Executive Summary

Background and Context

In 2017, the City of Windsor approved a Community Energy Plan (CEP) with a community-wide goal to reduce GHG emissions by 40% of 2014 levels and to reduce per-capita energy consumption by 40%. Increasing residential energy efficiency was one of the strategies prioritized to achieve this goal. The CEP set a target to deep-retrofit 80% of Windsor’s existing homes by 2041 to achieve a 30 to 50% increase in energy efficiency depending on the age and type of home. The CEP strategy to achieve this target proposed completing a Business Case that reviewed:

• the creation of an Entity to deliver retrofits standardized by home age and type;

• to team with local contractors, material suppliers and investors to transform the energy retrofit market;

• to use LIC financing and standardized pricing approaches to create scale.

In 2018, City Council approved the development of a Windsor Residential Deep Energy Efficiency Retrofit (R-DEER) Business Case to investigate the feasibility of the CEP home retrofit strategy. A Project Working Team (PWT) was tasked to oversee the project, engage stakeholders and report back to the City with recommendations.

The purpose of this project was to investigate the feasibility (or “Business Case”) of establishing an Entity to deliver high quality, standardized residential energy efficiency retrofit packages to most Windsor homes.

The purpose of the Business Case is to answer the question:

Under a credible set of assumptions, can a business case be made for the City of Windsor Community Energy Plan (CEP) home energy retrofit strategy that meets reasonable community, market and economic goals?

If the answer is yes, then the next step would be to identify/establish a program administrator and provide them with reasonable resources to complete the due diligence – including supplemental market testing and risk assessment – for the development of an implementable Business Plan based on what is presented in this Business Case.

During engagements with various stakeholders, the PWT identified several issues to be further explored during the development of the Business Plan. They are documented in this report. In particular, the PWT members felt strongly that the final program design should ensure retrofits are accessible to Windsor residents on low and/or fixed incomes, so they too would benefit from reduced energy bills.

Program Administrator

The PWT recommends the City proceed to establish an Entity, as a Municipal Services Corporation (MSC), to administer the program for the following reasons:

• this administrative model enables a more flexible financing approach that will minimize municipal liability and better leverage private sector investment;

• an MSC would be better positioned to enter partnerships with the private sector than the municipality (e.g., contractors, material suppliers and investors);

• program delivery risks rest with the MSC and not the City;

• borrowing is placed on the MSC’s balance sheet;

• the MSC is not limited to working within municipal boundaries and can enter beneficial partnerships with other municipalities in the immediate region or beyond; and