Decarb Lunch Podcast: Avoid Electrical Upgrades

Overview

When it comes to retrofitting a home, replacing a gas furnace or water heater with a heat pump will result in additional electrical load requirements. If adding electrified equipment to an existing electrical panel results in exceeding the existing panel capacity, these retrofits could result in additional costs to a homeowner. But, what if these costs could be avoided/reduced? A B2E article from March 2023 summarized research findings on this very topic. The November Decarb Lunch featured presentations from two speakers on several pilot projects that are optimizing electrical capacity within homes. Thanks to the financial support of BC Hydro and the City of Vancouver, this event was free of charge.

Resource

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Speakers

Frank Crawford, P Eng, Energy Efficiency Consultant

Frank is a Professional Civil Engineer and a Certified Passive House Designer and Tradesperson. He designed, built and now lives in one of the first Alberta homes built to the Passive House Standard. Through his work as an Energy Efficiency Consultant and the Education Committee lead of Passive House Alberta, he helps others learn how to achieve the benefits of building or renovating to a high-performance building standard while minimizing the carbon and capital costs.

Tim Mosley, Sr Program Manager, Innovation and Delivery, BC Hydro

Tim works on the identification and testing of new technologies and services that help customers manage their energy use. He is currently focused on systems products and services that relate to; home automation, AI, live energy usage feedback, voice/smart speakers, EV EMS and service upgrade avoidance strategies, demand response technologies for space and water heating and non-hardware solutions for the development of energy insights and customer engagement. The innovation team supports residential, commercial and industrial customers across all end-use technologies and utility DSM services. The sole intent is to provide better energy management tools for the 4 million customers of BC Hydro.

Hosts

Melissa Williams, Climate Action Advisor, Technical Safety BC 

Gord Durocher, Electrical Senior Safety Officer, Technical Safety BC 

Mariko Michasiw, B2E Program Manager, ZEIC