The vision of the Community Energy Plan is to create economic advantage, mitigate climate change, and improve energy performance. It strives to position Windsor as an energy center of excellence that boasts efficient, innovative, and reliable energy systems that contribute to the quality of life of the residents and businesses.

The Community Energy Plan (CEP) included 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 the first strategy identified to achieve this goal.

Discussion:

Increasing Residential efficiency is critical to achieving CEP goals and addressing the climate emergency as Windsor has one of the oldest building stocks in the province. The average year that a house was built in Windsor is 1955, which is significantly older than the provincial average of 1974 (Figure 1). Older homes use significantly more energy and produce significantly more emissions than newer homes as older Ontario building codes did not have consideration for energy efficiency. These homes are often lacking basement, attic and wall insulation and can have severe air leakage issues around door and window frames and at the connection between concrete foundations and wood house framing.

Figure 1 – Age of Windsor building stock by decade.

Windsor’s average household uses 35% more total energy that the average Ontario home and 20% more energy per square foot than the average Ontario home. When considering international best practice Windsor’s average energy usage per household is twice that of the average household in Denmark.