Nuanced.
Where real conversations happen — with host Aaron Pete.
Nuanced.
Inside FortisBC: How Energy Upgrades Save You Money
Carol Suhan, Manager of Conservation & Energy Management at FortisBC, joins host Aaron Pete to unpack energy efficiency upgrades, safety, dual-fuel heating, Indigenous partnerships, and home comfort solutions that save money and improve lives.
FORTISBC:
https://www.fortisbc.com/
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I have to say, very proud of working for Fortis and really delivering a vital service for everybody in the province.
Aaron Pete:But could we start at the beginning? What is FortisBC?
Carol Suhan:Energy efficiency not only will make your home more comfortable, reduce your utility bills, but potentially could even improve your health.
Aaron Pete:And what does that look like in people's homes when they're getting that Fortis bill? What does that really mean?
Carol Suhan:You could have a new furnace and you could have solar and you could have air conditioning, but if it's that air is just leaking in and out of your house?
Aaron Pete:Why is it so important that you have BC, hydro and Fortis BC? What was the logic behind making sure that you have different options?
Carol Suhan:Homes were saving on average. Minimum was like $200 and $300 a year to $3,000, $4,000 a year. Having that heat, having that energy in people's homes, it's not even a matter of comfort, it's a matter of safety.
Aaron Pete:Carol, thank you so much for being willing to join us today. Would you mind first briefly introducing yourself?
Carol Suhan:I'm Carol Suhan. I work for FortisBC in the Energy and Conservation Group, and over the last seven-ish years I've been working almost exclusively with Indigenous communities, again really trying to improve energy efficiency in homes and in community buildings. The idea, of course, is to make homes more comfortable, reduce utility costs, utility bills, and obviously climate change is a part of that as well.
Aaron Pete:Fantastic. I'm very excited to be doing this series and to get to know individuals like yourself, because I personally feel like Fortis serves so many homes and it's such an important piece of our day-to-day lives. Somewhat we take that for granted and somewhat. We need more education on understanding what Fortis is, how it serves communities and how it plays a role in making sure that we're safe in the winter and that we have the heat and support we need throughout those seasons. But could we start at the beginning? What is Fortis BC?
Carol Suhan:Well, fortis BC actually is like two companies. One is an electricity supply or distribution, and we actually produce our own electricity through the Kootenays and the Okanagan, and then, of course, a natural gas distribution company that services probably 95% of the province of British Columbia, from Fort Nelson right down to Vancouver and good parts of Vancouver Island as well.
Aaron Pete:And what does that look like in people's homes when they're getting that forest bill? What does that really mean?
Carol Suhan:Well, it means that you're connected, you have gas heating in your home and, interestingly enough, a lot of folks don't realize that they actually do have gas heating in their home. They have a furnace, it works, but yeah, so that's heating, which, by the way, does account for about 50% to 65% of your energy bill is actually to heat your home. So it's a big. I think it's a really important part of you know how you make your home comfortable and safe.
Aaron Pete:Yeah, so I'm just thinking you mentioned furnace. I also think I just got a hot water on demand system as well that also uses gas, and I'm just interested in understanding that in comparison to hydro.
Carol Suhan:Okay, and actually you mentioned hot water, which is also really important in terms of energy efficiency because it too uses between I don't know, 15 and 20% of all of the energy use in your home would be for hot water. So now you're sort of 50 to 80% for space and water heating In comparison with electricity. I mean, obviously hydro provides, it can provide space heating, it can provide hot water. Generally speaking, the natural gas system is more affordable to operate and I know for Indigenous communities, particularly when you get into more remote areas, you don't, electricity can be outages and there can be outages for days at a time. You probably have experienced that. So you know here's a way of you know at least maintaining, you know, more comfort in your homes and having heat, or even though your furnace might not work, but you can have a gas fireplace backup or whatever. So I think it's a really good fit for Indigenous communities, particularly who have extended outages in more remote rural areas.
Aaron Pete:Can you walk us through that? Why is it so important that you have BC, hydro and FortisBC? What was the logic behind making sure that you have different options?
Carol Suhan:This would be obviously developed over the last number of decades. But and actually it's a misconception I think a lot of people don't realize how much energy that the gas system provides to the province. We think about electricity, we think about turning lights on or turning them off or turning your computers off, but really, as I just mentioned before, you know, when you consider that 50 to 80% of a building's energy use is space and water heating, yeah, space and water heating is a really important part, and so, as the energy system was built out over, you know, the last 50, 60 years, gas was very much meant to be space and water heating and particularly in the coldest days of the year, like Fortis BC will provide more than two times energy than all the electricity systems combined. So Fortis BC, electric, bc Hydro but yeah, on those coldest days of the year, the gas system is imperative, I think, because I know the electrical system couldn't possibly keep all of our homes at this point in time. Anyway, keep our homes comfortable and not even comfortable, safe what?
Aaron Pete:does that mean to you to be an employee that has the opportunity to make that impact? Again, I think most people just expect their home to be heated, but if you look back 200 years, you were completely reliant on a fireplace or some sort of system like that. Now we somewhat take that for granted and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, but there's so many people working behind the scenes to make sure you never even think about turning up your thermostat and heating up your home, and I think it's important that we understand the work that goes into that.
Carol Suhan:I have to say I guess I'm very proud of working for Fortis and really delivering a vital service for everybody in the province. And I also know that my colleagues take this I mean having resilient, making sure that the heating system or, again, if it's electricity, everything works and works safely and on time, and all the time I mean they take that work very, very seriously. I have been in the operations centers. When we bring a heat wave, for example, and, like you know, alarms are going off and people are scrambling to make sure that there's enough electricity I think it happens to be electricity in this case, but that to meet the air conditioning needs. And you know so folks, this folks you talk about in the background, there's a ton of work that goes on in the background that, yeah, we never know about. It's just you flip on the switch, you turn up your heat and it works.
Carol Suhan:But yeah, I think, gosh, we have just short of 3,000 employees across the province and you know whether we're working of 3,000 employees across the province and you know whether we're working in communities, like you know, for example, I was in Prince George just, you know, a short time ago, and up in the north, and you know there's folks working in those communities to make sure that the gas is working. Or again, I talked about being in. You know that electricity service territory people working making sure that we have enough electricity to meet that demand. And you know that electricity service territory people working making sure that we have enough electricity to meet that demand. And you know, and actually buying it on the market and doing it live and there's so much stuff that goes on in the background.
Aaron Pete:I had the opportunity to tour I believe it's called the Tilbury site and one of the things that one of the tour guides had explained was I forget what year it was, but it was during an incredible cold spell that we had, where it was hitting minus 30, minus 28 for a period of time. That put incredible strain on the system because everybody had their heating cranked and the system had never kind of been prepared for such an event for such a long period of time. Event for such a long period of time, and again, when you don't know about those things, it's so humbling to realize the amount of work that goes on to try and prepare for those circumstances, and I know there's plans to begin to address that and make sure that we're in a better system the next time a cold spell comes. But just knowing that so many people are doing work and we don't get the opportunity to appreciate that just humbles me.
Carol Suhan:Yeah, I think you're talking about January 2023. I know I was minus 40 and minus 50 in parts of the country or province rather, and it lasted for quite a long time. And yeah, both the electricity systems more so, but the gas systems, again, we're sort of maxing out and this had never been experienced before and I don't know. I'm sure you heard about Alberta, that you know they were this close. Their electricity system was this close to collapsing because it was so cold and in that particular case, I think, the gas system, they almost delivered nine times more energy. And again, you know well, but when it's minus 35, minus 40, really you only have four or five hours in your home before you start to freeze. So having that heat, having that energy in people's homes is it's not even a matter of comfort, it's a matter of safety. Yeah, I'm getting goosebumps just talking about that.
Aaron Pete:Yeah, and that's exactly when I did that tour. I was like I'd be very interested in having this conversation because it's something that, had it happened, had it gone over that edge, we'd be a very humbled province, or Alberta would be a very humbled province of the circumstances, and people are very vulnerable and there's statistics out there that more people pass away due to the coldness than due to the heat.
Carol Suhan:Yes, not many folks know that.
Aaron Pete:And so it's an important piece that I don't know if we always appreciate, and then learning pieces as we'll get into when we talk more about how we prepare for being energy educated and being informed on those pieces that, like hot water on demand systems are better for the environment than having a hot water tank that's constantly heating when you're not home and when you're not using it, and and that that's a better step.
Carol Suhan:oh boy well I'm and I've worked for in the energy conservation area and and of course, I think just you know conservation and efficiency is critical.
Carol Suhan:You know if we're, you know talking about climate change, but you know, addressing and trying to decarbonize our energy system, but you know the probably I mean the most cost-effective and it just makes sense, like on the global scale, but also on the individual scale. You know it's making our buildings more energy efficient so that you use less energy, which means you, you know, emit less carbon and whether you know, you know whether that's more insulation in your home or new windows and doors, or a new heating system or your new hot water tank. All of those things go together and you can make significant decreases in consumption, or energy consumption and emissions by just making our buildings much energy efficient. By just making our buildings much energy efficient and I know we go historically, I think, because energy was so inexpensive and it was so taken for granted that we didn't build buildings really well and so now we're having to go back and do it afterwards but it can make a huge, huge difference.
Aaron Pete:The other piece I wanted to ask about and it's just a reflection for myself in regards to the differences between BC Hydro and Fortis and the type of energy that's produced. I had a heating expert come in and we were working on the hot water tank and one piece that I found so interesting because we installed a washer dryer for my mom and they came in and they were like it probably makes sense to do a gas dryer because you're using a lot of electricity right now, so this will kind of balance it out. You're not using that much gas. And he was like one of the benefits of that is that you get a clean dry, that you don't get the static electricity, and I just I found that really interesting to learn about some of the differences between electric heat and gas heat, because you don't produce that and then when you're heating your home you'll feel that. He described it as a warm hug when you have your gas on, versus like BC Hydro's heat which doesn't give off that same surrounding warmth.
Carol Suhan:Oh, yeah, yeah, that is yeah. I think there's some real advantages to both like to gas heat or again. That said, I think you know this is happening across the province and I know maybe I'm going a little bit sideways here, but in some ways I think the perfect combination is sort of a dual fuel heating system, and they've been around now for well, they've been around for probably more than a decade, but only a couple of years in British Columbia. But it's a combined connected, you know, heat pump which has electricity which would provide heat in the sort of shoulder seasons, and cooling in the summer, which is becoming more and more important. But then, when we're talking about these colder days of the year, the system automatically goes back into gas. So it keeps your bills affordable and you do get the warm hug because gas can provide that instant kind of heat very quickly versus taking a longer time. And I think, well, I'll just mention this. But this is I give them kudos because I just think they've been doing fantastic work.
Carol Suhan:But Adams Lake, first Nation in the Shuswap I think it was in 2019, you know, six years ago in the Shuswap, I think it was in 2019, you know, six years ago, I think they were one of the very first communities, if not even you know organized larger, you know community areas. They installed five dual-fuel heating systems and they loved them so much that they've now got this. You know informal policy that all of the renovations and all their new construction all have dual-fuel heating systems and anyway. So in some ways I think that's kind of the optimal approach. You know, the heat pump is really efficient for cooling and working when it's not too cold and then when it gets cold you have, you know, that gas heat which in your own personal home again makes you more comfortable. It keeps your bills more affordable. But again, if we look at the more global, provincial scale, we're reducing emissions for a good chunk of the year.
Aaron Pete:When we think of BC Hydro it's so easy to think of a hydroelectric dam. It's easy to symbolically understand what hydro does. It's harder for gas. Would you mind explaining to us what the gas is? Just some of those processes. What is actually heating the home? How does that process work?
Carol Suhan:Well, it is a gas that of course is extracted and just by way of note, this is not my field of expertise, so I'll try and give it my best here but of course the gas is extracted, almost all of it, from Northern BC or Alberta, for the southern part of British Columbia we do get most of our gas from Alberta and Saskatchewan through the southern crossing, but more central British Columbia comes from the north.
Carol Suhan:It is, you know, cleaned and then piped up. It brings into our home. It is our furnaces, our water heaters, the dryer you mentioned before. They do have combustion equipment in your home that of course uses that gas to create heat and that is then pumped through your home. It is, you know, I think it's a very kind of elemental kind of heating system. But of course now the heating systems now are so much more efficient that you know we actually before they used to be like in the 50, 60% efficient range and like now we're all looking at 97% plus and then if you have the dual fuel system, like a couple hundred percent. But either way, I'm getting into detail here.
Aaron Pete:What does that mean, though? What does it mean to be energy efficient in percentages?
Carol Suhan:Okay. Well, all of the energy that is consumed becomes heat. Okay, and actually if you go to a heat pump, it can be 200% to 300% efficient. Because if you're using a chemical, like a refrigerator, you know it's in your home but it uses a chemical that circulates and it can turn cool air or take air out of your home and make it cold, and you know that's how your refrigerator works. A heat pump kind of works the opposite way it takes heat out of the air, even when it's quite cool, and heats your home, again using that chemical process, you know, and it's all closed tube. So again, this combination system of using heat pumps and, you know, gas heating, I think just makes really good sense, right.
Aaron Pete:I'm interested to understand how you work with BC Hydro. Is there a strong relationship there? What does that process look like? Are you two giant competitors against each other?
Carol Suhan:Not at all. Yeah, especially working with Indigenous communities. We work really closely with BC Hydro and, as a matter of fact, but we now have a joint program essentially to provide funding, support for Indigenous communities to improve housing and their buildings in terms of energy efficiency. So I think we work really closely and again, I think that speaks to again how the systems work together and you know, because we need both electricity, but again that gas makes such a, you know, a contribution in making sure that you know, heating your home continues to be safe, affordable and more comfortable.
Aaron Pete:So there's also a goal to reach 15 percent renewable gas in the system by 2030. Do you know what that means?
Carol Suhan:I talked a lot about efficiency and how really we want to make people's homes and community buildings way more energy efficient.
Carol Suhan:So you use less gas, which means there's less carbon—less— carbon, fewer carbon emissions, but at the same time we want to just be decarbonizing the gas that we do use to heat homes. So that is a combination of renewable natural gas, which is, you know, which is kind of a very cool product, because we actually harvest the methane that's, you know, off from landfills and sewage treatment plants and you know agricultural, like cows manure, you know. So we harvest that methane and put it into our gas system and, of course, it's burned in people's homes. We also are working on how hydrogen can be injected into our system. Again, you know, a low carbon fuel that reduces the carbon of all the gas that's going into everyone's homes. So that's where that kind of 15% comes plan to have 15% less carbon in our delivery system and through, yeah, that people automatically, whether they know it or not, actually are emitting lower greenhouse gas emissions, and that's probably one of the coolest things to learn is that over time, we've become more and more energy efficient without knowing it.
Aaron Pete:That like. From my understanding, one of the biggest global challenges is people burning garbage, is people still using lumber and timber to try and heat their homes or heat around the world heat their homes and that we've managed to move in the right direction over a very long period of time. So our impact has continued to reduce on the environment and on ecosystems than where we would have been if we were all using like firewood still today.
Carol Suhan:Yeah, so not only from an energy consumption perspective, but also just air quality, exactly.
Aaron Pete:Yeah, yeah. Can you tell me what does energy literacy mean?
Carol Suhan:Well, energy literacy, I think, is really important because we really, again, if we're talking about climate change, how do we make improvements if we don't understand how we use energy? And that's both on a provincial, federal, global scale or in our homes. And I have been talking about efficiency. But, again, if you want to make improvements, I'm studying, first of all, how is your home heated, and I come across lots of folks who don't know I have a furnace, who don't know I have a furnace. I don't know, but just you know.
Carol Suhan:So, understanding that, and then also understanding how much energy is used to heat your home or to heat your water, and then you wait a second and go okay, I'm really good about turning the computer off when I'm not using it, but I don't. I'm not really good about turning the thermostat down when I leave or overnight. But now I just realized, wow, three quarters of all the energy I use in my home is to heat my home or and water. Okay, when I'm, when I'm not home, I'm turning the thermostat down. So that's a you know, that's a real basic place to start. And then, of course, once you know that you can start building, you know, incrementally, you know, either, on making your home more energy efficient, or I guess that's kind of it, or even some behavior things that you can do to again use, you know, less energy. What are some?
Aaron Pete:energy myths or some common myths that you hear about. The two that just come to my mind is one solar panels. When they had first come out, were very maybe not in the place they needed to be. So some of our community members, as we've started to bring in solar panels, have been like, I hear, they don't really work that well. And then we're like, actually the technology's improved quite a bit and so we're in a different place with solar panels. And then the other one is heat pumps. Heat pumps when they started weren't that popular and we have some people in our community who have early heat pumps and they're like, oh, they don't work that well and they've come so far. So what are some other myths that you've heard?
Carol Suhan:Well, I think there are a lot of myths about solar, but actually I'll just tell you a little story. I was in Seattle and it was the energy manager in the city of Seattle. He said when I retire, I'm going to go into the fake solar panel business. I go what? What are you talking about? Anyway, he was saying like every time someone makes an energy efficiency improvement in their house, so they put in more insulation or they put in better windows and doors, they they automatically get two solar panels so they can put on the roof and show the world what a good job that they're doing, right?
Carol Suhan:Anyway, I just think it's a really, because I think so many people think, oh, solar it's energy efficiency. It's not. It's adding more energy, but it's not energy efficiency. It's not. You know, we can change out the heating system, we can add solar, but if our homes are still leaky, you know you still have cold air, you know, leaking in into your house in the wintertime or your heat, or even summertime when it's really hot, and you can't, you don't even. But if that air is just leaking in and out of your house, that has much less of an influence than if you had just made your home more energy efficient, more airtight in the first place, so yeah, I'm curious because my understanding is that also radon is a concern to so many and so like.
Aaron Pete:It seems like there's this dichotomy between sealing your home and then I've heard about radon, which is like you don't want to seal it too much or you could end up having high amounts of radon. So is that something you've thought about at all?
Carol Suhan:Yeah, it is for sure we really do want people's homes to be as airtight as possible and like literally only have like one and a half air changes per hour, because, like my home anyway, like seven, eight hour air changes per hour like you're heating the outside.
Carol Suhan:But to your point about radon, if you're living in an area with high radon, I mean first of all you can test your home to see how much radon isn't that actually is being emitted into the atmosphere in your home and see how much radon actually is being emitted into the atmosphere in your home and if it's quite high and you want to make energy efficiency improvements, please do that. But there are radon mitigation efforts which you actually get a—again. I'm not the technical person, but they actually put a pipe through your crawl space or your basement and then they pull it up into the environment so it never gets into your home at all, and so that's certainly all of the new construction where you need very airtight homes that are very energy efficient and very inexpensive to operate. They all have. Well, at least in areas that have radon, they all are required to have radon mitigation systems installed.
Aaron Pete:Can you say that again? One and a half air changes per hour. What does that mean?
Carol Suhan:Okay, Sorry, that is a technical measurement that we use, but it's to find out how energy efficient your home is. So energy evaluators will do blower door tests and they literally put on a big fan on your front door and they create enough pressure reverse pressure, that would be the equivalent of 100-kilometer winds at three sides of your house to see how windy your house is or how— and the most efficient homes now are, you know, in that, less than one or one and a half air changes per hour, and homes like my home that was built in the early 1990s. Well, we have made a lot of improvements in our home, but if they hadn't, we'd probably have nine, 10 air changes per hour. Like yeah. So if you think about that, you're heating your home with expensive energy and you're losing all of that heat in your house 10 times in one hour.
Aaron Pete:And so is that the impetus to help people start to take some of these steps, because not only is it good for their wallet, for their expenses, but it's also reducing the pressure on these systems. It sounds like it's reducing the amount of energy we need to pull from the earth, and so is that some of the logic behind trying to become more energy efficient.
Carol Suhan:Yes. So I mean you can talk about the global scale, about climate change and carbon emission reductions, but we also talk about this personal, in our own homes, that if we can make our homes more airtight, add more insulation, maybe change out the heating system, maybe not, but I'll just okay. My own home, um, this would be 15 ish years ago 14 years ago, because my home was built in the 1990s, didn't? We were not required to put any insulation in the crawl space, didn't need need to, it wasn't part of the building code. Well, but yeah, you lose almost half of your energy from your crawl space or your basement and your attic. So if they aren't insulated, well, like you're, just you know your warm air is just seeping out of your house. So in our own case, we insulated the crawl space and we changed out our furnace because, again in 1990-ish or whatever, the furnace was probably 50% efficient. I think the energy evaluator said it was kind of like taking a Hummer, this great big hulking furnace in the corner of our house, but taking a Hummer and driving to the corner store, like, you're going to use a lot of fuel. Anyway, we changed out to an energy-efficient furnace, we insulated the crawl space and together that was, you know. I mean there were rebates as well, like it was, I don't know, $5,000, $6,000. Our gas bill dropped by half and I know it was extraordinary. It was extraordinary and you know, since that time we've done other energy efficiency improvements and since that time we've done other energy efficiency improvements We've added more insulation in our attic, we got a new hot water tank that's on demand, and new windows and doors and again I think we've dropped our consumption again by another half or quarter. So, even though the costs of energy have increased a lot over the last 15 years and they probably still will in the future, our energy bills are less than they were in 2000.
Carol Suhan:So anyway, I just tell that story. That's my own personal story, but I got to feel it, experience it, not only in how much our utility bills dropped but also the comfort of the house, right Like I'm comfortable wearing socks in the wintertime and I don't have cold air blowing in my face when I lay in bed, which was the case before. We changed out the windows, because our bedroom faces the northeast and you get the wind from the north. Anyway, I'm sorry, that's my own personal story, but I guess it's an example, though you know how it can make huge differences, like I'll use the Soyuz Indian Band as an example and I just this community has done some wonderful things, but in 2018, 2017, you know, they just again, folks were just complaining about their high, high utility bills, and they often did have really high utility bills.
Carol Suhan:And so what can we do? I know we had talked a little bit about behavior, but, again, if your house is really leaky, if you've got 10 air changes per hour, it's just going to be, it's going to, it's always going to. Even if you change out your heating system to a more efficient system, it's still going to be really expensive. So the community decided, and we met and we chatted about this a number of times, but we, and then FortisBC, helped support this, but they got energy evaluations done for all the homes that were built before 2010. Right, all the homes that were built before 2010. Right. And then they made a list of you know, this home was in pretty good shape. Oh gee, maybe we can put some more insulation in the attic. Oh my gosh, this home needs everything. It needs new windows and doors, it needs more insulation.
Carol Suhan:And then, of course, they created a priority list of what needed to be done. They applied for funding from Indigenous Services Canada and, of course, fortis had rebates and other funding support. They renovated over the next two years and a half during COVID, but they did this for 162 homes I think it was originally 149, but they actually had a little bit of budget left over if they could do more homes. And it cost other than for themselves to really organize themselves. And you know, and yes, they had to get all the contractors to do more insulation and the windows et cetera. But you know they got all the funding from the combination between ISK and FortisBC to do that and I know the project manager working on that said. You know homes were saving on average. A minimum was like $200 and $300 a year to $3,000, $4,000 a year. So yeah, I think it's one of my favorite projects to talk about.
Aaron Pete:Can we briefly go through? I know we've mentioned quite a few of them, but what does energy efficiency upgrades look like? If somebody's hearing this and they're like I want to take action, I want to start to experience some of these savings. What are those things?
Carol Suhan:I mean you can kind of just say, well, gee, downstairs, there's no insulation. I think we need to get insulation down there. But I really do recommend, if you can get an energy evaluation, because these are the energy evaluators that do the blower door tests, where they create the 100-kilometer-an-hour winds in your house or the outside of your house, and they can really tell you really quickly and easily oh my gosh, you have no insulation in this wall at all, or there's, you know, a big gaping around that fireplace or those windows. There's big gaping holes and the cold air is just coming in. And they'll take pictures, you know, with the infrared camera so you can see where the cold air is coming in. So but anyway, and then they give you a map or a a plan of what you might want to do, and usually the most, if cost the lowest cost first, and then going to the, you know, to make your home gradually over time, because you you might want to do it all at one time, but you may. In my own case we've done it over the last 15 years, you know, one at a time, but almost always it's air sealing first.
Carol Suhan:So if you've got, you know, drafts around your windows or doors. You know, get your caulking gun out, that costs you 15 bucks. That can make a big difference. And then it's insulation and that might cost you maybe a thousand ish dollars but make a huge difference. But by okay, I'm now, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go into, you know, um, fortis and bc, hydro, um, depending on your heating source or if you have wood or propane, because a lot of indigenous communities do have wooden propane heat.
Carol Suhan:Uh, the province is a clean bc program, the three program. We all provide funding support that will probably pay for very close to 100% of insulation investment and similarly anywhere from oh, and we'll pay for close to 100%, depending on where you are, but for the energy evaluation. So that energy evaluation is almost it'll be a very small investment. I think They'll make the recommendations of what you should be doing and then you can do it over time. And again, the utilities, clean BC we provide funding support for all that work along the way, whether it is like insulation, which I tell you is about, we cover about 90% of the cost to heating systems, again around 80%, like dual-fuel heating system, for example, with $15,000 rebate, and so anyway, that's a and you can do that as an individual.
Carol Suhan:And now, of course, I've just talked about these rebates for Indigenous communities specifically, which means you would have to work with your housing department because they would help support you through that process. Whether it's you as an individual, you know, if you are a CP like a homeowner or if you're a renter, are a cp like a homeowner or if you're a renter. But you know, I think you know, we've the housing teams, you know, in communities across bc are really recognizing how important this is and really want to help their community members access and make their homes more comfortable, reduce their utility bills because, if you know, that can be a really high cost for some folks and affordability is so important.
Aaron Pete:That's what we've noticed. We've brought in heat pumps into our community Chulalongkorn First Nation and the biggest thing that we've gotten so much feedback on is now I have a heat bill that went from $300 a month to $75 a month. Now I have that money that can go towards putting my kids in sports, that can go towards me taking online classes, that can go towards putting more food in the home and taking other steps in your life. And for people who, on many reserves, are relying on social assistance, that $200 a month can be a huge difference to somebody being able to start to take steps in their life. And that's been the humbling experience being on council, seeing there's these little um blocks and they all build towards somebody being able to be self-sufficient and and be comfortable.
Aaron Pete:And the challenge on reserve is often that it's not like the homeowner. When I want a home that's not energy efficient, that isn't designed properly, that uh has bad windows, it's that organizations like like Indigenous Services Canada gave an exact amount of money and they needed to build a house with that amount of money, and so they had to make cuts and do things in a more cost-effective way. That resulted in the home not being energy efficient, and so when programs like this come about, there's a lot of opportunity to address these issues, help the homeowner, but I mean the the. The second biggest response we've gotten is air conditioning on reserve, because that's so unusual. Uh, it's such a cost on the individual to buy their own air conditioning system. Then it's in one room, so it's not that uh efficient to get to the whole house, and so that room is cool, but the whole house is boiling. That's heating up that room, and now we have these systems that are going along the side the furnace system to cool the whole house, and I sincerely think that that's an under-recognized piece.
Aaron Pete:Of people flourishing within their homes is when it's hot, it's very hard to do anything, it's very hard to use your brain, it's very hard to want to get motivated to do anything, and so you have these communities. Everybody's got boiling hot homes, and when it's smoky, you've got homes that are filled with smoke as well, and those pieces are starting to allow people to really perform, whether they're in school or whether or not they just went for a long run and now they want to go inside and cool off. You're really letting people kind of perform at their best.
Carol Suhan:Yeah. Well, this is where again I'm going to go back to that dual fuel heating system, because I think it's kind of this perfect combination, because you will get the heating sorry, the cooling in summer, which of course summer is. We are getting some more drastic weather and again it is through the whole home. It's very, it's more comfortable. It also have good air circulation and filtration, although people must make sure that they change their filters out regularly or else you lose your efficiency. But then, of course, on those coldest days, or even if it's just colder period, going into the gas furnace you get that really comfortable heat and it's more affordable. It's less expensive than if you were to try and heat your home um with electricity all winter long, and I know in this part of this part of the world it's not too too bad. But certainly if you get a little bit further north um, gas is much more affordable.
Aaron Pete:Yeah, what are some of the energy efficiency programs fortis is running? Can you walk us through some of the work you're doing?
Carol Suhan:Well, we've got a—boy. We provide funding support for energy efficiency improvements from everything from community buildings so health centers, you know, schools, et cetera to individual homes, and then we have three main areas. So one, individual homes. And again, this program was just launched and I've talked before about how we're working collaboratively with BC Hydro and CleanBC, the Ministry of Energy, and we have integrated all of our programs together to have one access point and have exactly the same funding support for whatever initiative it's got, what community wants to do.
Carol Suhan:Because we know, and I'm sure you've had this experience, housing teams are often overwhelmed and I can't believe the breadth of work that they must do. But you know before you know you'd have to. If you had an electrically heated home, you'd have to apply to BC Hydro for funding support. If you had a gas heated home, you'd apply to FortisBC, which is, you know, just complicated. Now we have one access point and everything is like all the eligibility requirements, everything are combined.
Carol Suhan:We also have coaches, because we also know that, again, as a housing manager, how do you know all of this stuff? How do you like? What amount of work that they have to do is crazy. So we try to help them along the way and you know answer questions and you know connect them with contractors if need be, et cetera. And then, of course, contractors if need be, etc. And then of course, um, you apply for the rebate or the funding support and it comes to you and then we and you know the the two utilities and the problems figured out. You know who pays in the background, so the customer will never know and that's what I was saying before like we're paying in into the 80, 80% on average of different elements, whether it's that insulation or the windows and doors, or the heating systems.
Aaron Pete:I'm very glad to hear that.
Carol Suhan:Yeah, I think we also now will pay for project management, because we know it takes someone's time and effort to pull it all together. And, if need be, we also will pay 50% up front, because not all communities require that but some do. They just don't have the cash flow or the capital to actually start this work. So, with a good plan, we will provide the funding up front and as it moves through, of course, now you've finished working on these three homes, or four homes, or ten homes, whatever it might be you get the rebate and then you can use that rebate to work on the next five homes or so on. So I don't know, we think it's going to be. I think I won't say game changer, but we've worked really closely with we have the Indigenous Program Advisory Council and they have been remarkable. They just provided us some really good advice and information for us to help to build this program and make it work as well as possible. We still have to meet our kind of regulatory requirements, but again, make it work for indigenous communities. And you know, again, someone can, you know, apply to do one home at a time or only one, just insulation on that one home, or you can do you know we now have communities that are planning to do all their homes again that were built prior to 2010 or whatever. You know, just like I mentioned the Soyuz, we've got other communities planning to do that over the next several years and I don't know. I find that incredibly. You know, rewarding that we can help make this happen. Yeah, and then the last program, which I'm also really proud of. You know I'm proud of everything. No, but we again building new homes. You know you're saying before often, you know really tight budgets and how do you get all of this? We are providing up to, well, I guess, sort of $32,000 per home to help make those new homes as energy efficient as possible. So that helps. You know, hire to work with an energy evaluator. They can work with you and help identify what you need to do for your builder or your designer, what needs to be done to make this home really energy efficient. And then, of course, if you do have to put in, you know, more robust windows and doors or more insulation, that extra $20,000 or $15,000 can help pay for that. So okay, and I'll just give one little plug here now help pay for that. So okay, and I'll just give one one little plug here now. But uh, yakanuki and the first nation in in creston, um lower kootenai indian band.
Carol Suhan:This would be again in 2020, 2019, again be pre. See all the things started pre-covid and that no. But we convinced them because they were going to, they were building Section 95 homes low-income household budget for four homes and kind of convinced them to really build to the highest efficiency as possible because they hadn't planned on it. But we helped pay for the consultants to work with them to build that standard home into a really efficient home. Well, they built to step code five and step code is like five, it's like the most. It's incredibly. You could almost heat that home with a hairdryer. I'm exaggerating, but it's really airtight, you know, like one and a half air changes per hour, Really comfortable. So they built four homes in between 20, again because of COVID things but between 2020 and 2022, they finished it. They're so thrilled with those homes they just built.
Carol Suhan:Last year they built four more, Again Section 95.
Carol Suhan:So they're under really tight budget constraints and they're still building these really efficient homes.
Carol Suhan:Constraint budget, budget constraints and you're still building these really efficient homes by careful planning and thought. You know thinking about this very thoughtfully before they start building and so because it costs a lot more to do the renovation afterwards. But if you can actually build it in from the beginning, it doesn't cost that much more. And certainly yakanuki said our rebates help pay for any additional costs that came to build that home from a standard building code to a step code five. That's fantastic, yeah, and they're beautiful homes. By the way, they're not huge homes If I had my camera I could show you photos, but they're beautiful homes and they now have eight families living in these homes, or or some some singles, and everyone is just sort of thrilled with how the homes are operating and their utility bills are like a fraction of other nearby homes which is really important, because I don't know if many people understand that so many first nations homes were never built to any because they don't have to follow the bc building code.
Aaron Pete:That's right, because're on reserve, so they're on federal land, so they don't have to follow that code. So often these homes contractors would come in, build to a subpar standard, save some money and then move on, and so this is kind of the first time for so many that the homes that are being built on reserve are being built not only to code but in some cases actually better than the standard code, which is exciting. And when we talk about reconciliation, these are the types of pieces that really stand out to me that we are moving in the right direction. I had the opportunity to interview David Suzuki and he had, I would say, just a very grim perspective on where we are and where we're going. But then I look at what Fortis is doing and what BC Hydro is doing and what the goals are and what the stated goals are and how they're following through on them, and it just it gives me much more hope, because there's a personal reason for a person to want to do this.
Aaron Pete:So you wake up and you go. Why would I want to be energy efficient? And it's because I will save money. I can put that money towards my family, I can put that money towards improving my own life. But then not only am I doing that, then it's actually going to reduce the amount of energy we're pulling from the earth or the amount of impact we're having on rivers and waterways, because the way BC Hydro has to work, those things are impacted. So we're going to do that in a better way and then we're creating a cleaner planet and we're also making sure vulnerable populations are also having higher quality life.
Aaron Pete:And when I started this, one of my favorite quotes was like try and live your life in a way that's good for you, good for your family, good for your community, and then try and do that in a way that's not good for you just today, but for a year and for 10 years and for seven generations. And when you try and live your life based on that, it really narrows the direction you're going to move in. Because if you're going to do all of those things, it's actually much more challenging than I think people realize and the work that you're doing and that Fortis is doing and other organizations to bring down those energy efficiency costs is a statement on the trajectory. I feel like we're going and I think that's a positive direction.
Carol Suhan:Yeah, I'd like to think so as well, because, I mean again, I have mentioned a couple of times making your home more comfortable. But that is even though we're kind of working on it from the global kind of perspective ultimately at the end of the day for those families it is making their home more comfortable and healthier. I know you mentioned before I mean again, there's all kinds of research that shows that a cold, damp house not only does it really uncomfortable the respiratory issues and health issues. So again, energy efficiency not only will make your home more comfortable and reduce your utility bills but potentially could even improve your health because you'll have a healthier air, you won't have the mold issues, you know et cetera.
Aaron Pete:It's an excellent point because when I started on council in 2022, because when I started on council in 2022, we went into one person's home and they were like my child has severe asthma, is having a lot of health issues I don't want to get it wrong, but it was something like had to have their liver checked out and was having because there was so much mold and mildew in the roof, because that roof was never built properly and it was 40 years old. And so he was like are you guys going to fix this? You're the third person in 20 years to come in and say you're going to fix my home. Are you actually going to fix it? And it's rewarding to have that come to a close, but, to your point, like you'll have health issues and not even realize that the connection between your home and how you're sleeping and and the room you're in and energy yeah, and and how energy is used in your home.
Carol Suhan:Yeah, so I'll do one little extra plug. And again, this is the, the peer partners and indigenous energy efficiency and resilience peer. And just so you know, our, our advisory committee, really they chose that name and they absolutely wanted to have the resilience at the end, because it's not only about energy efficiency, it's about having resilient homes. But I I'm sorry I digress, but PURE, that program also will provide funding, support for health and safety improvements as well, whatever is related to energy efficiency improvements. So, whether it's building envelope, you know if you're having to, you know the home that you just spoke about. You know all of that old insulation would have to be pulled out, the home would have to be cleaned, et cetera, and then we provide funding to do that and then, of course, provide the funding to have that home re-insulated properly.
Aaron Pete:Right, the last question that I have for you is what inspired you to take on this work.
Carol Suhan:Boy, kind of by accident. So I'm not sure if I was so inspired, but I grew up in the North. I live right next near the Beaver I'm not even sure Beaver Indian Band Reserve. We did not have electricity, we did not have running water. It's really cold, and so I think I know, even though I've lived, make the difference in people's lives. I don't know, I can't imagine how fortunate I have been to come into a role that allows me to try and help make some of these problems better. You know, yeah, I just feel so honored.
Aaron Pete:I really love that. How can people learn more and start to take some action? Where would they go?
Carol Suhan:You know, obviously, I mean from an Indigenous community perspective. I would talk to your housing team, talk to your housing manager. I know they may hate me for saying that because it puts more work on their plate. I think most folks, though. Now I mean, like I say, you know, I think every housing manager across British Columbia is so dedicated and passionate and I think most of them probably already know about, you know, the funding, support and the things that need to be done. But again, if they haven't had the capacity to do that, you know anyone listening to this program can say, well, there's a new program and it does help with capacity funding as well. So, yeah, start talking to your housing manager and hopefully, through them, you know, we can help support them.
Carol Suhan:And you know, build, you know a plan, whether it's just for one home at a time, like I can just mention some communities here in the Fraser Valley that can I mention a name? Absolutely. I mean Nancy Murphy from Swally Nation. Like she's just brilliant, but she's literally been doing like two homes at a time for the last five years and like, literally so she keeps it very manageable. But she says, you know, and when I get the rebates from the utilities. I use that money to go and work on the next house, and so, whether it's a small project like that and you just you know, chip at it one home at a time, or, you know, like you know, the community-wide project like I talked about at Soyuz.
Aaron Pete:And for everyday British Columbians? Where would they go?
Carol Suhan:I would say I would recommend well, gosh, you can do anything but go to the website, go to fortisbccom, go under rebates and you can see kind of a pathway and maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, but that's very specifically if you're wanting to make efficiency improvements to your home.
Carol Suhan:But you'll see that there's rebates available there again for you know, any kind of improvements that you're making on your home. You can also go online to my account and they give you some kinds of tips and ideas of how to get started or even if you don't have the budget to work on it, but at least even the things that you can do in your home. Like I didn't know this, but if you have baseboard heating or if you have a bench against a wall, don't put your sofa over those vents or in front of that baseboard heating, because it's meant to be open to actually create circulation in your home. And if you don't and I can use my own example in a previous home you can have frost on the wall behind the sofa because you don't have the proper heat circulating in your house. So anyway, if you go to the FortisBC website you'll get all kinds of information like that we can be just like no cost and make a difference in comfort and your utility bills.
Aaron Pete:Amazing Carol. Thank you so much for being willing to join us today. It's been an absolute privilege to learn so much more from you.
Carol Suhan:Oh well, thank you for the opportunity and I hope well, I hope we have lots of folks listening and they can take advantage of the programs and again make homes better.
Aaron Pete:Beautiful. I am sure they will Thank you.
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