The Future is Electric w/Mariko Michasiw

Geoff Capelle:  Cleaner indoor air. Lower risk of building fires. Reduced maintenance. Lower operating costs. Noise reduction. Automation. Regulatory compliance. These are just some of the benefits of building electrification. But where it really shines is decarbonization.

Mariko Michasiw: Electrification in the building space means moving away from fossil fuels for end uses that are typically fossil fuel based, like heating your space, heating hot water, and moving those to electricity.

Geoff Capelle:  This is Mariko Michasiw. She’s the program manager for the Building to Electrification Coalition, also known as B2E.

Mariko Michasiw: So B2E is a B.C.-based coalition, launched in late 2021. We have over 215 organizational members. Together, we see electrification as a critical pathway to achieve deep, immediate, and real emissions reductions.

Geoff Capelle:  The built environment is responsible for producing eighteen per cent of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions. This means it’s the third-largest producer after oil & gas and transportation. Most buildings that exist now will still be operational in twenty-five years. So that means we have a whole lotta retrofitting to do.

Mariko Michasiw: With new construction, kind of, it's a no brainer to electrify at the get go. But when it comes to existing buildings, the best time to electrify is probably when your piece of equipment is nearing the end of life.

Geoff Capelle:  For the past few years, Canada has been working on publishing its very first retrofit code: Alterations to Existing Buildings. But it’s not out yet. So in the meantime, organizations like B2E have been stepping up to provide guidance, case studies, and technical resources.

Mariko Michasiw: Most building owners, they need a little bit more support. Across Canada, there have been retrofit accelerators launched. Ours is called the B.C. Retrofit Accelerator. And that program is supporting business owners, to help them understand what technologies and systems are going to be able to help them achieve their decarbonization goals.

Geoff Capelle:  There’s a lot to consider. To have the biggest impact, electrification needs to be combined with energy-efficient upgrades, grid-connected clean power, and smart grid technology. A few provinces and territories, like Quebec, the Yukon, and Manitoba, already power their grids with over 95% clean energy.

Mariko Michasiw: In British Columbia, where I am, we already have a really clean power grid. So anytime you electrify a building in B.C., you're automatically reducing emissions by a lot.

Geoff Capelle:  But other parts of the country aren’t quite there yet. And the demand is only going to get higher. The Canadian government plans to fully decarbonize the grid by 2035, so that the entire economy can be electrified by 2050. As the world’s fourth-largest producer of hydroelectricity, Canada is poised to be a leader in this space. 

Mariko Michasiw: Our main utility provider, B.C. Hydro, does their long term planning. They ended up funding, I think, nine wind projects and one solar project. And those will be coming online in 2027 and beyond. So, utilities today are really thinking about those future needs and starting to build out their infrastructure.

Geoff Capelle:  Today on Building Good, we’re talking about pulling the plug on emissions, by riding the electrification storm.

Geoff Capelle: What in a building can be electrified?

Mariko Michasiw: So, there's a lot of things, but um, the technology we're moving primarily to is heat pumps, which are a really efficient way to use electricity. And they take the outside air and transfer that into the building. There's all sorts of forms of heat pumps. There are heat pumps that are also ground source water source.  So there's different ways that you can transfer. Energy from the outside, and it can be really, really like low temperature heat and turn it into a higher grade heat to heat your space.

Heat pumps are both a heating and cooling technology. And they kind of work like a refrigerator, so where a refrigerator is taking heat from the inside and pulling it out to the outside of the refrigerator into your space, what a heat pump does when you're trying to heat either your space or your water is it takes heat from the outside and pulls it in.

And then it actually can work in reverse as well, where in the summer months when you need cooling, it'll take the heat from the inside and put it outside. And it's a really, really efficient way to use electricity. You can get a coefficient of performance of, three to five in the summertime. And then depending on how cold it is in the winter, you might be able to get like a two and a half but maybe that's getting a little bit too technical?

So, a coefficient of performance means that if you took one unit of electricity using that refrigeration cycle and using refrigerants, you're actually able to get three to five times worth of energy output. So, heat, effectively.

Geoff Capelle: Do heat pumps work in extremely cold climates like Canada's, particularly looking at the northern communities?

Mariko Michasiw: Yes, absolutely. They do. And this is an area of research that is important globally. Heat pumps, you know, early days, heat pumps probably had really good efficiency down to say minus five, but now cold climate heat pumps are designed specifically for those colder climates are getting really high efficiencies down at minus 25 degrees Celsius.

In a cold climate, however, temperatures during cold snaps often go below those you know, 25, -25 degrees. And in those cases, they'll also need a supplemental system. So that might be through electricity with electric resistance, like a baseboard heater, or an electric strip heater. It might be gas. It could potentially be oil or, or some other form. You know, in a residential application, it might just be wood burning fireplace or something like that.

Geoff Capelle: Now, what are the benefits of heat pumps? Why switch over?

Mariko Michasiw: They're just a really efficient way to use electricity, they're clean. They don't have emissions related to them. And there's one system that does both your heating and cooling, so I think it's just a natural choice to be moving away from a fossil fuel based system that only does one of those two things and moving to a system that does both.

Geoff Capelle: What are the most common concerns that you hear, and how would you respond to them?

Mariko Michasiw: Heat pumps are a newer technology to a lot of people and they operate a little bit differently than your traditional system. So it does require some learning of new operating practices.

The easiest time to electrify a building is when you build it new. If you design it right the first time, then you're going to get just the most efficient system.

Then when you get into existing buildings, we're looking at systems that already exist. So in residential, that's probably a furnace or a boiler. In larger commercial or larger residential, there are more complex building systems that we can electrify as well. It requires a little more planning, looking at the lifetime of the equipment, and then planning your capital projects based on decarbonizing small systems at a time. So it's more of a stepwise approach. If we are electrifying a building from the get go, first is kind of site planning and making sure you have the right size of electrical service going into the building. The building envelope is another piece that we might want to consider. Across Canada, we have a number of different climate zones from really mild climate zones in southern Ontario and B.C., to very cold climate zones. So you're going to want to make sure that you have a solid and tight envelope to minimize the operational costs on electrifying your buildings when you're building them new.

Geoff Capelle: And what about for existing buildings? What are some of the challenges there?

Mariko Michasiw: Because you already have systems within a building and it's already been designed a certain way, it can become more challenging. One of the first things that you would want to make sure is do you have the electrical capacity to be able to electrify systems and so that requires a little bit more planning and thought because there may be a service upgrade that's required down the line. Other things to consider would be, you know, size of your mechanical room or location of your equipment. So where would say a new heat pump live on your building? If it's say, a rooftop, you might require a little bit more structural engineering to understand whether or not it can go up there. But there's other strategies like locating condensing units. So their outdoor unit’s actually in a parking garage. And you know, maybe you're just taking up another spot or two. So, there's just a few more logistics that we need to consider when electrifying.

With new construction, kind of, it's a no brainer to electrify at the get go. But when it comes to existing buildings, the best time to electrify is probably when your piece of equipment is nearing the end of life. So, if you know that you have a piece of equipment that's going to be coming up in the next year or two, now would be a really good time to start thinking about, okay, what needs to happen in order to decarbonize my heating system, hot water system, or whatever it is that you're hoping to electrify.

Geoff Capelle: Is electrification all or nothing? Are there opportunities to combine electrified technology with other options?

Mariko Michasiw: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's definitely part of the solution. There are certainly trade offs that need to be made. So, on the whole, we're looking kind of at the lifecycle of a building, the impact of greenhouse gas emissions and which systems are emitting more. So, can we prioritize maybe you're sizing a heat pump in a large building to 80 or 90 per cent of your load, but then you could have a supplemental system to take care rest of it for, you know, your peak times where you need a lot of heating, say, like, on really, really cold days. Maybe you're not getting to zero today. But it's part of the plan. and yeah, I can integrate with other supplemental heating systems as well.

We recently published an article that can be found on the B2E website, B2Electrification.org. One of our other program managers interviewed three developers who were looking to electrify high rise buildings. You know, they have unique challenges and I'll say they didn't all get to full electrification but they did get a significant portion of the way there.

There are a lot of different types of building owners and they may have a different understanding or different aptitudes when it comes to decarbonizing buildings. There are some organizations, the larger organizations that have their own ESG targets they have, you know, done an analysis of their portfolio of buildings, and they're starting electrification projects because they're trying to reduce emissions and they're figuring it out as they go along.

But most building owners need a little bit more support. So, in B.C., and you know, across Canada, there have been retrofit accelerators launched. Ours is called the B.C. Retrofit Accelerator. And that program is supporting building owners on the journey to help with decision making to help them understand the different components of taking on a building electrification project, things like understanding the electrical capacity of their site, understanding what it is that they're trying to achieve.

And then what technologies and systems are going to be able to help them achieve their decarbonization goals. Bridging beyond that, we're also looking into how do we help finance that transition for building owners as well.

Geoff Capelle: We'll be back with Mariko after this.

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Geoff Capelle: One thing we often chat about is the workforce and what the future looks like in the AEC industry. What are the workforce needs of electrification? And, what should someone looking to electrify know about the professional supports that are available?

Mariko Michasiw: Within B2E, building up industry capacity is really important to us. And because of that, we have developed a number of resources to support industry at large. In particular for, you know, residential HVAC contractors, on our website, we have information pathways for training. So there's some recommendations on different ways that you can upskill or add to your skill set that will help you to become a more proficient heat pump installer. So that's one example. We also have recently released a building electrification guide for commercial buildings, and it's a very comprehensive guide designed for more of the engineering consulting industry, but is also really helpful for building owners and managers. That took about two years to develop, and we wanted to just make sure that the broader industry understands what those are and bring everyone up to speed together.

So at the Zero Emissions Innovation Center, B2E is just one of many programs, and we are all focused on that low carbon economy. And any of the websites that are part of our brand family have case studies and webinars and other resources that can just help build up everyone's capacity by understanding what projects have already been undertaken. What lessons have been learned along the way and how to go forward in the future.

Geoff Capelle: So one thing that I often hear discussed in electrification is how important the power grid becomes. Can you talk a little bit about what the power grid is like in B.C. from a sustainability perspective and maybe speak a little bit more broadly to Canada?

Mariko Michasiw: So in B.C., we recently issued a call for power. Our main utility provider, B.C. Hydro, does their long term planning and recognizes that, you know, there is a lot more electricity going to be used in the future due to electrification of vehicles and buildings. They ended up funding, I think, nine wind projects and one solar project. And those will be coming online in 2027 and beyond. So, utilities today are really thinking about those future needs and starting to build out their infrastructure.

When it comes to the distribution of electricity, there are certainly areas within our province that are a little bit more constrained with the grid. Electrification is part of a smart decarbonization process where you do what you can in a certain area within the constraints that you have and so you can electrify as much as you possibly can within that constraint, but also acknowledge that there may be a limit to what you can do until the rest of the distribution gets caught up with that. On a building level, we can employ load management strategies. So, whether that's like, really smart controllers or sharing, a circuit with, say, your electric vehicle charger and your dryer, which wouldn't normally be on at the same time. There are ways to be able to electrify within the constraints that are given to us today within the buildings. And so that is becoming a larger part of the conversation. The other piece that I was going to actually mention is that, you know, not every electricity grid in Canada is a hundred percent clean today, but the goal is to get there.

So, if we're electrifying buildings in B.C., Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, today you're going to see an immediate emissions reduction. But in some of the other provinces, you might not right away, but as the grids decarbonize over time and we move to more renewable sources of electricity, then those buildings that are connected to the grid will actually decarbonize as well, without having to do anything.

Geoff Capelle: British Columbia is very energy forward. And I'm wondering how you see the scalability of electrification in other provinces across the country in areas that may have more fossil fuel consumption and are on a slower journey towards clean energy.

Mariko Michasiw: I think that a lot of other provinces are really looking at efficiency first, which is a really important thing look at. So, whether that's, you know, building envelopes or making sure that we're putting more efficient equipment in, there are a lot of progressive codes and standards that are being implemented across Canada that are really going to help the buildings just get a lot more efficient and heat pumps might be a big part of that, just because they're a lot more efficient than traditional equipment going in. We can also look to B.C., I'm part of a steering committee for a national building decarbonization alliance. And they're part of the transition accelerator and they're doing a lot of work in the clean electricity space to supporting other jurisdictions, and then also in the building space. So, one thing at a national level is coordinating, conversations, convening people so that the jurisdictions that are, you know, more fossil fuel based can learn from those who have taken a more proactive approach to decarbonize through electrification. So, I think a lot of it is just sharing experience and learning to really help support the provinces that aren't quite there yet.

Geoff Capelle: What are some case studies that are helpful to show what's possible with electrification?

Mariko Michasiw: Vancity project was actually undertaken, I think, about a decade ago. They incorporated a heat recovery chiller into their building system so that they could reduce their reliance on, I think they were on district steam before. And there's actually quite a few examples of buildings in downtown Vancouver who have done similar things.

Orion is a building in Pemberton, B.C., which is, I think it's at least climate zone six, so it's a fairly cold climate. The builder has been building all electric buildings for some time and has created a really great actually library of building designs that are really streamlined to go all electric. But the key study that we have published on the B2E website talks about the operating costs of each of the units within Orion and it is so low, you would be very surprised on heating hot water, how low the costs are per unit.

Geoff Capelle:  So, last couple of questions, looking more at the future and where this is likely to go, what is on the horizon for electrification technology?

Mariko Michasiw: Yeah, that's a good question. You know, with the Kigali Amendment there are, you know, we're, we're phasing down the global warming potential of refrigerants. So new refrigerants are coming onto the market, so that's a change that's happening. And increasing efficiency of systems. We're also seeing some interesting stuff around thermal storage and you know, whether that's a thermal energy network or it's using salts or water as a storage vessel for heat. Those are new, new  technological advances that are considering the implications of peaks of electricity and trying to mitigate those. I've seen in other countries, more building integrated renewables. They're like facades with solar integrated into them, or I've seen solar balconies, those are other pieces that might come in as well. And I think innovations in looking at, like, all neighborhoods. So there's some other projects that I'm excited about in B.C. where they're evaluating entire neighborhoods for what can they do based on the electrical constraints that they have right now. And then, can they decarbonize today? What will they prioritize? What's the best bang for their buck? It's a mix of technology and best practices.

Geoff Capelle: Are you optimistic?

Mariko Michasiw: Absolutely. There's so much momentum towards electrification, like B2E exists to identify the barriers and find solutions. And we're constantly evolving and we're constantly innovating and when I'm talking about us, I'm talking about all of the members you know, it's not unique to B.C. that this is happening.

The Building Decarbonization Alliance, it's a national 280 members. We're all solutions oriented. We're working towards this together. I think it will require a little bit of mindset shift but it is the way we need to go. Finances are also heading in that direction too. It's a positive story that is just building momentum.

Geoff Capelle: That was Mariko Michasiw.

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Building Good is a Vocal Fry Studios production in partnership with Bird Construction and Chandos Construction.

The producers are Jay Cockburn, Katie Jensen, and Sabrina Brathwaite, with production assistance from Jessica Loughlin and Joanne Hignett.

I’m Geoff Capelle. Thanks for listening