Step Zero: Saskatoon’s Home Energy Map

The City of Saskatoon launched a new program last month to get homeowners thinking about, and possibly making changes to their energy use in the home.

The Home Energy map is an interactive tool that gives each single-family home in Saskatoon a score based on estimated annual energy consumption, providing similar information to what would be found with a costly home energy audit. The map is free to use and homeowners can create an account to get more information and a customized renovation roadmap for their home.

The City of Saskatoon has a target to reduce all greenhouse gas emissions down to net-zero by 2050. Amber Weckworth, the City of Saskatoon’s Manager of Climate, Strategy and Data in the sustainability department, says that residential homes represent 42 per cent of Saskatoon’s emissions profile.

Weckworth says the decision to make energy-saving changes must be made by the homeowners themselves, but the City is offering help.

“We provide education, interactive tools like this one to help homeowners understand energy renovations they can complete and how they will help them save money, as well making their homes more comfortable,” Weckworth says.

MAPPING OUR ENERGY

The map was created by OPEN Technologies, a Vancouver-based company that focuses on the built-environment and its impact on energy consumption and the climate.

“This is step zero. Our call to action for this tool is to give people information, hopefully boost their motivation to make their homes more comfortable and efficient, and connect them to the City’s energy coaches and other supports that can take them though a successful renovation journey,” Donovan Woollard, CEO of OPEN says.

Woollard adds that there are many other programs across Canada prompting homeowners to think about ways to improve their home and prepare for a changing climate. He also says that renovations and retrofits will continue to create local jobs through building upgrades that improve one's environmental footprint.

ENERGY-SAVING COACHING 

Pairing with the launch of the home energy map, the city is also offering help for homeowners with how to improve their score through the Energy Coaching Service. “Maybe they’ve already done an energy audit or looked at the energy map and its retrofit roadmap as a starting point, but they need more details and ongoing support. They can call up one of our energy coaches and someone will walk them through what their score means and what they can do next,” Weckworth says.

If they have questions about specifics, like installation help or what a heating pump might cost, all that can be answered by the energy coaches.

“(The coaches) are not a replacement for getting quotes, but it can be an added layer of information as the residents are getting started,” Weckworth adds.

In its first week after launching, the home energy map saw 4600 unique visits and 1800 users claiming their homes to see a detailed retrofit roadmap. Now the number of unique visitors to the site suggest over 10 per cent of all Saskatoon homeowners have accessed the tool.

While the feedback has been positive, and people are excited about understanding their energy consumption, there is some worry about what data was used to create the map. However, Weckworth assures that no private data or utility bill data was used. “It’s all publicly available data that then uses AI to learn from those publicly available databases to make some assumptions and do projections around energy use,” she adds.

The map, as well as the coaching, starts the conversation of energy consumption for single-family homes in Saskatoon and looks ahead to a "low carbon future."