Ottawa Community Housing (OCH) and local utility Hydro Ottawa are expanding a partnership that aims to deliver more affordable, climate-resilient housing while reducing emissions in OCH communities and easing the load on the city’s grid.
More onsite solar panels, building automation systems (BAS), heat pumps, and electric vehicle chargers, as well as an expanded EV car-share program, are key elements of the plan.
“By combining Hydro Ottawa’s energy efficiency and renewable energy expertise with OCH’s drive to offer innovative housing solutions for sustainable living, this strengthened partnership will play a crucial role in reducing Ottawa’s carbon footprint,” OCH said in a release.
“It will also lead to lower overhead costs for OCH, allowing them to preserve affordability and provide more environmentally friendly housing options for low-income residents.”
OCH is the largest community and affordable housing provider in Ottawa, with roughly 15,000 units for 33,000 tenants.
OCH and Hydro Ottawa have been working together on energy issues since 2012. To date, they have installed some 37 solar arrays totalling 500,000 kilowatt-hours in annual capacity. New solar installations are expected under their new partnership.
More building automation systems to optimize energy use are also in the works, says OCH. They’re already in place in 18 buildings, and another 27 are expected to receive them.
As for heat pumps, more than 50 townhouse installations were completed this year, and OCH is planning for another 260, reports Sustainable Biz.
OCH will also be adding 30 new EV chargers at its Gladstone Village project and six at the newly-finished 715 Mikinak Rd.
An EV car-share program, first piloted at another OCH building in 2022 with the support of the Ottawa Climate Action Fund (OCAF), EnviroCentre, and Communauto, will be expanded to 715 Mikinak later this summer.
[Disclosure: The Energy Mix Publisher Mitchell Beer is a strategic advisor to OCAF and editorial consultant to EnviroCentre.]
As of June, 255 OCH tenants had collectively travelled some 34,444 kilometres (more than 4,695 hours of drive time) using the EV car-share system.
OCH is also planning to pursue energy storage, says Sustainable Biz. The housing provider’s ongoing partnership with Hydro Ottawa dovetails with its need to align itself—as a municipally-owned organization—with the City of Ottawa’s goal to reduce emissions by 96% by 2040.
Improving energy efficiency goes hand-in-hand with affordability, both for OCH and its tenants, the agency says. Since 2010, OCH has been able to reinvest C$64.1 million into operations and new building stock thanks to cost savings from its energy efficiency and sustainability initiatives, the media release states.
Tenants also benefit, Dan Dicaire, OCH’s senior manager for conservation and sustainability, told Sustainable Biz. “Making homes much more efficient means that tenants end up paying less [on energy bills],” Dicaire said.
Hydro Ottawa is also getting a great deal out of the partnership, Dicaire added. The more OCH buys into efficiency measures and distributed renewables, the lighter the load on the local power grid.
