Perth County has received a report on the county's Energy Conservation and Demand Management Plan.
Hannah Cann, Resiliency and Stewardship Coordinator with the Public Works Department, says it is provincially and federally required for public entities to have a Energy Conservation and Demand Management Plan every 5 years beginning in 2019. She says the plans are meant to report on energy use in facilities and the greenhouse gas equivalent of those emissions.
"And then detail opportunities to reduce energy consumption and emissions both from a cost-saving perspective and also to contribute to the provincial and federal goals of reaching a 30 percent reduction by 2030 and reaching net zero by 2050," Cann stated.
Cann says the county has a plan and each lower tier municipality has one, too.
"Perth County reached a greenhouse gas reduction of 13.87 percent since 2018, so about halfway towards our goal of reaching that 30 percent reduction target by 2030. There's also 2 ways to meet the greenhouse gas reduction target, and those are to decrease your energy consumption, and the second is to increase your offsets," Cann pointed out.
That includes more energy efficient ways of using and generating energy, like solar panels or even using vegetative cooling means, like planting more trees near a building to naturally keep it cooler. Cann notes the county has implemented strategies like using LED lighting and retrofitting facilities.
"Just general facility upgrades, more energy efficient appliances, that sort of thing. There's a lot of things that we didn't touch on in the plan that don't contribute to emissions offsets but that are also environmentally driven. For instance, we have a huge rainwater catchment system at our Mitchell Public Works office. That wasn't captured, but it's a great way to offset our water use," added Cann.
Cann says going forward, the county has a few things they want to implement.
"Switching some of our vehicles to hybrid or fully electric depending on the purpose of that vehicle. Also looking at opportunities to increase our solar arrays. This will not only offset our greenhouse gas emissions, but it also provides a meager income to the county, with the energy that's produced, or at least offsets the cost of the electricity that we pay for in our facilities," noted Cann.
Additionally, Cann says they want to continue the Perth County Stewardship Program, which wasn't included in the total capture of emissions reduction over the last 5 years. She says if it had been included, it would represent an additional 4 percent of greenhouse offsets for the county.
The Perth County Energy Conservation and Demand Management Plan can be seen here: https://www.perthcounty.ca/en/county-government/resources/files/Accessibility-update/Corporate-Reports/Conservation-and-Demand-Report---Accessible.pdf