on what the technology you're looking at, it could even be done, you know, hourly too if you have a certain batteries are co-located, or are very close to those the wind and solar assets as well. And again, energy storage also provides that benefit to all forms of generation, it's a matter of storing what's on the grid and the system operators using the tool that energy storage provides to say, well, we don't need all this power that all our generation assets are producing. So we're going to utilize this battery, these energy storage resources, we have to store that excess energy, and then to release it when it's required. So again, if why we're so excited energy storage, because we're just talking about batteries, there's batteries, there's pump storage, there's flywheels, or compressed air, there's thermal storage, there's a lot of possibilities. And they all can play a critical role in optimizing wind and solar assets, and hydro and nuclear assets as well.   Dan Seguin  17:42 Now I have a follow up question for you, Justin. What's your prediction based on the current trajectory on how much of all energy use in Canada's 2050 future could be stored at any given time? And why is that important?   Justin Rangooni  18:00 So it's probably hard to forecast that number. Now, our report will put a number on what is the minimum to achieve net-zero by 2035. So we will have a number, a national number and broken down by the provinces as well, to see what that number is. But really, it all depends on what the system planner is using the energy storage for. Now, you could have big giant, big energy storage projects, that could be in the almost 1000 megawatts, all the way down to smaller energy storage projects with or in the single digit megawatts or less. So it really depends on what the system planner wants to utilize those energy storage projects for. So it's really tough to tell, I think an example would be right now in California, they have about 3000 megawatts of grid scale connected storage, their peak demand is almost 30,000. So 10% in California, right now, is energy storage, meeting that peak demand. And that's only growing. So again, I think it all depends on what the system planner is looking and the jurisdiction and a lot of factors. But as we're seeing in California, energy storage is playing an increasing critical role to meeting energy needs.   Rebecca Schwartz  19:07 Okay, so we've talked a lot about the many applications for energy storage beyond just cost reduction. And I'll go ahead to name a few just now. So we've talked about battery storage, increasing capacity, improving reliability, supporting renewable integration and deferring transmission upgrades. So because of its versatility, and its ability, battery storage, some might say it could be the true Swiss Army knife of grid solutions. What would you tell our audience is the best feature of battery storage? Or maybe what's most impressive secret feature that others aren't aware of?   Justin Rangooni  19:44 That's a great question. So I'm gonna do my little public service announcement. And I do this for a lot of decision makers to and others. Well, we alked about energy storage, we should talk about more than just batteries. I know it's easy just to say battery storage and a lot. A lot of a lot of people do that and it's understandable. But again, there's a lot A lot of different energy storage technologies, Energy Storage Canada, we're technology agnostic. So we represent batteries and all the different chemistries of battery, not just lithium there's zinc and there's other chemistries. We also talk about pumped storage and flywheels, thermal storage, mechanical storage, what name you there's, there's a lot of different energy storage technologies coming. So maybe that's part of the secret is that there's so when we talk about energy storage, is that there's so many different technologies there that can be used of different sizes, of different characteristics. And one thing I would say a bit of a secret, probably, that is a secret, but just something we should all remember is the portability of energy storage, this can be put anywhere, depending on the technology, it doesn't have to necessarily be in a certain part of the province or the country that has a good natural resource. It can be put anywhere that the system planner needs it. So as we're talking about even utilities, on the utility distribution side, they'll look at their distribution network and say well, where can energy storage work here? And then obviously, the IESO is looking at it from the grander scheme, the prvoincial scale, and saying well, where does it make sense? And so that's the, that's probably the best kept secret of energy storage, and it can be put anywhere.   Dan Seguin  21:10 Having gone through two years of pandemic, what has been the impact of this pandemic, on the energy storage industry? Have there been opportunities that perhaps you weren't aware of before?   Justin Rangooni  21:26 That's an interesting topic. I think, what, obviously, the pandemic has been tough on all sectors with supply chain issues, so that that energy storage is no different from what we're seeing in other jurisdictions as well. But what I think it has allowed system operators and governments to do is to think of other ways how to decarbonize how to provide reliability service, how to make the system more affordable, and has allowed them to start thinking a bit about more innovative solutions, like energy storage, and other non wires alternatives. So the pandemic has allowed that opportunity for more positive thinking, and we're starting to see that in other in Ontario, and and throughout Canada.   Rebecca Schwartz  22:06 All right, we would love to hear your thoughts on vehicle to grid and vehicle to building systems. And if you think that they'll become mainstream when regulatory barriers are lifted.   Justin Rangooni  22:14 So with that one, I think we've worked with some great partners like Plug'n Drive, and others, and there's a few of our members like Peak Power, who are very interested in the vehicle to grid initiative. And where we see a lot of potential obviously, is, with the increased electrification, they hope we'll have a lot more EVs on the road, is we look at that and say, well, your electric vehicle could be your battery for your home, it could be a battery for the local distribution company, if they wanted to utilize it. So in terms of your question of vehicle to grid and what it can do, I think sky's the limit in terms of the innovation, that this could be a real game changer in terms of providing needed electricity when it's required or properly optimizing it. So it's great that people are- utilities and and others are looking at electric vehicles more than just for transportation. It can also power your home, it could help power the distribution network. It's really exciting possibilities.   Dan Seguin  23:15 Okay, here's a bonus round question for customers. What's something you want the average electricity customer or homeowner to know about energy storage? Is there a place for them at the table for them to adopt this tech and help reduce climate change or their own emissions now? What are your recommendations?   Justin Rangooni  23:40 Great follow up to the last question. I think in the next- the short term answer to that one is to look to electric vehicles. That is your best way as the average homeowner in terms of your own decarbonisation efforts, really, is to get that electric vehicle. And again, with vehicle to grid, there could be a lot of possibilities that can even be more decarbonizing to the grid as well. So I would say to the average homeowner, the car battery electric vehicle can be a storage device for you to be a storage device for your utility, a lot of possibilities. So that I would say and then maybe further on in a few more years time, I think you could start seeing some residential energy storage of devices in the home as well. Again, playing with the the electric vehicle, you have in the car, maybe you have some solar panels on your roof, or again, the utility is seeing that the residential energy storage is a great tool for the utility to use. Again, there's a lot of possibilities down the road for the average homeowner but I'd say you know, electric vehicles are here. There's a lot more I would say go pop, go look at Plug'n Drive's website, go look at your local utility, talk to them, and go to your car dealership and see what electric vehicles are out there.   Rebecca Schwartz  24:53 All right, Justin, as you know, we always end our interviews with some rapid fire questions, and we've got some new ones for you. Are you ready?   Justin Rangooni  25:01 Okay, let's go.   Rebecca Schwartz  25:02 What are you reading right now?   Justin Rangooni  25:04 Oh, okay, so I am reading the fiery trial about Abraham Lincoln's evolution of his thinking on slavery, pre Civil War and during Civil War, and obviously afterwards a bit.   Rebecca Schwartz  25:18 If you had to name a boat, if you had one, what would you name it?   Justin Rangooni  25:21 That's a hard one. The only thing that comes to my mind is Boaty McBoatface. That's all like that's, that's it.   Rebecca Schwartz  25:27 Who is someone that you admire?   Justin Rangooni  25:30 So I should say my parents by now I'm talking to Hydro Ottawa. So my answer will be Bryce Conrad.   Rebecca Schwartz  25:35 What's the closest thing to real magic that you've witnessed?   Justin Rangooni  25:38 Oh, I would say the Toronto Raptors winning the NBA championship. I didn't, I didn't think that would have happened in my lifetime. So it was really magical to see and hopefully we can see it again.   Rebecca Schwartz  25:48 What's been the biggest challenge to you personally, since the pandemic began?   Justin Rangooni  25:52 Oh, thebandwidth with the kids were when they were home, with the spouse being home and working. Yeah, it was the bandwidth it was that was that was a challenge.   Rebecca Schwartz  26:02 Okay, we've all been watching a lot more Netflix and TV lately. What's your favorite show or movie right now?   Justin Rangooni  26:07 Oh, I think we watched Superstore and The Fffice on Netflix on perpetual, perpetual loop. It's a nice comfort watch.   Dan Seguin  26:15 Lastly, what's exciting you about your industry right now?   Justin Rangooni  26:21 Well, that's a great, great question to wrap it up on because I think it's this is an exciting sector to be in. I think we're catching the wave right now on some really big possibilities and opportunities for the sector. Because we're energy storage we can provide that value on the utility scale. And through to the distribution side and behind the meter to the residential. I think energy storage is really starting to take off and really becoming seen as a mainstream resource and a tool in our- in Canada's electricity system. So that's what's really exciting and really excited to see what the rest of the decade is going to bring for energy storage.   Dan Seguin  26:57 Well, Justin, this is it. We've reached the end of another episode of the thinkenergy podcast. If your listeners want to learn more about you and your organization, how can they connect?   Justin Rangooni  27:10 They can go on to energystoragecanada.org. We have a refreshed website, they can take a look and and find out some more information see all the work that we're doing see a page of our growing membership list, which includes Hydro Ottawa. Also they can attend our conference in October, it will be in person fingers crossed. Downtown Toronto is what we call it the only national conference focused on energy storage. So it's something if you're interested in storage. You don't want to miss it.   Dan Seguin  27:41 Again, Justin, thank you so much for joining us today. I hope you had lots of fun.   Justin Rangooni  27:46 I always do. This is fantastic. Thank you so much for having me back. Thank you, Daniel.   Dan Seguin  27:50 Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the thinkenergy podcast. And don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review wherever you're listening. And to find out more about today's guests or previous episodes, visit thinkenergypodcast.com. I hope you'll join us again next time as we spark even more conversations about the energy of tomorrow.  

Dan Seguin  00:06 This is thinkenergy, the podcast that helps you better understand the fast changing world of energy through conversations with game changers, industry leaders, and influencers. So join me, Dan Seguin, and my co host, Rebecca Schwartz, as we explore both traditional and unconventional facets of the energy industry. Hey, everyone, welcome back. On today's show, we're going to talk about buildings and the critical role they play in our country's transition to a lower carbon, and eventual net zero future. They're where we live, work and play. But buildings are responsible for 40% of global energy consumption, and about a third of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.   Rebecca Schwartz  01:00 That number is pretty significant. But becoming net zero is going to take money, and new technology, new infrastructure, and a complete overhaul of how we construct, heat, and cool our buildings.   Dan Seguin  01:11 As we talked about on the show, many times technology is evolving at an accelerated rate. So much so that even today's most highly evolved smart buildings may be considered just the norm or standard a decade from now. So when is the right time for property developers and owners to jump in and lower their emissions and environmental impact?   Rebecca Schwartz  01:37 The majority of commercial buildings we see now are more than 30 years old. So, there's a desperate need for energy efficient retrofits and upgrades. A lot goes into retrofitting an existing building to make it smart and attractive, comfortable, sustainable, and of course cost efficient. It involves much more than just updating your aging HVAC or stepping up the lighting by putting in a few fancy things you may have bought off Amazon.   Dan Seguin  02:03 So, here's today's big question. What kind of planning needs to take place today to help future proof or new and existing commercial buildings, so they can lower their carbon footprint and eventually achieve their net zero target later?   Rebecca Schwartz  02:21 Our special guest today is Terry young. He's the Vice President of Operations at KRP Properties. Terry manages a portfolio of more than 30 commercial properties in Ottawa's high tech hub in Kanata. Welcome to the show.   Dan Seguin  02:35 Hey, Terry, how are you? We know that buildings contribute 1/3 of greenhouse gas emissions globally. What are some of the steps that developers and property owners should consider or be aware of when it comes to future proofing their buildings and why?   Terry Young  02:52 So, I think one thing is understanding the current state of your building. Many of us, we've run pieces of real estate, but we really don't know how it's running or where it sits, or how efficient it is. So, I think the first thing you got to do is understand where your building is, in terms of your carbon burn, your energy burn, etc. And, you know, that's probably the first step to start with today. How much energy are we using? And can I be more efficient?   Dan Seguin  03:20 Now, how practical is it for building owners to adopt these new technologies?   Terry Young  03:27 So I think it's quite practical actually. And like we've been, we've been very fortunate to have a really good relationship with Hydro Ottawa, and we've actually been involved with Envari, and we monitor our utility burns in real time. So, with every 15 minutes, or whatever it is, I can tell you exactly how much energy we're burning- both utility wise, energy being electricity, gas and water. Now, you can't, if you don't monitor, you can't change. So basically, the first step is to start monitoring. And we've been very fortunate. Likewise, the software that they we've provided, they can, you know, there's some analytical data that we provide, to understand trends, to understand where your building is moving, etc. So, yeah, it's quite practical. Now, it's not cheap. And, but, you know, I think it's so worth it.   Rebecca Schwartz  04:18 Maybe a good place to start is what exactly is a smart building? And what are some examples of how technology can connect tenants and property managers in ways that matter?   Terry Young  04:29 So, I think there's a lot of definitions on smart buildings because- talk to five people, you have five different answers. But, I think, if I were to give you a definition of what a smart building is it is centralized control. Basically I can control pretty much anything in the building from one central area. We have the temperature, the humidity, the HVAC systems, the electrical systems, the lighting systems. And so, I think that's what I would call a smart building. That's such, Rebecca, this can be scaled as well. But you can have a really small amount of smart so you can have very large amount of smarts, but it's the same kind of linear path what you're trying to get to, right.   Dan Seguin  05:08 Terry, is it fair to say that we're not only talking about the health of the building, or its impact on the environment, but also the health and comfort of its occupants? What are some of the positive ways smart buildings impact the people who use them?   Terry Young  05:25 There's so many things that- the quality of the environment is you know, there's studies out there, and I've read 50 of them, if I've read 100, about, you know, you're going to increase your quality of work, your air quality, your ability to quickly get to the office, your ability to department quickly, all of these things actually adds directly to productivity lines. There are many companies out there that can actually monitor how much and what product can be looked like. And there's a direct correlation to building help. Absolutely, technology can easily assist you in that. Now, when I say assist, you still need to have a lot of background. And, yes, you're building has to be intelligent to do this. But, there's direct correlation; absolutely between, you know, how, how well you're running your building, how smart your building is, and productivity of the occupants inside that building. Right.   Dan Seguin  06:19 Okay, here's a follow up question. Do you think future proofing may now include reducing the spread of germs in buildings? Have you seen anything that might stick around after COVID-19? Like, temperature readings before employees enter the building, maybe even ventilation standards,   Terry Young  06:40 The ASHRAE Standard. So ASHRAE is an organization that sort of monitors, and regulates, I suppose, how air gets distributed within a facility, a very, very good organization. When COVID first hit, they actually put out a different way of running your buildings, and they set parameters on how to do that. I think that's going to be part of the course moving forward. For sure. I'm not sure heat or temperature, taking your temperature, anything, if that's going to continue. However, you know, we have- there's a lot of face recognition currently available right now, that actually are coinciding with your door passes, and your fob keys, as soon as they see your face, it opens your door. It's easily known. And it's already built into a lot of these platforms that it takes your temperature, whether that's going to be moving forward, I'm not sure. I do think that how people are running their buildings is going to be at or will continue to be at a really, really higher level than it was in the past, because our clients are demanding this. The unfortunate part is, you know, back 30-40 years ago, when we built a lot of these buildings that the systems that were there were built very much to code at the time, but they don't exceed or they aren't to code now. So what we're having to do is as the asset needs to be replaced, we do and we are able to put in that bigger, better system. But the ductwork and the existing spaces are only so big, so it can't do what a hospital does, for instance, and not to bore you or your audience here, but you know, a hospital can actually do a many, many air filtration changes any like they literally take all the air out of one space and take it out and put fresh air in much more effectively and efficiently than a normal commercial building would because that's the way it is. So, we, you know, we have some work to do for sure. We have put a number, when I say a number, it's probably 20 or 30 things that we've done to test and fine tune because we were always kind of doing them. And these are like special MERV rating filters through mechanical air filtration units, humidity control, all of this stuff, we fine tune. And now we monitor and are very aware, on a, you know, a real time basis on the quality of that air that gets pumped in there and how many times we can actually filter that air out. So we're very, very aware. And I think that's going to be something that you're going to see building owners and property owners really having a cognizant awareness of how that works.   Rebecca Schwartz  09:18 As climate change continues to evolve, the demand for space heating and cooling rises along with it. Many organizations are seeing their heating, ventilation and air conditioning system taking the most significant bite out of their bottom line. So my question to you is, what options exist? And what does the future of smart HVAC tech look like?   Terry Young  09:39 So I can speak for an hour here. I know we don't have an hour. But you know, in the last two or three years or maybe last five or six years now we've taken up three or four gigs off our grid out here, just by running. I shouldn't say that- in conjunction with asset replacement, but just by running our buildings better and faster, more efficiently. So you think about it, you know, three gigs is a lot of electricity, right? So, and this is through our analytical software, and this is all, and I should, I should say probably 60 or 70% of that savings, this has come from our ability to run things more efficiently. And basically, you know, to simplify it. We have a bunch of data that we get fed in and we have analytics that actually feed that data and understand it a million times a second kind of thing. No human could do it. But they create efficiencies in the system. So if you look at, you know, from a climate change perspective, and if you're not running these analytical platforms you're behind. Likewise, the minute you turn these things on, it's an instant 15 or 20% savings. So I think that's a huge thing. Likewise, your energy and carbon are very directly correlated. So the minute you save energy in our world, you're saving your carbon burn as well.   Dan Seguin  10:59 Great segue to this next question, Terry. Wondering if you could expand on how data from HVAC systems improves energy management through automation, and predictive analysis that forecasts adjustments based on historical data to enhance and manage overall energy consumption.   Terry Young  11:22 So your, your eyes are gonna glaze over now. So just pause. Because I'm gonna get tactical, or another thing go on. And I enjoy this kind of thing to love. So it's like, and I'll try to put it down to two words, everybody can understand. But in a building, there, there's a bunch of relationships, so there's a big HVAC unit on the roof, and then there's a box that's down there in the ductwork kind of thing that opens and closes and stuff. And then there's a thermostat right there on the wall. So, basically, that's one relationship. Okay. So, basically, if you turn up, you go to 70 degrees, that means the little baffle in the VAV box opens a little bit and pushes enough air in so you're comfortable. Okay, now the fan needs to work at I don't know, whatever percentage that is. So, what happens is with the analytical data, and the analytics, it creates an efficiency within that system. So that's one relationship. Now, if you're in an office with 30 offices, there's 30 different relationships. So the software sits on top there, and it's like an umbrella, and understands in real time, all of these demands on the system. So if you have a 60 horsepower motor, and you have reheat coils, and you have a whole pile of systems working in conjunction and simultaneously with one another, what this software does, it goes, how can I minimize the the use of all of this system to maintain its comfort. So instead of run at a 60 horsepower, so 15 years ago, I turn on that motor, I got 60 horses or 30 horses, whatever it is full bore. And basically, I fill the system full a static pressure, and I just opened it ever so slightly, but I've run the entire system for my office, which is 200 square feet. So now with these new systems, I don't need to do that anymore. There's variable speed drives, which basically means it's like a gas pedal now, so I only press the gas, the amount of kilometers and the speed that I want. So that relationship from the thermostat that's on the wall, says I only need to go five kilometers an hour, which is five horsepower. So also my office next door, if they need five horsepower or five kilometers an hour, that might be five simultaneously. So they'll take that same sort of static pressure, that same temp air and dump it in his or her office as well. So you see how efficient this is throughout the entire system. So, and again, this is, in theory, after I explain it, it's so simple, but we weren't running our real estate like that 15 years ago. But when you do that, two things happen. One is I save a massive amount of energy- actually 3- two, I maintain really, really comfortable spaces and three, and this is the big one here, from a cap x perspective and if you're a finance person, you're looking at this stuff and you saying well, "I don't need to replace that motor anymore". And usually lifespan these motors are pretty defined; definite, right? So it's 17 years. Now I can push that out to 22 years or 27 years, that kind of deal. So it's good. It's good every which way but loose right.   Rebecca Schwartz  14:40 A short time ago, the federal government introduced new funding and new initiatives to help support the commercial sector. They promised $3 billion to establishing a net zero accelerator fund to help large emitters reduce their emissions. What are some of the highlights and what should clients know?   Terry Young  14:59 So, I'm not the guy to be talking to about this, really. But I mean, there's three criteria- three pillars, I suppose. There's one for, they call it decarbonisation. And so this is like, for large emitters, these are big manufacturing plants there. And there's a, there's new technology called carbon capturing as well. So it's big machines look like big dishwashers. Not really, but they're giant, and it takes the bad thing. And they actually can make that into either a brick or something that can be utilized in a cement factory, or whatever. So it takes carbon out of the system, which is good. The second pillar is it's clean technology and industrial transformation. And I think third one is a huge push for battery ecosystem. One of the big things we have here, we have really cool technology, but our batteries, and the battery technology has not kept up. And I say that there's huge advancements, but we're still not there. You know, you look at the cars, for instance, you know, the Tesla gets 600 or 700 kilometers out of a tank, in a perfect condition world. That's still not good enough for Canada. It might be okay for California, but where we have a geographic issue, we need 1000 or more out of one charge, right? So we need a lot of technology pushing out deeper. So I think that's where they're in the short term, this is where the candidate, most of that money is gonna go. And there's a there's actually there's five or six funds that you can actually apply for as well.   Dan Seguin  16:28 We've tackled some of the pros, what are some of the barriers to the adoption of smart building solutions and reducing emissions? Are the fears or concerns you've heard valid?   Terry Young  16:42 So yeah, I, I think the barriers is twofold. One is financial. And this has to be tied to a financial place somewhere. And if it's not tied to costs, it just won't happen. And it's, it's very expensive. But number two is you need a corporate champion, you need somebody at the table at the C suite to really understand what that means to the company to the world to whatever. And so ultimately, that's where the issue is right now. We got a lot of guys at the at the C suite are a little older, they're they got more gray hair or less hair depends which side of the table you're on. But you know, so what's important to me is not what was important to my son who's 22. And so what you're seeing is, you know, with the cost of everything going up supply chain issues, the cost of labor going crazy, all this kind of stuff- this is going to be very expensive. This also, from a carbon costing perspective, with our new- with our federal government plans implemented, you know, in the in the ready, I suppose, are getting more expensive every day, you better have a plan in place, or you're going to get hit really, really quickly. And so I think that some of the biggest barriers are, or fears are, they don't really understand it. So there's a C suite kind of need to change from a championship and again, the financial component of this stuff.   Dan Seguin  18:14 Okay, now, care to expand on some of the biggest opportunities for return on investment in smart building solutions that folks either haven't thought of, or even considered- is there anything you would recommend?   Terry Young  18:31 So, two really is two of the things are energy savings- and we talked about that full stop real quick and easy. Turn, turn the page. Number two is tenant retention. And this is from a financial place. So the better you run your building, the more efficient you run your building, you've got a better chance of attracting and keeping the tenant. So if you look at what our world is looking like now, where is the new office going to be right? So you need to make sure that your space is as good or is better than any other of your competitors. And one of the ways of doing that is to for sure, making your operating costs lower- decreasing your energy. So in our portfolio, in most portfolios, it's probably 25% of your operating costs. It's quite chunky. So you got a 30,000 square foot building, and it's 25% of your costs. It's a lot of money. So if you can shave a point or in our case, 20 points, it, you know, that client can actually push that money to someplace else. So it's a very, very good thing. Likewise, if you're running your buildings very, very well, people want to be there. And the productivity again, is up and thus they make their more money as well.   Rebecca Schwartz  19:44 So what about your building? What are some of the advanced building technologies that you've implemented in your properties? And how did you get buy in from decision makers?   Terry Young  19:53 So we've we've probably played with a lot. Data analytics, we've done with artificial intelligence, a lot of IoT devices we played with, you know, data points, it comes back down to how can we run a better building? It's best practice. And we're very much trying to be leaders, we're trying to be industry leaders, not just in Ottawa, but in the world, on how better you can run a piece of real estate. So we've tried pretty well, if it's out there, and we could afford it, we've played with it. What the problem is, it's very easy to implement new technology in to new real estate. Anybody can do that. What's difficult is when you have an aging piece of real estate be it 30 years old, in our world that aging, by the way. How do you implement and how do you overlay with the backbone and the front end of a new piece of technology? It's very costly, and very impacting of the actual building and its tenants, as well. So this is what we've done, we've actually started taking four a year, for instance, so we've actually digitized four per year. If there's seven years, and we had seven floors, that sometimes happens when the building can't necessarily afford it. So you know, we've probably tried everything that's out there are pretty close to in our in our repertoire, and some of the cool stuff. And I'll get back to the analytics. I mean, you know, we have one of our facilities a few years ago did the AI to take over. And the certain department would go for pints on a Thursday, and that whole department would shut down, the lighting would shut down the building, HVAC, the air conditioning would shut down. So the bosses would walk by and wonder what's going on with the building had taken over knowing that there's a repetition. So every Thursday, if they went for pints with the boys, the building would actually understand that and decrease the lighting areas and decreased energy. So it's very, very cool technology. Not necessarily for the guys, but it's, yeah, so there's I mean, lots of huge energy savings as well. So, lots of cool stuff.   Rebecca Schwartz  22:01 In terms of ability to implement these solutions. Is there enough of a skilled workforce ready and available? What's your experience been like on the operational side?   Terry Young  22:11 Yeah, so quick answer is no. We're really, that's a struggle just like it. It's a trade, it's a skill, it's a skill, you have to be half an IT guy, you have to be half an HVAC mechanic, you have to be part electrician. So they're not, you know, we have one, two on staff maybe, and they're about 10 years older than I am. So they're not going to be here forever. So and we're not being able to back stop that very well. Our universities and colleges certainly are putting out good tradespeople. But this is a very unique kind of niche market. So people usually get into this by mistake. And so it's very rare. So that being said is there are some really cool companies out there that we work with, you know, and I'll shout out to Modern Niagara are very, very, they're a contractor they work for, they have a team dedicated to this stuff specifically, which is awesome for us. So we just call when we have an issue, we don't have to need in house expertise. So some contractors are leading the edge in that space. So we don't necessarily need an expert on staff, we can call somebody.   Dan Seguin  23:24 Now, Terry, what piece of advice will you give to large commercial property owners, and those in large industries about their emission reduction target dates for, let's say, 2030, even 2040 and 2050?   Terry Young  23:39 So I'm not sure I'm the guy to give advice on this stuff. There's certainly companies and people out there, you know, a lot further along in their journey than we are but you know, you have to have a plan. And, you know, I was at a conference on Thursday of last week and a really smart guy. He was telling me a story about a blog he read, he said, if you're not at the table today in carbon reduction strategy, tomorrow, you will be on the menu. Okay, put that on a bumper sticker, because I did. But that's very, very intuitive and smart. So again, if you're not at the table today, when it comes to carbon, and energy reductions, you will be on the menu tomorrow. Get and know what you're burning. Know what carbon where you stand and where you want to go. It's going to be so expensive to do business tomorrow and the next day, you know, carbon price is going to be, you know, most of our buildings and this is the other issue. And I won't get into too deep but we got lots of government agencies here and bless their heart and I love them all. They're sucking and blowing. Right? So we have one side- we have the people given us a rebate to take electricity out and put gas units in that same year. I'm getting double the bill for burning gas and they want me to turn back to electricity. This is the same bunch of guys. Nobody's seeing from the same song book. So it's like, what do you do? These, also, these programs, when you put in an HVAC unit, it's good for 20 years. So you can't you can't just tomorrow turn around and spend 300 grand to change an HVAC unit, it doesn't work that way, right? So now we have to bear that carbon pricing, or whatever that is for a long, long time. So the government needs to really get on the same page, both provincially, federally and municipality wise locally, to really- let's actually get a plan together. And although you know, Mr. Trudeau may be quite aggressive to what he's trying to do, it's going to be very detrimental to business too, as well. And this is where we don't know the net effect. We in Ontario has the highest energy prices in North America per capita, there's no other place to have more. The cost of electricity here is more than anywhere in North America. So we have to compete for talent we have to compete for, for anybody- clients, operating costs, manufacturing facilities, etc, etc. When they look at Ontario, we're not as aggressive in that area. Now, are there other ways of doing it? Absolutely. You know, I think we really are doing our part. And I think we're batting well above our weight class, when it comes to carbon emissions, because we only, you know, we're this much in the in the world of what, you know, we impact. So I think we're way, way above our weight class, for sure.   Rebecca Schwartz  26:30 Ultimately, what do you hope these emission targets will achieve for companies and municipalities? Will they be required to innovate and plan for a sustainable future? And control costs?   Terry Young  26:41 Yeah, the world? The answer is yes, they, you know, these carbon targets, good, bad or ugly- we will have to bring those into our business model. They're going to be very expensive. So somewhere the cost has to sort of balance itself, right? And at the end of the day, it's my son and my son's son, you know, it's my grandkids that we're trying to help out here. And, you know, we've not necessarily done an okay job. I think there's many, many companies, and you know, it wasn't something that anybody thought of 30 years ago. My dad's generation, it wasn't, it wasn't there. It was, you know, it's climate change is no such thing kind of deal, right? And but it really is. It's real, the data is real, science is real. And we don't nip this and control it or try to mitigate it, we're going to be in a lot more trouble than we are. And again, it comes back down to that corporate champion that I was talking about earlier. We really need some corporate champions at the C suites to make this something important. Balancing finance, balancing cost. This is where the government comes in, you know, you can't put all of this on the backs of industry, it's going to be impossible. Industry will fail. It's financially not doable in some circumstances. So there's going to have to be a give and take; there's gonna have to be relationship, there's going to have to be "how can we get there together"? And it's going to be, it's not going to be easy, it really is not going to be easy.   Dan Seguin  28:19 Now, let's fast forward to post pandemic. What is your prediction for commercial real estate? Will people return to their office towers like before? Or has there been a shift? What's your prediction?   Terry Young  28:36 I think- I think there will be a back to the office thing. I don't know what it's going to look like, I'll actually I'll even I'll even put five bucks on it. That's how confident I am. It's the right thing for a human being to be, okay? There's a number of studies and again, you know, I'm quite well read up on this research and development of patents, for instance, patents are down a decrease. There's a reason for that, you know, when a human gets involved with another human, there's magic, there's chemistry, when you're down in your basement, that doesn't happen. It needs to be closed quarters, you know, and I give the analogy, if you play golf, when you actually golf with a person who's a lot better than you, you may be, say a 15 handicap and you're, you're playing with sixes, your game instantly goes up. So everybody's game just goes a little bit sharper, a little bit faster. That's where the magic happens. You know, and there's a term that they pegged, I think is social malnutrition, where people need or lack the social interaction. And we're social creatures, right? And I'll tell you the water cooler banter that you know that whole social going hockey every Thursday night with the boys, that is magic. And that's what happens. You know, if you look at a de-stress, and you look at the, you know, the emotional intelligence and understanding how your office is working and stuff, you know, in the past how you would deescalate really hard week, if you're not in the office, and you can't have these normal rules or normal things that you do, the stress seems to build, you know, and that's where that's where, you know, that's what scares me the most, I think, when it comes to tomorrow, and the next day, so I really think people will be back in the office, I think there might be a hybrid model, but I think it's going to be the exception, not the rule. So I think you're going to have, you know, two days, three days in out, whatever. And, you know, if you need a day or two to get your paperwork done, and get out of and get a bunch of work done, absolutely. But you're going to come back to the office, and you will want that. And I think companies and you know will require that as well, because that's where the productivity and that's where magic happens.   Rebecca Schwartz  31:00 All right. You mentioned that feeling of stress. Can you elaborate a little bit on what keeps you up at night? And what makes you nervous?   Terry Young  31:09 So, I mean, I sleep like a baby. So I don't- I'm not a big stressful fella. But I think if I were to say one thing is knowing, you know, the pressures that are on our people and the stresses, I mean, the mental health tally and toll this has taken is going to be a generation to really comprehend. And that, you know, if I would look at one thing, that's probably the biggest thing that I worry about, I suppose when it comes to, you know, this whole post pandemic thing, it's a toll. It's a toll on a lot a lot of people and I only wish that that wasn't the case. But and you can feel it in your workplace. It's not it's not a good thing.   Rebecca Schwartz  31:59 And what about things like cybersecurity? Has that been a top priority for the commercial real estate industry?   Terry Young  32:04 Oh, yeah. I mean, that's a big, big question for sure. And the answer is yes. Yes. And more. Yes. You know, because the more you know, we talked about smart buildings, we talked about IP, we talked about protocols and all of this smart technology, it speaks a language that language is on the internet. Likewise, when I said that describe what a smart building is, it's centrally controlled. How do you centrally control? It is centrally controlled by the on the internet, there's bad people, bad guys on the internet. So you know, most hits that have happened in modern day has either come usually comes from a building automation system back door somewhere. So we very much share on that space. There's a couple of really cool technologies out there local by the way, that that sort of they call it covalence is the type of cybersecurity and it understands the language and the pathways in which this data travels; very much analytical base as well and AI, and its local, local guy, local firm, really, really smart bunch of guys. And so they actually can take your building automation systems, and sort of give a level of protection that normally you wouldn't have. So we've created a bit of a lock and key process on how you enter and exit some of these networks and, yeah, so it's very, very top of mind. And it's every year. It's not when- it's not if it's when.   Dan Seguin  33:39 Okay, Terry, I know this isn't your first podcast rodeo. So, as a result, we came up with some new rapid fire questions. I hope you are ready, sir.   Terry Young  33:51 Not really,   Dan Seguin  33:52 Terry. What are you reading right now?   Terry Young  33:55 So this is funny. This is funny because it doesn't, I'm not a big reader, but I'm actually reading 21 Things That You May Not Know About the Indian Act. Funny enough, my son who's an avid reader on this the really good piece of literature and disturbing by the way it's a pretty good read. I'm about halfway through it's not it's not good. But anyway, it's good and bad. Whatever.   Dan Seguin  34:02 Now I'm looking forward to this answer. What would you name your boat if you had one? Do you have one?   Terry Young  34:28 "She'll do for now". Yeah, no, I'm a big boat person, buddy. I'm always able to boat and everybody’s got to put a date; every year you need extra, so to speak, so it's so my dad came up with this many years ago. Well she’ll do for now, boy and I'm from Newfoundland- so she'll do for now meaning that it's okay till I get my new one because the boat is like it's like it's not good because you got to 16 footer, you need 18. You got an 18, you need a 20. So yeah, she'll do for now.   Dan Seguin  35:03 Who is someone that you admire?   Terry Young  35:07 I just said him, my dad, he's a really, really good guy. Retired when he was 62 and went back to school and became a paramedic. And now, yeah, and now he's 74 and still active. Just one of those guys. He just loves life. And he, you know, I've never he's just the best human being that I know.   Dan Seguin  35:28 Now, what is the closest thing to real magic that you've witnessed?   Terry Young  35:33 Yeah, I, I'm not a big magic fan. I'm not sure. I thought about this one. I really don't know.   Dan Seguin  35:42 What has been the biggest challenge to you personally, since the pandemic?   Terry Young  35:47 So two things came to mind when this question came up, is, for me, the challenge isn't, I live in a cabin, by the way, and up on the water. And so this pandemic thing, I'm out in the bush, I'm an outdoorsy guy. So this pandemic, it meant nothing to me, like when it came to light, I was very fortunate to work for an amazing company, we didn't have to lay anybody off. So we're able to work from home. And yeah, so my world, it started off in the bush anyway. So I didn't, I'm not a big in the city person. So, you know, that didn't affect me, but come back to the mental health of our folks, you know that- the relationship stresses that I see the, you know, how can we, as a team make our company better? So if you look at the challenge here is this cause the big problem? And now how can we make it better? How can we create plans? How can we put in place you know, in our company, we're developing a very, a wellness strategy, it's called Care Plan Meets. And it's based on this new world. So we had, what I consider, a pretty good plan before, now we're making it better. And because of the new changing circumstances, you know, everybody, you know, their benefits are here, the company has been like this for 35 years, it's all the same, well, the world has changed. And the view as a company, or as the leader that runs a company, if you don't understand that what you had yesterday is not good for today, you're going to lose people you're going to there's going to be a shift. And you're not only going to lose people to other companies, you're gonna lose people to other issues. So we're really trying aggressively to put a plan in place, but that doesn't happen.   Dan Seguin  37:33 Okay, we've all been watching a lot of Netflix and TV lately. What's your favorite movie? Or show?   Terry Young  37:41 So, my- I don't know what this says about me. But my favorite movies Talladega Nights, Will Ferrell. That movie ever boy best movie ever. Shake and Bake. Yeah.   Dan Seguin  37:53 And lastly, Terry, what is exciting you about your industry right now?   Terry Young  37:59 So, I think, it's a great question. The industry, what's exciting me is this new generation of people we got coming up. And it's, and I'm talking about my son's generation, he's 25. Actually he's 23 going on 24. He just got his first job. And he started to look at where he wanted to work, not where, what, who would accept him. But so he started looking at what is the company's culture, what is the company's sustainability practices, etc, etc. Now, he has a degree in International Business. He speaks three languages- this kid is, I mean, I'm partial too but we also have here, three or four of those young people who are articulate, they're extremely smart, they have a work ethic, they have balance, everything that I, you know, there's things that I sort of, if I wish I could have had back then. So I think there's a generation of young people that are brilliant. And that's what really, I see as exciting. You know, we were at a conference with Tony, last week, we had two young, younger staff members there. And, and I was proud to sit in the middle of them, that, you know, just they got up and they they walk the room, they can work the room. And they're passionate about sustainability. They're passionate about business. And then they also have this balance that we may as my generation, we may have went a little bit further on the one side, so they don't have that balance problem. So they know what's important and their families, they know how to do a good job. And you know, you hear them all the, you know, generations coming up. It's not it's not good. You've heard all these old timers and stuff. That's, that's true for every generation. There are bad apples everywhere. But I'll tell you, these young people that we got coming up, there's there's there's a really good vibe out there. And I'm really excited to see what they're going to do what the world is going to be looked like. So we look at and we can sum up here with the carbon sustainability and stuff, it's going to take that generation, that that's important to them. So when my son or your son gets at that C suite level, he's going to be his wallets already full. He knows exactly what and how he's going to run that company to make sure that for his kids sustainability and carbon and all of this stuff, that's the only saving grace, they're going to be able to reverse some of the damage that we've done, because that's how they operate. So that's what makes me excited about the industry. You know, the technology is, is great. And I mean, we can play with that, but, and it comes down to good people running the technology without the good people, that technology is relatively useless to a point, right? So that's what I'm excited about.   Rebecca Schwartz  40:46 Well, Terry, this is it. We've reached the end of another episode of the thinkenergy podcast. If our listeners want to learn more about you and your organization, how can they connect?   Terry Young  40:56 So krpproperties.com. For sure, reach out and there's a there's an info page, and there's a connect page slot there on the website. Yeah, it's pretty, pretty simple stuff.   Dan Seguin  41:08 Again, my friend, thank you so much for joining us today. I hope you had a lot of fun.   Terry Young  41:12 Hey, I did. Thank you very much, guys. Appreciate it. Did you know buildings as a whole make up for 40% of global energy consumption? When you consider the majority of commercial buildings are more than 30 years old, it’s clear energy-efficient retrofits and upgrades are needed to help bring these buildings into the 21st century. Terry Young, Vice President of Operations at KRP Properties, joins this episode of thinkenergy to talk about the planning needed to future-proof commercial buildings to help reach net zero targets and reduce their carbon footprint.   Related links https://www.linkedin.com/in/terry-young-69652325/ https://krpproperties.com/about/the-team/   --- To subscribe using Apple Podcasts To subscribe using Spotify To subscribe on Libsyn --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: YouTube Check out our cool pics on Instagram More to learn on Facebook Transcript: Dan Seguin  41:15 Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the thinkenergy podcast. And don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review wherever you're listening. And to find out more about today's guests or previous episodes, visit thinkenergypodcast.com. I hope you'll join us again next time as we spark even more conversations about the energy of tomorrow.

In part one of our conversation about microgrids, we spoke with Charles Berndt, Manager of Grid Technology with Hydro Ottawa, about how these systems can help Canada reach its net zero goals. Charles joins us again for part two, this time focusing on how we can meet the demand for energy while maintaining safety and security—all in the name of decarbonizing our future.   Related links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charles-berndt-84427b2/   --- To subscribe using Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thinkenergy/id1465129405   To subscribe using Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7wFz7rdR8Gq3f2WOafjxpl   To subscribe on Libsyn: http://thinkenergy.libsyn.com/ --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video on YouTube   Check out our cool pics on Instagram More to learn on Facebook Keep up with the Tweets Transcript: Dan Seguin  00:06 This is thinkenergy, the podcast that helps you better understand the fast changing world of energy through conversations with game changers, industry leaders, and influencers. So join me, Dan Seguin, and my co host, Rebecca Schwartz, as we explore both traditional and unconventional facets of the energy industry. Hey, everyone! Welcome back. We're back today with Charles Berndt, Manager of Grid Technology at Hydro Ottawa to talk about micro grids on part two of our show. Last time, Charles went in depth about the benefits of micro grids and how they operate while connected to the electricity grid, but that they can also operate on their own using local energy generation in times of power outages caused by storms or grid failure. Today, he's going to discuss distributed energy resources, and how they are connected to the micro grid.   Rebecca Schwartz  01:08 Now more than ever, we know people care about the environment, climate change and sustainability, and are increasingly interested in things like renewable generation and electrification. All of that leads us to creating a smarter electricity grid.   Dan Seguin  01:23 Renewable energy generation is expected to play a major role in the further decarbonisation of Canada's electricity system, while relying on nature to assist us in generating cleaner electricity. Sometimes, it's not always the most reliable.   Rebecca Schwartz  01:42 As we know, Mother Nature is pretty fickle. So, that's where distributed energy resources like energy storage and distributed generation come into play.   Dan Seguin  01:52 Here's today's big question. While the time has come to decarbonize our grid even further with alternative energy sources, how can we ensure we can meet the growing demand for energy while also maintaining safety and security?   Rebecca Schwartz  02:09 Charles, it's nice to have you back.   Dan Seguin  02:11 Okay, Charles, let's dive into part two. What sets distributed energy resources, better known as DERs? Apart from micro grids? Both can generate or store energy and manage consumption depending on type, right? Can you unpack this for listeners?   Charles Berndt  02:30 Yeah, I've always considered DERs kind of the individual parts of a micro grid, right? The micro grid is a holistic thing and an area where it has both generation and storage and consumption. Whereas DERs are those individual pieces that could be solar, it could be battery storage, it could be you know, it could be a hot water tank, you know, you can think of that as a distributed energy resource and electric vehicle battery, solar on the roof, any of those could be could be DERs, and they could be a part of a micro grid. But but not a micro grid on its own. If that, if that makes sense.   Rebecca Schwartz  03:10 Okay, so what's driving the growth around distributed energy resources?   Charles Berndt  03:14 I think you're seeing kind of two big drivers. I mean, the first is obviously economics of the storage and generation we're seeing solar and battery storage getting cheaper every year, it's falling quite rapidly. And it's a significant reduction in costs per kilowatt hour, every year. And they're getting better. And the second one, I would say is that drive towards lower carbon, I think, you know, customers are looking to reduce their carbon footprint, and they're starting to get to the point where they're willing to spend their own money to do that. So you have that double effect, the technology is getting better and cheaper, and then more customers are willing to invest and then it kind of gets that momentum. So I think it's it's very much the two things hand in hand.   Dan Seguin  04:02 Okay. Now, Charles, talk to me about the rise of local energy. Is there a need for greater education to help customers understand that they can shift from being a consumer that's consuming energy to a prosumer- producing, even selling electricity back to the grid?   Charles Berndt  04:22 Yeah, I'd say yes, but not in the way you might expect. I think I've found customers to be fairly well informed that the technology and how it works, they seem, you know, they seem to know exactly what the options are available. Ontario in specific has had those programs for for quite a few years and people are getting, getting a firm understanding. They're reading that in the news and they understand it quite well, actually. And so I find, excuse me, that the education support where it's needed is more around the economic choices available to them. Um, what is the business case and the return on that investment, if they were to make that leap? And unfortunately, that answer is very local. You know that every jurisdiction, every province, every territory, every country has a different economic model for how they sell and compensate electricity. And so there's no universal answer for everyone, it really, it really is a localized answer. And that's, I think, where you know, where the education or the support is needed is how to build that, build that in for people to help them understand, you know, how a homeowner or a business owner can make that choice and where the economics play out, and they can make the choice and empower them to make the choice that they want to.   Dan Seguin  05:43 Okay, here's a follow up question. What's been the biggest barrier or challenge for more adoption? What's needed to overcome them?   Charles Berndt  05:53 I'm gonna say economics again. And I know it's, it may be boring, but I've met, like I said, I've met a lot of passionate customers who want to adopt, but the economic case is not there. So I think, you know, there's, there's no silver bullet here. We've seen incentives have an impact in the past, but then I think we can all recognize that the solution to the problem needs to be a little bit more holistic and needs to be sustainable for all the customers. So I think we're seeing, you know, market reform is what's needed and we're starting to embark, Ontario is  embarking on that journey, and I'm happy to see it but yeah, not, not this attempted silver bullet here for that one specific problem. It needs that big system view and make sure that we're making the appropriate choices.   Rebecca Schwartz  06:40 We've touched on the what of micro grids, what about the ‘how’, how does it work connecting DERS and micro grids to the grid? Will utilities be required to digitally retrofit their aging infrastructure to make the grid more resilient and reliable in the face of increasing climate stress, rising electricity demand, and essentially greater overall dependence on electricity?   Charles Berndt  07:05 The short answer is yes. All of the above, really. You know, as I mentioned, last time, the need to become more interactive with our customers as they, as they become increasingly part of that generation mix as they adopt distributed energy resources, we need to have more intelligence at the edge of our system. So not just looking at the substation and sending electricity down the wire, so to speak, but we need to manage the assets and the grid differently. This different type of management will help our planning and investment programs. And to do this, we need to make significant investment in our systems and how we collect data, how we manage data, how we use that data to make choices and operating the system, both for sunny weather and during major storms or events. And, you know, that's not to say we won't have to invest in the traditional sense, we're still going to need more wires, we're still going to need substations because we're a growing Ottawa is a growing community and electric vehicles, for example and electrification of heating and cooling brings, brings a lot of load. And so you've got to continually balance, you know, how do we do the non wires and incentivize those, but then also make sure that we have that foundation in place? So will it require us to digitally retrofit? Absolutely. It's all going to be a technology solution primarily.   Dan Seguin  08:33 That's great. Thanks, Charles. Now, are there concerns about unpredictability of certain renewable energy resources and how that might impact the electricity grid and operations of micro grids? How do you mitigate that?   Charles Berndt  08:48 I mean, it can be a concern. And you can mitigate that in kind of two ways. So, for the energy, we need to store it somehow. And that can be local, by putting a little battery next to your generation or some other type of storage, but then also, you can leverage the grid for that storage, you know, we can, we can use things like large hydroelectric generator systems in the far north to be a large grid size battery. So that's one way to do it. And the other way is to mix, you know, it's not all solar, it's not all wind, it's not all hydroelectric. It's really the combination of many and making sure- I keep coming back to this because I'm, you know, I really believe in looking at a systems approach; a holistic approach look at what mixing those look like where the sun goes down, the wind picks up and overnight, the river keeps flowing. So that's, you know, that's how you do it, is you make sure that you're not over incentivizing over investing in one thing over the other. It's truly a mix.   Rebecca Schwartz  09:53 So, Charles, exactly how important is it for distributed energy resources, both in addressing climate change and energy security challenges? Can DERs help shield communities against the impact of extreme weather events, which are becoming more and more frequent?   Charles Berndt  10:10 In time, absolutely. I know, short term you can, you can improve resiliency with that local storage. You can potentially put together a micro grid on a campus or other critical location. But in the longer term, you obviously can, can lower the impact on the environment through that energy switching electrification, bringing more renewables into the mix means less carbon impact, and less carbon is always a, it's always a good thing. And it's going to, you know, it's not going to solve climate, the climate crisis on its own, but it's going to, it's going to help and it's going to reduce the problem. And it's the way to go.   Dan Seguin  10:47 Now, I'd love to hear your thoughts on where energy storage, and the battery in electric vehicles fits into this equation. As the majority of EV charging demand is expected to come from home charging.   Charles Berndt  11:02 Yeah, I think this is our probably our biggest opportunity in the short term. As transportation gets electrified, you know, how we integrate how we manage and optimize that load can have a massive benefit to everyone, the grid and our customers. Being able to manage that charging and being able to do that signaling, that dynamic conversation with the customer and their technology. And to help manage it so that it's, it's done at the right time, it's done at the economic time for them and, and they have the flexibility, but we empower, empower them to make the choice that makes sense for them economically, and then, and then try and use those signals also to help manage our system as that load grows. For that future vision of where electric vehicles could play, I admittedly was a huge doubter of that vehicle to grid technology, I, you know, I couldn't see a customer being willing to do that. But, you know, I look at advertisements for electric vehicles now. And you see that they're, they're really touting that feature of being able to have that emergency backup power, that, that local power. And so now, once the customer is comfortable with withdrawing that energy out of the battery, you know, I'm sure it's a small, it's a small leap to use that or being willing to use it in support of the grid. And then there's an economic, you know, solution there to figure out but, you know, I don't see it as as a such a red line, as I did before, when, you know, people were really worried about warranties on batteries. You know, that was a huge conversation early on in EVs, I'm hearing much, much less of that. And even range anxiety, you're hearing much, much less of that people, people are getting comfortable with these things and realizing their whole value.   Rebecca Schwartz  12:51 From my knowledge, distributed energy resources are somewhat invisible and can't be controlled by grid operators, correct? This means that it's difficult to integrate them into the overall operation of the grid. Are there any smart digital solutions in the future that could enable DER owners to monitor and manage the resources in real time? And could this help grid operators more closely monitor and influence DER owners?   Charles Berndt  13:18 Yeah, I think I think your right on both. Right now, it is pretty passive. We are, we have knowledge of certain size of generators from the larger generators we connect to and, and that the size of generator that we connect to with with the technology to make sure that we know what's going on- that's getting smaller every year, if that makes sense. We're now asking, you know, the smaller generators to give us insight and to connect to us on a communications platform. But going forward, it's you know, in order to really incentivize that huge adoption of DERs, we need that platform, we have to have that platform. And we have to evolve and adapt as a utility. So that our control room and our engineers and our staff and our customer service, folks, everybody has that platform to understand what's going on what's changing in the grid, and how do we manage it day to day and the more DERs we get, the more critical it becomes that we have that visibility and interaction with our customers. So we've been investing, you know, over the last few years, and we have a rather significant roadmap ahead of us. Over the next five years, we're going to be investing significantly in our platforms, not only our traditional control and outage management systems that we've always had, making sure those are modern, but then also adding those analytics modules on top. We've, we've started to add, you know, people with with a data science background to our utility, we're hiring different people. We're pulling in people from technology, from, you know, from the high tech sector, and we're leveraging modern ways of managing and manipulating data to understand insight and where is it going? Where is it going to be today? How do we optimize? And so, it's going to help us immensely in managing that going forward.   Dan Seguin  15:12 Now, Charles, we touched a bit on this earlier, but energy from the wind and sun is intermittent, and often unpredictable. Critics point to this as the fatal flaw of renewable energy and the reason electricity prices rose in places aggressively adopting it. Is this true?   Charles Berndt  15:31 Not really, I mean, like I said before, there's no silver bullet here. So, if we incentivize or over incentivize one thing over another, then yeah, you're gonna have an impact on cost, there's no doubt about that. But, you need to look at the big picture. And I'm gonna get back to this holistic vision of of the system, because, you know, if you look at what gains when we reduce carbon, and I'll point to an example, it's a bit of a touchy example, in Ontario, but the elimination of the coal fired generation in Ontario. You know, leaving the politics aside, there was a significant improvement in the air quality of the Greater Toronto Area, so that leads to better health outcomes. That leads to better, you know, better quality of living for the residents. Lower overall health care costs. So, somewhere that was, you know, that was not maybe not fully recouped. But, that has an impact on everyone's life, whether they're, they're personally paying the electric bill or not. So, it's that type of broader view that needs to be taken here. And we can debate the, you know, the implementation of it, and the, you know, whether it's a carbon tax or, you know, offsetting generation or incentivizing a different type of generation, I, you know, that's, I think, besides the point, I think, I think we can all, if we all just take a step back and recognize the holistic improvements to everything, then it's very much worth it.   Rebecca Schwartz  16:59 All right, sorry, not sorry, Charles, but I'm going to put you on the spot here. Cann microgrids, and DERs power our transition to net zero by 2050.   Charles Berndt  17:09 Absolutely. Without a doubt. Shortest answer I'm gonna have. Absolutely. There's no, I have no doubt. The technology is there. The software is there, you just, we just need to do it. And we just need to, you know, change, change our thinking and change our approach and be willing to question how we do it and challenge ourselves to do it better.   Dan Seguin  17:30 Okay, Charles, we've reached the end of another episode of the thinkenergy podcast. Once again, I'd love if we could end with a few rapid fire questions. Are you ready?   Charles Berndt  17:42 I'm ready. I'm ready.   Dan Seguin  17:43 Now, what is the closest thing to real magic that you've ever witnessed?   Charles Berndt  17:51 I've got a whimsical answer for this one. I used to work at a place where we used a lot of liquid nitrogen. So, it's kind of weird, but we just had a lot of it on hand. And one lunchtime, we were having an employee celebration, and somebody came in with a bunch of cream and some, some vanilla extract and like a drill with one of those paint stirrers and a big pot. And I was like, "what are we doing with this"? Like, "what is this for"? And the director of engineering took a big cup of liquid nitrogen and put all the cream and the sugar and everything in a pot with a drill, stirring it like a can of paint and poured the nitrogen in. And literally 30 seconds later, we were all eating ice cream. And it was like, such a simple and obvious thing. I don't know why I still think of it to this day. It was like, it only took three minutes and we were all eating, all 70 of us were eating delicious, fresh ice cream. So yeah, it's kind of a ridiculous answer. But it was magic. I don't understand, it was magic.   Dan Seguin  18:45 That's so cool, Charles. Now, what has been the biggest challenge to you personally, since the pandemic?   Charles Berndt  18:52 So, I manage a few people, and for me, I'm a very personally interactive person, I'm very social, I thrive on social interaction. And, so it's been a little isolating, and I've had to, you know, change how I do things, how I interact with a group of people, co-workers and the team that I work with. And, so it's been a growth for me, but, you know, I have not had significant impacts on the pandemic. I've been personally quite lucky. So if that's the biggest thing I have to complain about, then I consider myself lucky. The benefit has been I've you know, spent so much time with my very young family and it's been it's been good that way. And they're young enough that I don't have to teach them anything, you know, according to a curriculum. I'm lucky that way. I'm not I'm not there yet.   Dan Seguin  19:42 Okay, we've all been watching a lot more Netflix and TV lately, right? What's your favorite movie or show?   Charles Berndt  19:52 Right now, it's it's Drive to Survive. I'm a huge Formula One fan. For those who can't see me I'm actually wearing a Formula One shirt and yeah, it's, it's awesome for me I get to see a show that's my favorite sport. So that's, yeah, it's great.   Rebecca Schwartz  20:08 Well, Charles, thanks again for joining us today. We hope you had a good time.   Charles Berndt  20:12 I did. Thank you so much for having me again.   Dan Seguin  20:15 Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the thinkenergy podcast. And don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review wherever you're listening. And to find out more about today's guests, or previous episodes, visit thinkenergypodcast.com. I hope you'll join us again next time as we spark even more conversations about the energy of tomorrow.  

The term microgrid might make them sound small, but these systems could hold a big key to Canada’s low-carbon future. Microgrids are made up of energy users, distributed energy resources, and advanced controllers, all working together to form an energy grid for both renewable and non-renewable generators. They also have the potential to adopt cleaner technologies, which in turn could improve the way the utility industry is managed and operated. Charles Berndt, Manager of Grid Technology at Hydro Ottawa, joins Dan and Rebecca for a conversation on what microgrids are and how they can help Canada reach its net zero goals.   Related links LinkedIn --- To subscribe using Apple Podcasts To subscribe using Spotify To subscribe on Libsyn --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: https://www.youtube.com/user/hydroottawalimited Check out our cool pics on Instagram More to Learn on Facebook Keep up with our Tweets  Transcript: Dan Seguin  00:06 This is thinkenergy, the podcast that helps you better understand the fast changing world of energy through conversations with game changers, industry leaders, and influencers. So join me, Dan Seguin, and my co host, Rebecca Schwartz, as we explore both traditional and unconventional facets of the energy industry. Hey, everyone. Welcome back. The electricity grid was built to deliver electricity to homes and businesses a little more than a century ago. It's hard to imagine with our obsession and dependency on technology today, how it really wasn't that long ago, we lived without electricity.   Rebecca Schwartz  00:51 The electricity grid is basically a large machine. Think of it almost as the world's largest machine, but built for the outdated 20th century power systems, which are very simple and flowing only in one direction. As we know, though, machines are complex, and they need things like maintenance, replacements, investments, and of course, innovation and upgrades.   Dan Seguin  01:14 Well, this large machine is already getting the biggest upgrade in history. So it can communicate with our homes, businesses, smartphones, our cars and watches. More than any time in history, people want to connect and interact with the grid. That would have been unimaginable 100 years ago.   Rebecca Schwartz  01:39 It's definitely an exciting time to be in our industry. There's lots of new incentives being introduced by our government to support things like energy management, cleaner tech, electric vehicles, and smart grid projects.   Dan Seguin  01:50 Yes, it was just in March 2022, the Government of Canada released its climate target of cutting emissions by 40% below 2005 levels by 2030. The plan includes $9.1 billion in new investments to cut pollution and accelerate the path to net zero by 2050. It also outlines funding to make it easier for Canadians to switch to electric vehicles, make Canada's electricity grid even cleaner, help industries adopt cleaner tech, empower communities to take climate action, embrace the power of nature to fight climate change, and reduce oil and gas emissions, amongst others.   Rebecca Schwartz  02:39 So Dan, let's talk about a relatively unknown technology that I'm told can play a large part in helping along some of these initiatives. They're called micro grids. Micro grids, as defined by the Conference Board of Canada are systems of interconnected energy users, distributed energy resources, and advanced controllers that form local electricity grids. These energy resources include renewable and non renewable generators, and increasingly battery energy storage systems. Which due to their potential for adapting cleaner technologies, micro grids are playing a pretty important role in contributing to our transition for that low carbon future.   Dan Seguin  03:21 So, here's today's big question. Are micro grids the answer to a faster path to net zero and Canada's clean energy future? Our guest today is Charles Berndt, the manager of grid technology here at Hydro Ottawa. Charles, welcome to the show and to part one of our discussion on all things micro grids. Charles, can you start by telling us a bit about yourself and your role at Hydro Ottawa as a manager of grid technology?   Charles Berndt  03:56 Yeah, loving husband, father of two young, wonderful boys, engineer, foodie, and complete energy geek. Yeah, my day job, Manager of Grid Technology; I look after technology that's used to help us control our grid. So, our system operations staff, any platform they use to to monitor and understand what's going on out in the grids, whether it's, you know, managing devices or looking at outages. That's what what my team does. And we also look at new and emerging technologies. I spend a lot of my time looking at new ventures and looking at, you know, how can we apply our systems and technology to different problems and how we can improve upon those platforms?   Rebecca Schwartz  04:41 In what instances or applications can micro grids be applied? Is there a minimum or maximum micro grid size?   Charles Berndt  04:49 I wouldn't say there's a minimum or maximum per se, I would say it has to be economically feasible, obviously, and it has to solve the problem you're out to solve. So, for the most part, I think you'll see larger institutions, larger campuses that start to look at this technology. At least that's what we're seeing now. But I wouldn't say that there's there's hard and fast rules as to how big it is, or how small it can be. But definitely, you know, the economics are gonna play into that.   Rebecca Schwartz  05:19 Okay, follow up for you, Charles, what is the return on investment for a microgrid? And what are some of the financial, operational, and environmental benefits?   Charles Berndt  05:28 I think it's, you know, the ROI question is obviously, the biggest one, and it's dependent on how you take a view upon the whole problem, and it really needs to depend on the larger view of things. So you're not looking purely at the cost of electricity. You need to look at those other aspects. Like reliability, you know, what does that reliability mean to your particular business or to your community, and if you have critical needs, or you have carbon objectives, or you want to get off of certain carbon sources, and then you can really make it work. But yeah, there, it's not on a pure electricity cost basis, so you're not going to compete with the grid. But the broader you look, the more holistic view you take it, the more it's gonna make sense.   Rebecca Schwartz  06:14 Okay, last follow up along this line of questioning, how long do microgrids last? And does it depend on how they're fueled?   Charles Berndt  06:22 You know, it depends on how much you're willing to spend, I guess, you know, your storage, your generation, your consumption, they all have to match up. And if they match up perfectly, if you're able to make storage, you know, have enough storage or have enough generation to make it work, then you could stay islanded indefinitely. But definitely, it's the economics of the situation and what your, what your objectives are, then you can make it as long lasting or as brief as you need it to be.   Dan Seguin  06:50 Now, Charles, what are the components of a successful micro grid project? What needs to come together?   Charles Berndt  06:58 It's those, it's those three things, it's the generation, the storage and the consumption need to be kind of imbalanced, in total, so you need to work together. And to do that you need technology. Technology is the basic, biggest aspect. Some people say the, the smart grid problem is a software problem. And they're, they're actually right. You just need to, to have the sources and think of that energy balance out and need to manage dynamically where you're, where you're taking the energy from, where you're putting it, and how you're managing those customers' expectations. So we you know, we kind of take it for granted today that we're connected to this unending source of electricity, this grid, right, but, you know, the closer you get to that, you need to have that more dynamic and technology that manages that.   Dan Seguin  07:50 Okay, now, in your opinion, who are the ideal customers to adopt this technology? Water treatment plants, hospitals, universities, large manufacturers?   Charles Berndt  08:02 I think, I think definitely the campus, the campus style approach is, is the ones who are looking at it now. We're starting to see, traditionally cogeneration projects are starting to expand. So those campuses that need to use, or hospitals or other major institutions that needs that already have significant needs for backup or other energy generation requirements. They're the ones that are starting to look at this. And I think those are the ideal, the ideal candidates to look at this technology.   Rebecca Schwartz  08:33 Can you give us some good examples of a micro grid project here in Ottawa, or elsewhere that really showcases the potential?   Charles Berndt  08:40 We're starting to see the educational campuses, they're really looking into that. I kind of mentioned earlier that those who have cogeneration, we're seeing both actually all three, or three of the three of the big ones, Carleton, U Ottawa, and Algonquin have some form of cogeneration and U Ottawa I know is looking at a micro grid for part of their campus. We're seeing a lot of district thermal starting to happen, a lot of a lot of investment in that front. So when you start looking at energy holistically, those are the ones who can really start to think about wow, if I take a broader look, use all the energy sources, all of the energy uses then those are the ones who could benefit from it. We also ran a project here at Hydro Ottawa, a technology project to look at how could we develop technology to make our customers more grid interactive, and it's those types of technologies that would help in the creation and management of a micro grid.   Dan Seguin  09:47 Charles, micro grids use renewable and non renewable energy sources. Correct? Can you expand on what that means?   Charles Berndt  09:57 Yeah, you can use traditional fossil fuel generation. Fossil fuel sources like natural gas, and again, coming back to that cogeneration that was the first step in the direction of micro grids that many, many institutions have taken. But also, you know, with storage, and solar and wind, these, these things are getting cheaper and more commoditized, especially on storage that the dollar per per kilowatt hour store is, is dropping significantly, and solar is dropping significantly. And so it's, you know, we're starting to see the economics start to make sense where you look at not just the traditional natural gas fired generation, but you're looking at both solar and natural gas.   Dan Seguin  10:45 Now, wondering if you can expand on what is a hybrid micro grid system?   Charles Berndt  10:53 It's all of the above scenario, right? I mean, you're looking at, you're looking at not only just generation in the traditional sense of burning natural gas, but you can you can get wind, you can get solar, and then you can be you can be grid connected, and you can think of the grid as a potential generation source or some some other source of energy that you can balance with. And, I know, that's almost contradictory, having a micro grid, grid tied, but you know, it could be seen as the best of both worlds where you're just out to solve the problem that you have in the most economical and technological way. That's feasible, you know, it's not a, it's never a purist game. It's about it's about solving what you need to solve for. And don't, you know, don't paint yourself into a corner. It doesn't make sense.   Rebecca Schwartz  11:42 Much like small modular nuclear reactors, are there applications whereby micro grids could be used in remote communities in Canada? And what are some of the environmental benefits for implementing micro grids in these areas?   Charles Berndt  11:56 You know, I  think traditionally, the remote communities, small communities have been, you know, heavily, heavily reliant on that, on carbon based fuels like, so diesel generation, bunker oil generation, like really the old, old school type of heavy carbon intense generation sources. And they're the ideal, the ideal candidates for this type of technology, not only, you know, in the, in the ideal sense of getting them completely off carbon and getting them on to solar and wind, or even new technology, like small modular reactor technology, but even optimizing how you're burning the carbon, you know, with storage of carbon plus storage, I know it's, you know, some might see it as an unnecessary middle step, but, you know, operating any generation source in its, in its ideal efficiency window, could could see savings and can see efficiency gains. And that, you know, that, in turn, will reduce carbon emissions significantly.   Dan Seguin  13:01 That's great, Charles. Now, wondering if you could help us better understand why utility partnerships are so important to micro grid projects?   Charles Berndt  13:12 I mean, I'm gonna speak selfishly a little bit. You know, the utilities are your ideal partner. We've got, we've got a broad selection of very strong, technical individuals, but also people who, who have been focused on this problem for many years. And, and I, you know, I think the first, the first blush that a customer might look at it and say, "well, how does it make sense, I'm trying to get disconnected from the utility and the micro grid sense", but in actuality, you know, the technology that could be used here, benefits the utility and the customer could benefit by being connected to the utility. So, a partnership can make it economical, can make it feasible, and, you know, we have, we have the ability to to help you access government funding for, you know, climate change, but also for technology development. So, I think the utility is an ideal candidate to partner with. We have that we have that strength and those abilities and we're always willing to help.   Rebecca Schwartz  14:15 Can microgrids improve local management of power supply and demand and by ricochet defer costly investments by utilities and new power generation?   Charles Berndt  14:24 Absolutely. I mean, without a doubt, it could drastically improve our ability to manage load and to target our investment in a more efficient way. So today, we're designing you know, it's our design is driven by the worst case scenario. What could the customer consume? What could, in a worst case, does all of our customers need? And so you see things that, you know, we saw it in the broader Ontario context with the natural gas peaking plants, you know, they spend most of their time just just sitting around but waiting for that, you know, that four or five or six days a year where they need, they're desperately needed and they get spooled up and they use carbon and they cost a lot of money to maintain and operate. But with the technology that underpins these micro grids, you can, you can use it to not only create the micro grid and manage the micro grid, but you can also use it to change the relationship that your customer has with the utility or the micro grid has with its, you know, its host utility or partner utility. And being able to dynamically manage the load and sources and help to curtail those worst case scenarios where, where it allows the utility to say, "okay, I don't have to worry about this one day in 365, I can worry about all the other 364 days, and I can optimize for economics or carbon across the year and not just always worry about that that worst case scenario".   Dan Seguin  15:52 Charles, what role could microgrids have in accelerating the path to Canada's net zero targets? Where do you see their biggest potential?   Charles Berndt  16:04 I see it, you know, as a technology person, obviously, I look first to the technology and the development of that technology. And it comes back to that worst case scenario where, if we start deploying the technology to manage consumption, or to help the customer have that two way relationship with the utility, and not just for generation, you know, the customer wants to generate solar electricity, but having that dynamic conversation where we're sending each other signals of what we need, then that could help. You can just target- what do you want to change? Do you want to change the economics? Well, then you can set your set your signaling, on economics, if you want to manage carbon, well then just say, hey, carbon intensive time, why don't you, if you're interested in reducing carbon, then we can reduce your consumption or move to your stored electricity and you can you can target any problem that you want to solve. And one of the big ones could be carbon.   Dan Seguin  17:02 Okay. Now, the Government of Canada recently announced $9.1 billion in new investments to cut pollution. Do you see opportunities in those initiatives for microgrids? If so, which?   Charles Berndt  17:16 I mean, absolutely, you know, those technologies that would be leveraged to run a micro grid, again, could be used to manage that carbon. And so you could, you could work with technology development, you could work with deployment of that technology, and they'll all be eligible for for this government funding to help, you know, you can just say, look, how you manage the carbon with this technology will definitely be a significant driver for an attractor, for any government agency wanting to invest in carbon reduction, and it has the benefits of increasing reliability and making everything much more efficient.   Rebecca Schwartz  17:56 Okay, Charles, thank you for joining us today. But, you'll be back here for part two of our discussion on micro grids where you'll also talk about distributed energy resources, among other related topics.   Charles Berndt  18:07 I can't wait.   Dan Seguin  18:08 Now, it's that time again, Charles, let's end on a few rapid fire questions. Are you ready to go sir?   Charles Berndt  18:18 Shoot!   Dan Seguin  18:18 Okay. What are you reading right now?   Charles Berndt  18:21 This is embarrassing, but I'm reading The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas. I just finished the Count of Monte Cristo in the fall. And I was like, blown away. It was so good. So I had to go to the next one. So it's, it's the Three Musketeers. Yeah.   Dan Seguin  18:39 Now, what would you name your boat? If you had one?   Charles Berndt  18:44 I don't have one. But obviously, you're talking to an engineering and a geek. So, obviously, enterprise is the only answer to this question.   Dan Seguin  18:53 Charles, who is someone that you admire?   Charles Berndt  18:57 I'm gonna say my wife on this one. Yeah, she's, she's brilliant. She's stronger than me. She's, wonderful and patient and intelligent. And, ya, no, I, I admire her so much.   Dan Seguin  19:09 And lastly, mon amis, what is exciting you about our industry right now.   Charles Berndt  19:16 Change. Change. It's getting faster. People are more interested in it's the carbon emission conversation, the environmental efficiency, everything. Electrification of transportation; it's all converging on the utility industry. And the utility industry is poised for not only regulatory change, but technology change, and we're starting to see that with the people who are coming to work for us who we're attracting. We're seeing that in the in the level of dialogue that's happening out in the world, people are talking about us more, and that brings pressure, but I think it's exciting. And I'm really, really excited about the future.   Rebecca Schwartz  19:59 Well, Charles, we'll talk to you again on our next episode. If our listeners want to learn more about you, how can I connect?   Charles Berndt  20:05 The emails always there. I'm on LinkedIn. Yeah, yeah. Look me up.   Dan Seguin  20:10 Again, Charles, thank you so much for joining us today. I hope you had a lot of fun and that you'll come back.   Charles Berndt  20:15 Yeah, thank you very much for having me.   Dan Seguin  20:17 Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the thinkenergy podcast. And don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review wherever you're listening. And to find out more about today's guests, or previous episodes, visit thinkenergypodcast.com. I hope you'll join us again next time as we spark even more conversations about the energy of tomorrow.

According to a survey conducted by Electricity Human Resources Canada, 48% of employees believe they increased productivity when working remotely. With that in mind, it’s no surprise to see many industries adopting a hybrid model where employees have flexibility around where they work—and why prospective employees are looking beyond salary when determining what’s important to them in a job. Michelle Branigan, CEO of Electricity Human Resources Canada, joins us to discuss how remote working will affect the energy sector’s workplace and workforce future.    Related links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-branigan-6055bb21/ https://electricityhr.ca/ https://electricityhr.ca/workplace-solutions/diversity-inclusion/illuminate-opportunity/illuminate-opportunity-endnotes/ --- To subscribe using Apple Podcasts:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thinkenergy/id1465129405   To subscribe using Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7wFz7rdR8Gq3f2WOafjxpl   To subscribe on Libsyn: http://thinkenergy.libsyn.com/ --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: https://www.youtube.com/user/hydroottawalimited   Check out our cool pics on https://www.instagram.com/hydroottawa   More to Learn on https://www.facebook.com/HydroOttawa   Keep up with the Tweets at https://twitter.com/thinkenergypod Transcript: Dan Seguin  00:06 This is thinkenergy, the podcast that helps you better understand the fast changing world of energy through conversations with game changers, industry leaders, and influencers. So join me, Dan Seguin, and my co-host, Rebecca Schwartz, as we explore both traditional and unconventional facets of the energy industry. Hey, everyone, welcome back, has COVID-19 forever changed the way we think, perform and show up for work? There's been a huge workplace culture shift with more employees working remotely. Commuting has been possible for many years. But I think it's fair to say that there was reluctance on the part of many employers to implement digital solutions, such as video conferencing, digital sharing tools, and expansion of cloud based computing to facilitate the shift away from the office. Rebecca, did you know that, according to McKinsey and Company, COVID-19 accelerated three trends that may well last after the pandemic is over?   Rebecca Schwartz  01:21 Yeah. So the first and probably the most talked about trend is the hybrid remote work. Now, there's about 20 to 25% of computer based workers who could foreseeably work from home something like two to three days a week. That's almost five times the number of workers who were doing remote work before the pandemic. Second, not only have we become accustomed to the comforts of work from home, but we've also become accustomed to the convenience of home delivery. And I say this only based on all those Amazon packages that arrive at my door. Myself and others like me have probably contributed significantly to the growth of E-commerce and the delivery economy during the pandemic. It's just become so easy. And finally, companies are enlisting automation and AI to cope with COVID-19, and any other future disruptions. This could mean putting robots in manufacturing plants and warehouses and adding self service customer kiosks and service robots in stores.   Dan Seguin  02:23 And we haven't even touched on the great resignation of 2021. According to NPR, 33 million Americans quit their jobs since the spring of 2021. Is it about better pay, treatment, flexibility or perks? Or is it about something more like reevaluating what success, happiness and work life balance means?   Rebecca Schwartz  02:53 One thing is for sure, Dan, the pandemic has ushered in a new era that's changing the workplace and the workforce for the future, and the electricity sector is not immune.   Dan Seguin  03:03 So, here's today's big question. Can the energy sector reimagine where and how work is done to increase rescaling efforts? And is the sector looking beyond the pandemic to reimagine how and where work is done?   Rebecca Schwartz  03:23 To answer these questions, we have Michelle Branigan, the CEO of Electricity Human Resources Canada joining us on the program, also known as EHRC. It is the leading source of HR information for Canada's electricity industry. Michelle, thank you for joining us again on the show.   Dan Seguin  03:41 Michelle, since the pandemic and this new hybrid world of work, what changes in the approach have you observed from energy HR leaders?   Michelle Branigan  03:53 Hi, Dan. Well, um, I would say that the work life balance discussion has been reignited, and research is showing us that many employees, current and or future will have expectations that they can work at home at least part of the week. So that has implications of course, not just on the business side; you know, think about real estate and office footprint, but on corporate culture, so employee engagement, productivity performance management. The HRC has actually conducted a number of pulse surveys over the last two years with both employers and employees. And we hold regional roundtables across the country on an ongoing basis. And I think the single biggest learning is the recognition that a hybrid work model can work without jeopardizing productivity, because that, of course, was a concern at the start of the pandemic. And that's a fair one, right? Safety is always going to be paramount for electricity; employers spread into the culture of the industry, but at the same time, the work actually has to get done. And so it's a balancing act for today's leaders. You need to make sure that you're achieving your organization's business objectives, while still taking care of employees physical and mental health. When we actually spoke to surveyed employees last year we heard that are over a little over 45% believe that they had the same level of productivity when working remotely; 48% actually said they had an increased level of productivity. And only 6% said they were less productive. But, employers who are concerned about productivity, need to make sure that their staff have the equipment, the processes, the supports, in place to do their job well, and then managers are going to need to take a more non traditional approach to understanding productivity and how you actually measure it. So that was probably the number one thing. And then I think secondly, the pandemic has really accelerated all discussion about the future of work right? Worldwide, and in our industry, of course. This is something that really is top of mind .Employees have been very vocal in expressing that they do not want to return to the same way of working as pre pandemic. It's actually the preference of many in the workforce to continue to work remotely. And that's going to pose challenges and opportunities for HR leaders over the coming years. And then just finally, very quickly, what I would say is that this is probably a little bit less about approach and more about recognition that human resources has become an essential voice, alongside, you know, operations, finance, and you know, the other core units and responding to the challenges of the pandemic and how we work as an organization going forward as a sector. All business units have had to adapt over the last couple of years. But the pandemic has shown that human resources, or HR really is a key function in every business. For years, HR professionals have reiterated the importance of managing and recognizing HR as a strategic business partner, not always with success. And I think that has drastically changed.   Dan Seguin  07:10 So true, Michelle. Now, has the pandemic, and remote working taught us anything about our workforce?   Michelle Branigan  07:20 Yes, just to pick up on that second point, people want more work life balance, it's incredibly important to them, right. Many have mentioned increased productivity as a positive result of working remotely, but even more spoke to having more time back in their life to do the things that they enjoy. They don't want to spend time in traffic that could be spent, you know, walking the dog or going to the gym, picking the kids up earlier from school is a huge thing. So even more than salary, time continues to be the most valued commodity if you want to think of it like that. But at the same time, not everyone wants to work from home all the time. So you know, there's a different side to that whole conversation. And there are other challenges. A number of people that we spoke to reported feelings of isolation, difficulty with communications with their colleagues; with their peers, and, or, an increased or extended workload. And I think a lot of us would recognize that, you know, it's very easy for a lot of people to continue working outside normal work hours, especially during those lockdowns that we had right? There wasn't much else to do. When your laptop was at the dining room table, there's a tendency to continue checking and responding to those emails. So those lines got blurred. And that's not necessarily a good thing. Now, that might change more as we come out of the pandemic, and people have, you know, get back to their lives and have different things to do. But a lot of people don't have the luxury of a separate office or a quiet space to work in. So, again, that isolation piece, people mentioned that to us and the mental health toll that comes with that. So, you know, as we move into this new world, this, I don't think there's going to be a one size fits all approach. I think collaboration, communication, productivity, they're all elements that are going to have to be considered by individual employees, as well as culture and employee morale. So, whatever work model you choose, as an employer, engaging all levels of employees and talking to them about why you're choosing one model over another- I think that's incredibly important because it will really help to increase buy in around that, you know, the opportunity to, you know, that could be things like the opportunity to collaborate knowledge sharing, mentorship, that type of thing, but just really make sure to communicate with your audience. And so they know why you're making that decision.   Rebecca Schwartz  10:03 Okay, so, you kind of touched on this, how my one sized approach does not work. So what are some of the challenges and opportunities that flexible working presents to the electricity sector?   Michelle Branigan  10:14 Well, many of our employers have committed to implementing a hybrid model for their office workforce in some shape, way or form, this is a huge change, because it's now becoming almost a de facto scenario, where many, many, not all, but many organizations are looking to do this on a go forward basis. And that was pretty unheard of pre pandemic. One of the more common scenarios I've heard today, this or that three days in the office, two days a whole model or two, three, but not everybody's going to find that that works for their business, there may be a challenge down the line from a recruitment and retention standpoint, as some individuals do not want to come back to the office at all. Again, there's no one size fits all, some companies want to go completely virtual. I've talked to a few, not very many who want everybody back in the office full time, I really think the sweet spot is in the model. It is the hybrid piece. Again, you know, we asked employees about the challenges when working remotely. Almost half of them 45% said there was no challenges at all to working remotely. But a quarter of our respondents said that their top challenge was the loss of collaboration with the colleagues, right? And then there was other challenges. Again, not having a defined workspace, not everybody has the office, IT challenges, internet, Wi Fi, those sorts of things, interruptions, and loneliness. I thought that was very, you know, that's very telling, when people are talking to you about some of those things that are on the list. Why do people like working remotely, why is a hybrid work model and that opportunity to be autonomous, important? 83% talks about commute, people do not like to spending time commuting. Better work life, balance, time flexibility, more time out of work. Some people actually even prefer working on their own right. So there's all these different things in the mix. And at the time, when this big experiment was actually going on, you have to remember that kids were doing school from home, people were trying to- everybody was in a house, either in a house with too many people or maybe isolated on their own. When people are actually working remotely without the pandemic, it's going to be a little bit different people may even prefer it a little bit more. And then one of the other things that I think is important in the electricity sector, and this gets lost sometimes is that a large percentage of our workforce doesn't work in an office. Right? They work in the field. So our PLT's, our arborists, excetera. So how do you work with that? Hybrid models can be possible for field staff, but it really depends on their specific work. And, you know, how you can accommodate that. During the pandemic, we did see some innovation; companies did make some changes. So for example, people who had their own individual work vehicles were allowed to take them home. So they didn't have to go to the office every day to pick up the work truck. They only had to come into the office now and again to pick up supplies instead of every day. New technologies allowed people to adjust field work. So they were doing safety rundowns over Zoom, for example, every morning. And they were doing remote installations directed by contractors or other team members over video who were connected to onsite staff. So that innovation there may continue once we emerge from the pandemic, depending on the circumstances. But there is a reality that it's not going to work the same way. And I think there could be perceived inequities between office and field staff, right? Regarding that continued flexibility. And I think that is a key concern for HR managers. You know, we could see resentment from those who cannot avail of those remote work benefits. So you think for an example, an office employee who's able to work from home, if they have cold or cough or they're sick, or maybe their child is sick, or there's child responsibilities, versus a field staff person who does not have that option, and is going through their sick days or their vacation days, etc. So I think there is a challenge there, and we're going to need to spend some time on that.   Dan Seguin  14:49 This is really interesting, Michelle. Let's continue the conversation on challenges. What are the potential challenges attached to leading remote teams? What skill sets do managers have dispersed workforce need to inspire innovation and drive engagement across remote teams?   Michelle Branigan  15:09 I actually think this is going to be a key area of learning for managers, and supervisors of remote teams, you know, when employees are dispersed, and sometimes it's not in the city, even in the same city, it might be even in a different province, now. That manager has less insight into what the employee is actually doing. This links back a little bit to the productivity piece, I have read about some bias existing with managers believing that those working in the office do more than those who work at home. So I think we need to guard against that, right? Especially when we have seen that productivity hasn't dropped in the Canadian electricity industry, from the employers that we've spoken with. But, there was a US survey just in the fall of 2020, Gartner survey, and they looked at and spoke to about 3000 managers and 64% of managers and executives believe that employees who are in office are higher performers than remote employees. And 76 believe that in office workers are more likely to be promoted. That's something that I want to pulse more with our industry and something to watch. I think there's a potential issue there. Obviously. Some employers are turning to software to monitor remote working employees so that the manager can verify if people are working productively from home or working at all. Now, I think that practice is pretty controversial as an employer response to remote working; it's not one that I would endorse. I think if you have to monitor your team, to that degree, you have an issue of culture and morale. And then what type of message does it send to your employees? Right? You're not trusting them from the outset, that's going to impact your ability to hire, certainly to retain. And that's not a good idea, in a tight labor market. So I think managers need to presume intent, right, presume that the majority of your teams want to go to work to do a good job to be productive, and then give them the tools to make sure that they understand and meet their deliverables. So that means that while they're doing that, there also needs to be very clear communications about an individual's role and expectations about what that role actually is, right? So that's what's really important that we don't lose that make it very clear as to what is critical. And what is important. At the end of the day, no matter what channel you're using, team communications is really important, it's too important to be an afterthought. And ensuring that you have the right tools in place for collaboration is going to make sure that your team meets the objectives, they're being productive, they're hitting their deliverables, and supporting the organization. And, from a skills perspective, very similar to what they needed to do before, you know, empathy, very strong communication skills, listening skills, I think there will be more training required on a few things. Because managers are not just going to be expected to make sure that the task gets done, but they're the main point of contact within the organization, right? Trying to make sure that the employee feels valued, feels listened to, is engaged, feels part of the company. You know, managers may need to be trained to learn to acknowledge and respond to what they hear, be that responding to topics such as work overload, illness, childcare. I do think they have a lot on their shoulders. And I would say that it's going to be really important that managers, supervisors, you know, anyone with that leadership commitment, they're all under more pressure now than ever to support their staff. And so we need to make sure that we're also looking after the managers, right? I think that is incredibly, incredibly important.   Rebecca Schwartz  19:15 Thanks, Michelle. So with the post COVID landscape coming into reality, what does it mean for office workers or field workers? Specifically with respect to maintaining that focus on employee happiness, health, and safety?   Michelle Branigan  19:29 Well, mental health was a growing concern among employers, even before the pandemic, right? So I would say, when you look at wellness, that really has become a core business priority as a result of this pandemic. You know, we've seen a major shift from an employer's responsibility for their employees physical and mental health while on the job, to looking out for their well being both on and off the clock. And I think that leaders who are mindful of employee well being really can go a long way in helping individuals balance, you know, the mental health needs by being productive at the same time, and able to contribute their best towards organizational goals. At the end of the day, most individuals want to be their best at work, right? And employers can support that through a range of different initiatives. Whether that is defining flexible work hours and flexible work, maybe focusing on effort and results rather than time spent. You know, you want to make sure managers are not micromanaging. Are you judging people's contributions to work by the fact that they are in their chair from nine to five? Or are you looking at deliverables? And I think encouraging teams to establish and respect boundaries. Because quite often, you know, a few small changes can make a really large impact in supporting employees, especially when it comes to mental health. You know, opening that discussion, and having those sort of open supportive environments where people feel comfortable communicating their needs, that's a great place to start. And really looking at your employee engagement strategy. And asking your employees, what they value most as an employee is absolutely critical. Don't presume that you know what they want or value from you as an employer, or in the workplace.   Dan Seguin  21:38 Now, Michelle, let's move from wellness to culture. How can utilities be intentional about creating a strong, positive, and inclusive company culture? What are some best practices?   Michelle Branigan  21:54 Well, I think you hit the nail on the head, Dan, in using the word intentional. There's really increasingly more pressure for organizations to be more diverse and more inclusive. And, of course, that is driven by societal forces, clear messaging from this next generation, that is values driven. They care deeply about diversity, equity, and inclusion, and they are paying attention to it. They are looking at your annual reports, they are looking at your board of directors, they're looking at how your organization is represented in the media. And I speak to a lot of young people, and it still amazes me how many of them are really taking this into account, when they're actually out looking for a job. So, cultural inclusion for me, anyone knows, that knows me well, knows that I say this all the time, it starts from the top down, right? It takes commitment, it takes intention, and it has to be genuine at the end of the day. I think some of the best practices include, again, engagement and communication, you'll hear these things, we echo these words, these themes a lot. Asking employees for feedback on how to improve your company's diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Quite often, there can be a disconnect between management or leadership, and everyone else in the organization, whereas, you know, whereby the presumption is that everything is fine, there's no bias in the organization, no one feels alienated or excluded because of their, you know, their race or their gender, whatever it may be. And that's a dangerous assumption that can be easily made, just because the problems are not visible. And not just by leaders, but by anybody working in the company, right? Who may not realize that, you know, their colleague is facing any sort of difficulty or challenge based on, you know, cultural background or identity or gender. So, communication is really key. For me, another big one, setting goals and measuring results, best practice. Absolutely. If we are going to affect that cultural change and we're going to implement good practices, we need to measure and report on the progress that we've achieved and the benefits to the company and to the individual. And I would say, sometimes, you know, it can be easy for organizations to capture these good news stories or the things that they've done and report it up, report to the board, report to the C suite. Feed the information to your employees, so that they can see that there's actual genuine commitment to change there, to creating that inclusive environment, and that their feedback or input is actually being heard. And don't be afraid of the mistakes that are learned along the way because, again, this goes to the genuine commitment piece. If a company is truly responsive to the needs of the people that are working there and are making these attempts in good faith, you will get there eventually, right? So really, really important to look at that. I am going to put in a shameless plug, Dan, for the EHRC's Leadership Accord on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. So that, of course, is a framework to help companies do this; it's an actual framework that will help leaders commit to real progress and change; identify where the gaps are in their own organizations, and then put in an action plan to actually address it over a couple of years. So, it's a really good tool. And please check that out if you want to get started. And then for others who want best practices, and maybe don't know where to get started, another place is our illuminate now toolkit that's on our website. And that has tips and tools and videos to support managers to develop or enhance their best practice DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion), how to strategies, right? Because there's all sorts of things that an organization can do, from diversity on hiring panels, changing the language of maternity or paternity leave, to parental leave instead, in your policies. There are so many things to do to be inclusive, to make people feel like they belong to an inclusive workplace. More than we could cover, we could cover today, but there's lots of resources there on our website to help people on that journey.   Dan Seguin  26:25 Okay, you've touched on communications earlier, let's look at it through a digital workplace lens. What are organizations discovering about effective communication and collaboration?   Michelle Branigan  26:37 It's possible, you know, IT infrastructure really is the backbone of all modern workplace communications, right? When it goes wrong, we all notice very quickly now. And with the pandemic, we actually talked to organizations about this last year, about 30% of our employers told us they had to fast forward plans for better networking and connectivity. Over half had to increase their IT functionalities by setting up VPN or buying phones and that type of thing. Most organizations were very quickly able to ensure that video conferencing applications, like Zoom, were embedded as part of that day to day work environment. We've all seen instant messaging platforms like Slack, they've grown immensely in popularity, you know, it cuts down on emails when people are working remotely. And it also provides a forum for employees to engage. It's become sort of the equivalent of the watercooler right people telling jokes or sharing. So, it becomes an engagement tool, as well as a communication tool. But regardless of all the tools that are out there, you know, there's lots of things that you can use to bring your teams together and allow them to work efficiently. But I think the key to success is actually just utilizing those, they're a means to an end, right? To encourage active communication and maintain your company culture. And that really is no easy task in a digital environment. You know, you want to make sure that folks don't feel disconnected. I personally think it will be important to try and bring people together to meet in person, at some stage, be that twice a year at a company retreat, maybe it's once a week, or once a month, at an all hands on deck day. I've heard of people doing different things; it's going to depend, of course, on the size of your company, and how geographically spread you are. But one thing, you know, that does come to mind is when people work remotely, they're less likely to have social ties at the offices with colleagues who, over time, become friends, right? And that in itself erodes the connection that they have with the company. And it makes it easier for them to quit, as well. So you know, that can impact company culture, of course, and your retention, your retention strategies. And I think of how difficult it is for that next generation of new talent, young people who are just starting on their career, maybe in the first or second job, and they're not getting all of the benefits that exist by working in the office and having the opportunity to have a mentor, to have somebody that they can connect with and to listen to some of the conversations that take place in a professional setting and to the degree that they do in the office. So, I think IT is great, but it's how we actually use it that is going to make a difference.   Dan Seguin  29:39 Thanks, Michelle. But, now, this leads me to the follow up question. How can the energy sector ensure all employees across the organization, both office workers and frontline workers, have access to digital workplace technologies and feel engaged?   Michelle Branigan  29:59 Yes. Regardless of what you do right with your office first or hybrid remote first. Getting that technology to your teams to make sure that whatever way they're doing it as a group spread out, is really important. So make sure that they have access to those tools. I think you also need to be very transparent about expectations and performance. I know I mentioned that a little bit earlier. But, I think from an engagement perspective, there's a there's a few things that can be done. You know, we've all heard the expression death by PowerPoint. I think we're all turning into- I read this yesterday, and I thought it was great. Instead of zombies, we're all turning into "Zoombies", where we're all, you know, we're all worn out by the end of the day, because we all have so many of these Zoom meetings or video conference meetings that are absolutely exhausting. So, I think there is, you know, we need to look at how many Zoom meetings that we're having, are they really necessary, sometimes the telephone is an OK way to communicate. That old fashioned way of picking up the phone and talking to each other. Do you want to have cameras on? So, for some organizations, it's very important. Maybe for small meetings, you want to make sure that cameras have to be on and that's a requirement. But, maybe if it's a bigger meeting, and you have 100 or 200 people, you don't need everybody to have their camera on. And that's okay. So, the idea is you're trying to use these tools to make and make sure that everybody is engaged, and that they're not multitasking, that they're actually paying attention to what's going on on the screen. So, taking that into account and thinking about it carefully is really important. You know, when you do have meetings, and it's a meet, you know, you have people both in the room and virtually engaged, making sure that you're calling upon those who are not physically present in the room to speak. I think that's really important; not forgetting that there's people on the screen and just gravitating towards those who are who are actually around the conference room table, for example. Have a look and see, you know, are the people in the room, do they absolutely need to be in the meeting? Looking at how many video conference meetings are necessary. You know, we're all tired of the glitchy WiFi, telling people that they're muted, all those sorts of things, right? And they can be just exhausting. And they cannot replicate real life interaction. So, just looking at your policy of how you use the tools is very important. You know, I had a mixed meeting the other day where I had people from a couple of different provinces, on my own team, and the rest of us in the boardroom, where we had to share visuals. Nothing worked; the audio was terrible and so we went away with some lessons learned from the tools that we had and how we look to set that up so that it is a more engaging meeting for everybody concerned and productive at the end of the day.   Rebecca Schwartz  32:59 I'm wondering if you have words of wisdom or lessons learned from the past two years, dealing with the pandemic, and about communicating to, I guess, such a dispersed workforce?   Michelle Branigan  33:11 I would say, and you'll both like this, in the field that you're in, you cannot over communicate. Communication, communication, communication. I think no matter what kind of work situation we're in these days, whether it's working from home, the field, the office, a mix of all three of those, one thing hasn't changed. And that's that teamwork and collaboration are as important as ever. And that teams that communicate well are going to see better business results. They're going to be more innovative, they're going to be more productive. And, really, at the end of the day, when you have teamwork that's done right, it makes everyone feel that their contributions are valued. So, providing ways and means from people to be able to communicate with each other. And as a leader, communication is extremely critical to ensure that people feel engaged. And, again, it goes back, it goes back to culture.   Dan Seguin  34:19 Very interested in your thoughts on this next question, Michelle. There's a new phenomenon taking place. It's "The Great Resignation". Has the electricity and energy sector been affected? And have we surveyed the reasons why?   Michelle Branigan  34:35 So anecdotally, we are hearing that yes, it has affected, the industry. It seems like every other week I'm hearing about retirements all throughout the industry, Dan. I actually need to do and want to do, it's on my wish list, is to do some more labor market intelligence to see how that's actually reflected in the data because it's one thing to hear about it anecdotally. I like to see the data right. So what are companies reporting on? What are their attrition rates? Where are their pain points? And what are they seeing? And is it reflected in, you know, one set of occupations more than the other, for example, are more trades people leaving because they're in the field and they've had to, you know, experience and deal with COVID implications from a safety perspective, much more than somebody that is in that office environment. Again, it goes right back to what we spoke about at the beginning and some of those differences. So, I do want to do more data on that. I would say anecdotally, yes, we're dealing with issues. I don't know we're dealing with it to the same level that we're seeing in the USA? I don't know that Canada is seeing it there. We know that there's a tight labor market out there right now. The last Statistics Canada data, just in December, reported that the National Unemployment Rate had dropped to 6%. So that was approaching pre-pandemic levels. But, at the same time, I'm talking to everybody who is struggling to find employees right now, right? In all different types of occupation. But we have actually been talking about this for years in Canada, right? Many electricity employers are seeing that with that increased turnover on that demographic time bomb that I've been talking about, you know, all the baby boomers deciding to retire even earlier than planned. Anecdotally, due to the pandemic, a lot of times. And at the same time, younger employers have different expectations as to what they want from a career in a post COVID world and the type of company that they want to work for. And so losing talent in such a competitive labor market, it's really costly. It's quite time consuming. When you factor in the cost of recruitment, interviewing, onboarding. And then there's a problem there that those who are planning to leave may check out long before they actually give in their notice, right? So you do get a loss of productivity there that can impact others in the organization and contribute to reduced morale. So I think this is something that we will definitely be looking at over the coming months and years. What does the data tell us? Why are people leaving? And if they are going, is it because of some of the things I've mentioned earlier, such as the ability to work remotely, autonomy, flexibility? Or is it because they've decided that they want a completely different career path outside of the electricity industry? And this, there's one thing that I want to talk to employers about, is their plans on workplace models and hiring. Because if you remove the requirement to live near where you work, you do open up access to a wider pool of qualified workers right across the country, right? And that's going to be attractive to some companies in a tight labor market.   Rebecca Schwartz  37:59 So, given this "Great resignation", Michelle, how can the energy sector address the work life balance? And what about promoting a healthy work culture?   Michelle Branigan  38:08 Um, it's funny, we asked employees what their managers or employers could be doing to help during the pandemic. And I think a lot of this will transition over into this new way of working, the future of work, which is not really long in the future. It's here. Flexible work hours. These are the top five things that they mentioned to us: flexible work hours, better communication, making sure that people have the equipment, or the tools for work from home needs, mental health supports, and then socialization opportunities, right? All of those opportunities to engage with their colleagues. So, I think leaders and managers can start with a few strategies to do that. First of all, just remind your teams of the many mental health resources that are available to them. If you have an employee system program, talk about it. It's amazing how many employees forget that you have one of those because it's mentioned when you are onboard, and that's about it. Again, with many employees working from home, that average workday can easily bleed into additional hours at the dining room table. So, setting boundaries for your team to ensure that they are, you know, they don't continue to work well past their usual hours just because they can. Ontario, here in Ontario, the government has just enacted the right to disconnect policy. So, setting boundaries and ensuring that your team knows they don't have to respond to emails day and night. And recognizing that people may have different work schedules, depending on what it is that they do or their home circumstances. I think it's important to communicate that. When you're looking at, you know, retaining people- simple things, this is so simple, but recognizing your staff. Saying thank you can go an awful long way, even if it's for a regular task well done, right? Employee recognition, you know, can be a note of appreciation, or just even highlighting people in your internal newsletters. Leaders really need to set an example that will build a culture of recognition throughout the organization and making sure that employees, at the end of the day, feel appreciated for the work that they do. I think those are the sorts of things that promote a healthy work culture.   Dan Seguin  40:37 Now, Michelle, what can employers and leaders do to retain and attract employees in this challenging environment?   Michelle Branigan  40:48 So, um, I would say, there's a few things here, um, again, communicate. So, to keep good employers, you want to meet their needs and their expectations, and you want to understand what keeps them inspired, right? Senior managers have to understand the dynamics of their current employee base, the drivers of turnover. And remember that the things that initially draw people to a company, which may be pay and benefits, they're not necessarily the same things that keep them there. So, think work life balance, career development, performance management, company culture, that all becomes part of the equation, when an employee starts thinking "should I stay, or should I go"? So, looking at those sorts of things from a retention perspective is really important. And at the same time, you know, there does need to be recognition that the work needs to get done. Business is business, and, so, organizations, especially when it comes to remote working, will need coverage, not everybody may be able to come from home. In some instances, employees will leave no matter what you do. And in that case, it's better to have them gone than stay and be disengaged. I think it's really important, though- and it surprises me- sometimes many people, when companies don't do this, conduct an exit interview. To gauge why they left. And then use that data to reflect on any issues that may need to be addressed. So, I think that's something important that companies need to remember. When you're looking to retain employees or attract employees, not everything is about salary, but if you're at least in the ballpark, with the industry average, or if you're not in the ballpark, that could be a reason for losing somebody to the competition. So make sure that you're competitive, highlight the non monetary benefits to address competition from other industries. So do you provide opportunities for career development, or flexible hours, or the opportunity to be mentored? For example, does your benefit plan actually benefit your employees or only a portion of those? You know, it might be time to take a look at how flexible and useful at those plans are. And then who has access to flexible work? We've seen organizations where some managers allow their employees flexibility, while others don't. So I think the principle of fairness is going to apply here. Companies need to be consistent in whatever approach that they take. Another item, this is going to be incredibly controversial over the next year, Dan, and we're watching it closely, but it's the idea of reducing pay for those who work remotely. What happens when employees move to locations with a lower cost of living? Should employers lower their compensation, even though the impact of the employee's work hasn't changed? I think that is something that I'm reading about more and more, it's coming up more and more in conversations. And I think this is going to be very impactful from a recruitment and retention perspective. You know, think about an individual who has been working remotely and you know, they're now asked to come back into the office one day a week, they have a long commute, if there's only one day a week in the office or one day a month, they're more likely to be willing to put up with that. But if suddenly that changes to three day weeks, three days a week, well, then the question is, is the job and the commute worth it? Or is it more important to me, my home base, where I live, is that more important? So these are all the scenarios that, and the conversations that we're going to be having, with employees over the coming year. And I think one of the more innovative things that people need to do, as well, is really try and look at progressive HR practices to stay on top of what's actually motivating employees. So, you know, not just talking about exit interviews, but doing stay interviews. Asking people what will make them stay? What do they enjoy about working at your organization? And then developing retention plans based on workforce demographics, you know, because your your 22 year old may have a very different perspective to your 45 year old or your 55 year old. And so these are some of the things that I think are really important to think about, as we have multi-generations working in workplaces right now that have different values, not all different values, but some different values as they move through their careers.   Rebecca Schwartz  45:36 With all these changes in the workplace, such as values and expectations, can we future proof learning and development? And how can the sector better prepare the employees for this new future of work?   Michelle Branigan  45:48 I would say that it is critical to acknowledge that we're now in a state of continuous learning, it's not enough just to get your Engineering degree or to get your Journeyperson Ticket and think "that's it. I'm set for the rest of my career". Most people will have a number of different roles in their careers now. And so, as the technology advances and the industry evolves, the skills and competencies required to remain relevant in your job are going to increase. I see that right throughout all occupations. So, I think there's personal responsibility there on the part of the employee to understand the impacts and to evaluate their skill sets and see what they need to do. From the employer's perspective, oh my gosh, it makes absolute sense to support the professional development of your employees for so many reasons, right? Offering training and development opportunities. It's a great strategy to keep engagement high. But make sure it's relevant to employee goals, ask employees what they think would benefit them in their, in their, in their aspirations. Challenge workers by giving them more interesting work and stretch assignments. And really, you know, continuous learning and managing talent should be one of the key tactics that are discussed by your HR teams, to give opportunities to your employees, just to continuously develop. Whether that's through in house training, or support for them to do something, you know, external education, but show your employees that you're interested in developing a career path along with them. I think that's really, really critical.   Dan Seguin  47:25 Okay, Michelle, we always end our interviews with some rapid fire questions. Are you ready?   Michelle Branigan  47:33 I am.   Dan Seguin  47:34 Okay, let's go. What are you reading right now?   Michelle Branigan  47:38 Well, I'm hooked right now by a series of books called the enemy. It's a post-apocalyptic young adult horror series. It's written by Charlie Hickson. The books take place in London after a worldwide sickness has infected everyone 16 and older and has turned them into creatures similar to zombies. Basically, all the adults are eating the kids. It's extremely gory. And it makes the pandemic look like a walk in the park. And it's really noted for the fact that it kills off any possible character. So it really leaves you on edge all the time. So, that's what I am hooked into right now. And I run into my 13 year old's bedroom every now and again, very, very upset that they've killed off yet another one of my favorite characters.   Dan Seguin  48:32 Now, Michelle, what would you name your boat? If you had one?   Michelle Branigan  48:37 Oh, my gosh, "Let Me Off". I'm not one for boats, Dan, I'm too claustrophobic and I feel like I should be doing other things. So, I'm great for an hour. But then after that, yeah, get me out of here and onto dry land.   Dan Seguin  48:49 Now, who is someone that you admire?   Michelle Branigan  48:53 Oh, I don't know how anyone right now could say anything but Ukrainian people at this moment in time, right? The bravery and strength and staying there to fight for their country. The fear and the strength that those who must flee, that have children and babies in their arms; it's just heartbreaking to watch. And just the strength that we're seeing coming from everybody in that, from that country right now. I think that's top of mind. For all of us.   Dan Seguin  49:23 So true. Moving on to the next one. What is the closest thing to real magic that you've witnessed?   Michelle Branigan  49:31 Oh my gosh, Dan and Rebecca, I really struggled with this one. I think I'm a bit of a cynic when it comes to magic. I cannot think of anything for this except maybe that I suspend all cynicism when I go to Disneyland. And just get right into it. I love it. I would go again and again and again. So that's, I think, the closest to magic that for me,   Dan Seguin  49:54 What has been the biggest challenge to you personally, since the pandemic?   Michelle Branigan  50:01 For me, not being able to travel home to my family in Ireland. And then more generally, travel. I love to travel. Reading and travel; film. Those are my things. I get itchy feet really quickly. And so, like many people, I just think it's that sense of frustration when you can't just get up and go. Italy is my favourite country in the world. I can't wait to get back there. But, other than that, over the last couple of years, you know, I have to say that I have counted myself very lucky. We have a comfortable house, we've got a nice garden, food on the table. And I really do think that there's a big difference between want and need. And I think as a society, we have to, I think, start maybe being a little bit more grateful for what we have.   Dan Seguin  50:43 Okay. We've all been watching a lot of Netflix and TV lately. What's your favorite movie or show?   Michelle Branigan  50:52 For me, "Ozarks". Great acting, great writing. Absolutely superb. Loving it. And I'm looking forward to diving into the last six or seven episodes of "The Walking Dead". You might have got that reference from my reading material.   Rebecca Schwartz  51:10 Lastly, Michelle, what is exciting you about your industry right now?   Michelle Branigan  51:15 Oh my gosh, I would say the change. Change. Everything that's going on. It fascinates me. It drives me. it's exciting. You know, we're all talking about net-zero. We're talking about electrification, low carbon, climate change, you know, what kind of world are we going to live leave for our kids and our grandkids? And everything that's going on right now, it's probably very easy to become pessimistic, when we see some of the things and some of the challenges. And you know, you look at all the fires and the floods and everything like that. But, I think our industry is really motivated to address some of these challenges. And so, the change is what excites me and how we get there.   Rebecca Schwartz  51:58 Well, Michelle, that's it. We've reached the end of another episode of The ThinkEnergy podcast. If our listeners want to learn more about you and your organization, how can they connect?   Michelle Branigan  52:08 Go to our website, electricityhr.ca, a wealth of information there for folks. And, of course, I'm on LinkedIn, and always happy to hear from people. That's our, one of our jobs here and roles here is to talk to people about all these challenges and issues. And so, I love hearing from our industry folks as to the ideas that they may have to help us as we move this industry forward.   Dan Seguin  52:35 Again, Michelle, thank you so much for joining us today. I hope you had a lot of fun.   Michelle Branigan  52:40 I did have a lot of fun. Thank you both so much, Rebecca, Dan, always a pleasure to talk to you.   Dan Seguin  52:46 Thanks for tuning in to another episode of The ThinkEnergy podcast. And don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review wherever you're listening. And to find out more about today's guests or previous episodes, visit thinkenergypodcast.com. I hope you'll join us again next time as we spark even more conversations about the energy of tomorrow.

Canada becoming net zero by 2050 is a commitment made by the federal government, but there’s a lot of action needed at a community level before this can happen. Municipalities make up 50% of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada, so does that mean achieving net zero is actually a grassroots movement? Tonja Leach, Executive Director of QUEST Canada, joins Dan and Rebecca to talk about the importance of championing communities and how one of the biggest keys to a greener future is getting people to buy into the world we want to create.   Related links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/questcanada/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonjaleach/ www.questcanada.org https://twitter.com/QUESTCanada info@questcanada.org tleach@infocanada.org   --- To subscribe using Apple Podcasts:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thinkenergy/id1465129405   To subscribe using Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7wFz7rdR8Gq3f2WOafjxpl   To subscribe on Libsyn: http://thinkenergy.libsyn.com/ --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: https://www.youtube.com/user/hydroottawalimited   Check out our cool pics on https://www.instagram.com/hydroottawa   More to Learn on https://www.facebook.com/HydroOttawa   Keep up with the Tweets at https://twitter.com/thinkenergypod   Transcript:   Dan Seguin  00:06 This is ThinkEnergy, the podcast that helps you better understand the fast changing world of energy through conversations with game changers, industry leaders, and influencers. So join me, Dan Seguin, and my co host, Rebecca Schwartz, as we explore both traditional and unconventional facets of the energy industry. Hey, everyone, welcome back. You know, we've talked a lot on the show about Canada's goal to be net zero by 2050. But I've been asking myself lately, if achieving net zero is really a grassroot movement. I mean, there's a lot of action that needs to happen at the local level before Canada can achieve its goals. And since 50% of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada are from municipalities, before we can talk about the big national picture, we need to look at every community across our country, and how they can affect change at their level, and what kind of coordination and effort will it take.   Rebecca Schwartz  01:15 That's right. Without a coordinated approach, communities with all of their different socio economic realities, different landscapes and different local perspectives may implement different measures that may not be compatible with their neighboring communities. Or they may fall short of achieving the necessary results.   Dan Seguin  01:34 Did you know that hydro Ottawa is going net zero by 2030. And the City of Ottawa has committed to achieving net zero of its operations by 2040. Both of these are great examples of grassroots initiatives. So here's today's big question. How important is it to empower community champions and influence decision makers to continue to create the conditions necessary for communities to contribute to Canada's Net Zero targets?   Rebecca Schwartz  02:07 On today's show, our special guest is Tonja Leach, Executive Director at Quest Canada. They're a nonprofit that supports communities in their quest to reach Net Zero. Tonja is a sought-after advisor working with Canada's energy sector, three levels of government, and community builders. And she helps them essentially to transition to a more sustainable energy future. Tonja is also active on a number of committees, like the Energy Futures Lab Partners council and steering committee, the Clean Resource Initiative Network, and the Positive Energy Advisory council, among others. And we're really happy she's here to talk to us today. Hey, Tonja, welcome to the show.   Tonja Leach  02:55 It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me.   Dan Seguin  02:57 Tonja, as the executive director, maybe you could start by sharing with our listeners, what the QUEST organization is all about, such as maybe talk about your vision, your mission for Canada?   Tonja Leach  03:10 We're in the middle of updating our vision. So I'll give you the old version and recognize it will change slightly soon. So, our vision is that Canada's a nation of Smart Energy communities. And I say that's going to be updated, just because we've done some updating, you know, kind of tying things more closely to the net zero agenda. So there'll be some language changes to that. But the concepts and the principles still are accurate and remains the same. So, QUEST is a national nonprofit organization, and we support communities in Canada, on their pathway to Net Zero. Since we've been doing this since about 2007. And we facilitate connections, empower community champions and influence decision makers to implement efficient and integrated energy systems that best meet the community needs and maximize local opportunities. We develop tools and resources can be in stakeholders, rights holders, and advise decision makers, all with the goal of encouraging and enabling communities to contribute to Canada's netzero goals.   Dan Seguin  04:09 Okay, cool. What Critical Role do communities have in achieving Net Zero? How important is strong support and buy in from these communities?   Tonja Leach  04:21 Well, as I indicated, we work very closely with them. So maybe I have a biased opinion on this. But I mean, if you just look at the numbers, you know, communities are responsible for 50% of our energy use and about 50% of our emission. So that in and of itself tells you how important they are in achieving the Net Zero objectives that we're striving to achieve. So, Canada is going to have to rely quite heavily on communities to get there, but they require support and resources and they're not being supported or resourced in a way yet that they need to be really be able to play the impactful role that they can and should be playing. Many municipalities have been putting together community energy plans, community energy and emissions plans, you know, declaring climate emergency, I think there's over 500 communities in Canada that have now done that, and all the plans that go along with that, while quite aspirational, and I think that's a good thing, has really put municipalities in the driver's seat on energy. And that really has kind of flipped energy planning around a little bit, right. We know energy planning traditionally has been top down from the provincial level. But because they are playing such an active role in kind of dictating what that energy, their energy future looks like, it's actually put them in the driver's seat. So this is an interesting conundrum that we're facing right now. And it has led to a number of misalignments, you know, disconnects between what the province thinks about how energy is going to look in 2050, compared to what local governments think it's going to look like  in 2050. And, you know, I think there's a number of stakeholders that are kind of being caught in the crosshairs of that at this point in time, and we need to be building better alignment across them. So they have a very critical role to play coming back to your question. But there's still a lot of uncertainties about how we actually leverage the, you know, that the role that communities have to play and how we enable them to do that.   Dan Seguin  06:17 Tonja, I'm curious, what are the low hanging fruits municipalities can take advantage of?   Tonja Leach  06:24 Yeah, I think this is an interesting one, I think one of the things that part of the uncertainty comes from the fact of not knowing who has what role or responsibility to play and when to play that card. But municipalities, just by their very nature, have a number of, you know, cards in their hand to play. They're responsible for land use planning, and we know that one of the biggest impacts on our energy use is land use, right? How are we moving around in our communities? How effectively and efficiently can we do that, you know, places, creating communities where you can live work, and play makes a big difference on the amount of energy that we that we need. And also, you know, making sure that we're kind of balancing, supply and demand. And if you think about that, from a thermal context, where is heat, waste heat being generated from, say, an industrial process, that can actually be leveraged in the system itself. And if you build communities in a way and plan communities in a way that you can take advantage of those, you're obviously that much further ahead. They also have responsibility on transportation, you know, whether that is public transportation systems, and we see lots of kind of hybrid systems coming in now as well. You know, I mentioned low carbon thermal enabling Net Zero buildings and Net Zero infrastructure development, and supporting renewable energy deployment, distributed energy resources. There's lots of opportunity there, although lots of challenges in that regard as well. So, there's lots of low hanging fruit that they can take advantage of at this point in time and kind of start to contribute to the outcomes that we're all collectively striving for.   Rebecca Schwartz  07:57 Okay, now, what makes QUEST's approach to supporting community netzero objectives unique?   Tonja Leach  08:03 Yeah, thanks. I think what makes us unique is, well, a number of factors actually, at the highest level, I'd say that we take a systems approach to kind of the energy transition more broadly speaking, not to kind of belittle the need for a sectoral approach, but we need both. And if we don't, my analogy here is is you can't rehabilitate a forest, if you only focus on the trees, you need to be looking at the entire ecosystem. So that's the approach that we take is kind of looking at it from an ecosystem, and how do you kind of maximize the efficiency of the entire system or rehabilitate the entire system. So that's kind of the at the highest level our focus. We're also unique in that were across Canada, so we can actually see what's going on in different jurisdictions and kind of share best practices and lessons learned between jurisdictions, which is also really helpful. And we're also focused on what I call the less sexy stuff. So as far as we're not necessarily talking about specific technologies. We are, you know, there's a recognition, I think it was the International Energy Agency says, we have 80% of the technological solutions, we need to get to 2050. But the challenge is really getting them deployed. And that's where we focus. So this is on, you know, governance structures, business models, regulatory structures, legislation, policy, all of those, you know, there's no ribbon cutting ceremonies or any of those things, right. But those are the things that I think are increasingly being recognized as the inhibitors of or the pressure relief valve that we need to address the need for going to not just achieve net zero, but be sustainable and net zero.   Rebecca Schwartz  09:48 And a quick follow up for you, Tonja, you recently published a 2021 impact report. What are some of the highlights from this report that you're most proud of?   Tonja Leach  09:57 Well, I'm not sure if it's actually called out in the impact report, but I will say that I'm most proud of my team. I think that the team here at QUEST, we're often told that we punch well above our weight. And I do believe that that's true. And they're just an incredible group of people to work with. So just want to call that out first and foremost. In the 2021, impact report, that was also the first year that we saw that kind of major first successes from a project that we have going on in New Brunswick, called the Smart Energy Community Accelerator. And coming back to my first comment I made here about our vision that's in its next iteration to be reframed as the Net Zero Community Accelerator. And it really is focused on building that local capacity and the results of that project were greater than we had anticipated that they would be. So there's, there's a lot of positive momentum there. And, you know, kind of we are taking that as where do we go next with that? How do we expand that to be a national program that supports both building local capacity that's needed. So the tools, the resources, the knowledge, etc., but also kind of adding another stream to that, which is focused on getting projects to the point of implementation. So project initiation, we'll call it. So we're really proud of the work that we've been doing there with communities directly. The other piece that I think I really want to call out, as well as the Innovation Sandbox projects that we've had on the go, and was referenced in that report, as well. And this is really addressing that issue, again, around the regulatory structure, you know, the regulatory structure that we have is not really designed for innovation. So how do you kind of build innovation into that, and the Innovation Sandbox work that we've been doing, which is a concept, the Innovation Sandbox concept, was actually first started in the financial sector, and has been in other jurisdictions around the world brought into the energy space. And so we're doing that here in Canada. I'm really proud of that work as well.   Dan Seguin  11:56 Now, with over 5000 plus communities with different political infrastructures, local concerns, and socioeconomic composition. Tonja, how can local perspective be captured and aligned?   Tonja Leach  12:12 Yeah, it's a great question. And I think this is one of the biggest challenges we're actually facing today. I think there's many people know kind of what they and their own organization can possibly can contribute. But the alignment of all of these things is really the nugget that we need to crack. So I hate to say that we need deeper engagement, because we hear that so often right, and we're beyond just wanting to talk about things, we want to be doing things. But we do need to be engaging much more deeply and across multiple sectors more effectively. Because we need clarity on costs on trade offs on who's taking on what role, who has, what responsibility, what the timelines are, all of these things are unknown. And I think people are making assumptions about them at this point in time, and that's leading to the misalignment. So in order to get to the alignment, we have to be much more engaged with each other and working much more collaboratively. A great comment that I heard the other day, which was, we must stop the energy solution Hunger Games, right? This is not about anybody, you know, taking over somebody else's space, as in this is an end scenario, right? We need all hands on deck if we're going to get there and we have to work collaboratively to get there. And we have to be understanding and respectful of who's got what role and responsibility in the transition.   Rebecca Schwartz  13:45 So we hear you're helping municipalities reach reduction targets by enabling investments of local renewable energy projects and infrastructure. I'm wondering if you could just unpack this for me a little bit, and maybe give us some examples?   Tonja Leach  13:59 Yeah, so I would say that we enable investment by helping to streamline processes. So I'll give you an example of that. This is a few years ago now. But there was an energy utility in Alberta that was looking to or wanting to kind of build out solar. And they spent, you know, two years of their time in regulatory hearings, you know, trying to figure out the regulatory construct for this. And then it came time to kind of made it through all of that process. And it was time to actually kind of engage with the community to deploy their vision for the solar system. And because they hadn't engaged the community at the front end of this, the community was not very happy about where they had sited on the riverbed, the solar system. So that really stalled the process. So a lot of what our role and kind of my comment about streamlining the process itself is kind of making sure you've got all of the right stakeholders engaged at the right part of the process. And so that you don't run into these hiccups at the back end, that is just going to slow you down or stall the process. So it seems a bit backwards that you want to take the time the front end, but by taking the time at the front end, you've actually kind of relieved the issue that you may run into at the backend. So a lot of our work is really about kind of playing that coordinator and streamlining the process.   Dan Seguin  15:27 Thanks, Tonja. Great example. Now, from what I'm hearing, there's an incredible amount of momentum, around Net Zero pledges in the public sector, from governments around the world and from private sector as well. What are your thoughts around these Net Zero commitments from organizations? How do they differentiate spin from substance?   Tonja Leach  15:50 Well, I guess on the one hand, I would say that it's great that we're seeing the environment, climate change, climate action, sticking through what I would say, as a number of serious challenges. COVID, Black Lives Matter, Indigenous reconciliation, what's going on in Ukraine right now, the fact that this is still kind of remaining on the radar, I think it's a really positive sign, because I think it's been derailed many times over the past 30 plus years. So I think that's a very positive sign from my perspective on the momentum that we've got, we must maintain that momentum. And many pledges are ambitious. With a lot of like, you know, this is what we're going to do, but we don't know how we're going to do it, yet. And I think actually, in a previous podcast of yours, Bryce Conrad mentioned his moon shot. And, and I think that this is good to right, I think this is really important that we're putting a stake in the ground and saying "this is what we are going to achieve". Understanding we don't yet know how but we are smart people will figure it out. I think those are essentially what Bryce said. And this is good. But we've, I think what takes it from a spin to substance is action. And we also need to start to kind of define. So we need to start to define the how, of what you know how we're going to achieve that moon shot. But we also need to accept that it's not going to be perfect. And that's okay. We're going to make mistakes, we need to learn from those mistakes, we need to move on from those mistakes. We need to share the lessons that we've learned so that other people don't follow in our footsteps. And we kind of help everybody leapfrog down the road as it were. But yeah, we have to start to take action to take it from spin to substance.   Rebecca Schwartz  17:38 All right, Tonja, in your report, All Net Zero Pathways Begin with a Local Step, you speak of how we need to account for behavioral changes, and social acceptability to scale up net zero solutions. What do you mean by that, exactly?   Tonja Leach  17:53 Yeah. And what I mean is that we don't get to Net Zero without people. So we talk about Net Zero in terms of, you know, a federal objective, and we talk about it in terms of, you know, introducing electric vehicles into our grid and Net Zero buildings. But actually, you know, to maintain the momentum that we were talking about earlier, we need buy in from people. So people play a huge role. We also need people to want to live in a world that we're trying to create. So you know, bringing people along in that process is so critically important. They need to be under, you know, have understanding of the trade off, that will, no matter what we do come out of this, right? There's likely trade offs on costs, there's possibly trade offs on reliability, but we can accept those for the environmental benefit that we're going to, you know, achieve. But if we're not clear about what those trade offs are and people aren't accepting of them, then it becomes much more difficult to accomplish the outcome of net zero that we're trying to achieve. I think that, you know, people are instrumental in insisting on equity and Indigenous reconciliation as part of this transition. So this is not just about transitioning our energy systems, we have to deal with these social issues as part of that. And that actually is an opportunity. And we should be leveraging that as an opportunity. And we need to see I mean, at the most basic level, people need to be willing to walk or ride a bike or take public transit in order to reduce the emissions that each of us contribute to our society and globally. So, have a big role to play. And if we are, you know, forging down this path without engaging them and building the buy in along the way, eventually we're going to fall off our stool. So we need them, we need many people involved.   Dan Seguin  19:46 Now, Tonja, what do you think are the most promising and impressive carbon reduction and removal technologies from the perspective of maximizing the ability to achieve Net Zero by 2050?   Tonja Leach  20:01 Yeah, so actually I did, you gave me this question in advance. And I thank you for doing that. So I did a little bit of research because I do sit on the Clean Resource Innovation Network steering committee, and they've been, you know, using some federal government funding to support some really interesting technological projects. And one of the things that is often called out as you know, one of the bigger challenges we face is methane. And, you know, methane is obviously a huge contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. And so it's one of those things that, you know, if we don't find a solution to that, then we're, you know, it's a harder process that we're trying to get through to get to Net Zero. So, there's a company called Econ Power, that has pioneered a technology called pulse methane pyrolysis. Don't ask me about the details of how it works, but it converts methane into hydrogen, and solid carbon, and it virtually eliminates CO2 emissions from the process. So I think it's those I'm just using that as an example. I think it's like those types of technologies that kind of can enable us to use and maximize the infrastructure that we've already developed. But, you know, helps to decarbonize those systems, because there's industries that are really challenging to decarbonize, right. And so, you know, we often reference like steel and cement and agriculture. And so if, you know, we need to be able to provide solutions that decarbonize those sectors as well. So I'll just I'll point to kind of those that decarbonize methane as a useful technology that I think, is maybe just on the early days of, you know, really being scalable and successful.   Dan Seguin  21:55 Cool. Okay. What are you most excited about when it comes to the vision and opportunities of Net Zero?   Tonja Leach  22:05 You know, to be honest, I think it's about collaboration, and what will come from that. I mean, as a society, I think we've all been pretty good about collaborating so far. But and there's more of that happening. But I think that, that for me is the exciting part. I think this is where, you know, really great ideas are born out of, you know, good collaboration. I'm really excited about, you know, much deeper energy system integration than we've seen so far. And there's many ways that that can happen through low carbon thermal solutions, distributed energy, resources, etc. So, anyway, yeah, I'm really excited about the collaboration component of this and how we, you know, collectively, bring ourselves together to achieve a mutually beneficial outcome.   Rebecca Schwartz  22:56 Okay, so how are different levels of government develop synergies across sectors to create opportunities that will enable innovation?   Tonja Leach  23:05 I'm gonna come back to a comment I said earlier about the energy solution Hunger Games. That just needs to stop. Right. We've been pointing fingers for so long and saying, "my solution is better than your solution". So for me, it's it's really about shifting from, I would say, an overemphasis, I think, on kind of sectoral solutions versus looking at things from a systematic perspective. But I think that is a big piece. And then, because nothing actually works in isolation of other things. Right. And so it's how do we take that more systematic approach to it? So it is a recognition that this is an 'and" conversation, not an "or" conversation. I think that is one of the, yeah, so I'm not I don't know if I'm directly answering your question, Rebecca. But I feel like this is kind of the nugget that we have to solve.   Dan Seguin  23:58 This one, our listeners always enjoy. What are some of the biggest barriers and challenges you've identified in your roadmap to zero emissions?   Tonja Leach  24:12 Yeah, as I said before, I think that it's not technology. So you know, I think it is not technology and that new technology, it's being able to deploy the technology that we have at scale. And that comes back to you know, those soft things that I was talking about earlier, around policy alignment. How is the policy structure between the province and you know, the energy utilities, energy service providers, regions and municipalities? How is that aligning? How is that mutually reinforcing? Because right now, it's not, I would argue.You know, governance structures, more broadly speaking, clarity of roles and responsibilities. You know, we need all the various actors to bring their solutions to the table and coordinate them. If we're going to achieve the outcomes that we're looking for. So the biggest challenge is that coordination and really, you know, getting to the clarity that we need on cost, on trade offs, on roles, responsibilities, and making sure that we then have the governance structures in place that enable those outcomes.   Rebecca Schwartz  25:17 Thanks, Tonja. Now, what do you think is the biggest myth or misunderstanding about Net Zero?   Tonja Leach  25:22 That's a hard one. Lots of misunderstanding. I gotta throw out cost. I don't think there's, you know, I would say the industry as a whole doesn't really have a good understanding of what this is going to cost to get us there. And not that I think that it could, we could actually put a real number on it. But we don't know how much it's gonna cost. We don't know who's expected to pay. This energy transition is very different than some of the transitions that we've seen before this, because they were always adding a new resource base, I would call it, into the mix. Right? This isn't about that. This is about how do we decarbonize the one that we've got? And that is a very different, it's a different challenge. Yeah, so I think the biggest myth or, you know, misunderstanding is that perhaps that this is simple. And that it's not going to cost us. Because it is going to cost us and it's very complicated.   Dan Seguin  26:23 Okay, Tonja, we always end our interviews with some rapid fire questions. Are you ready?   Tonja Leach  26:30 I'm ready! Yes.   Dan Seguin  26:31 Okay. Let's go for it. What are you reading right now?   Tonja Leach  26:36 I'm just cracking open Mark Carney's "Values". As I said, I'm just cracking it open. But this is what interested me in it. The title is "Values: Building a Better World for All" and I'm reading this, sorry, "Mark Carney examines the shortcomings and challenges of the market in the past decade, which he argues has led to rampant public distrust, and the need for radical change. The book touts tangible solutions for leaders, companies and countries". So very timely, I would say with everything that's going on globally right now. And I'm hoping to get some useful insights from that book.   Dan Seguin  27:10 Cool. What would you name your boat? If you had one?   Tonja Leach  27:15 I don't have one. But my grandfather had one and his name was "Pipit", and I would have to choose that same name. The name is actually a seabird and the class of boat was a Seabird. So that's the correlation.   Dan Seguin  27:30 Okay. Moving on. Who is someone that you admire?   Tonja Leach  27:35 Oh, gosh, I think that's changed for me in the last week and a half. The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, how could we not say that I admire I mean, just the way he has conducted himself throughout the last week and a half; stood up for his citizens, you know, kind of rallied the world around them and their challenges. Yeah, I truly admire what he's doing right now.   Dan Seguin  28:01 Now, what is the closest thing to real magic that you've witnessed?   Tonja Leach  28:08 Okay, this is a funny story. We were driving in a snowstorm at night, maybe a month ago or so on a dark road, sounds terrible. And a car went flying by us and in the cloud, of, you know, snow that kicked up off the road. And then when it settled back down, the car was gone. And we were on a dead straight road, there was no tail lights. It was just gone. And I have, you know, both my husband and I looked at each other, like, where did it go? Is it in the ditch, it's just gone. And still, to this day, it has just gone no idea where it went. So that's a disappearing act.   Dan Seguin  28:46 Okay, Tonja, what has been the biggest challenge to you personally, since the pandemic?   Tonja Leach  28:53 Oh, gosh, okay, um, well, I will start to say that I come from a place of privilege, and that I own my own home, I have my family. We've all been safe through all of this. So I'll start with all of that. But I would say, and I will also say that QUEST was a virtual organization before this, so that certainly helped as well. But I would say the hardest thing is transitions. Transitioning from work to home is literally the length of time it takes me to walk down a hallway. So you know, being able to shift gears from your work mind to mom mind, in that very short period of time. And obviously, when my kids were learning virtually at home, there was zero transition there at all right, it's kind of like double, you know, kind of playing multiple roles all at once. So I would say that's been the hardest thing, but by no means is that hard compared to what a lot of people have been through.   Dan Seguin  29:51 Now. This next one is pretty cool. We've all been watching a lot of Netflix and TV lately. What's your favorite movie or show right now?   Tonja Leach  30:03 I think I'm playing catch up on this. So we at QUEST, we often like to share some of the great stuff that is on Netflix or other streaming channels. But I'm catching up right now on "The Witcher", and I'm quite enjoying "The Witcher".   Dan Seguin  30:16 And lastly, what is exciting you about your industry right now, Tonja?   Tonja Leach  30:21 Well, I would say that despite the challenges that we face on, you know, figuring out who's got what role and what responsibility; never has it ever been as exciting time in the energy space as it is now. I mean, it's challenging. But that brings excitement to that, you know, to the mix. So yeah, I would just have to say that, like everything, really everything about what's going on right now, but yeah, I'm, you know, yeah, this is this collective objective of achieving a sustainable Net Zero future is just, it's inspiring. And, yeah, it's really exciting to see how everybody's trying to figure out how we come together to achieve that outcome.   Rebecca Schwartz  31:12 All right, Tonja, this is it. We've reached the end of another episode of The ThinkEnergy podcast. Now if our listeners want to learn more about you and your organization, how can they connect?   Tonja Leach  31:23 Yeah, great. So you can connect with us through our website, www.questcanada.org. That's probably the fastest and easiest way; you can reach out to QUEST at info@questcanada.org. And I will even throw it out there, you can reach out to me directly TLeach@questcanada.org.   Dan Seguin  31:41 Again, thank you so much for joining us, Tonja. I hope you had a lot of fun.   Tonja Leach  31:46 I certainly did. This was a lot of great questions. And thank you for the opportunity to be here and share my thoughts with you.   Dan Seguin  31:53 Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the ThinkEnergy podcast. And don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review wherever you're listening. And to find out more about today's guests or previous episodes, visit thinkenergypodcast.com. I hope you will join us again next time as we spark even more conversations about the energy of tomorrow.