Canadian homes and businesses must start generating their own power with solar panels and battery storage—essentially moving part of their power generation off the grid—to help the country hit a 2050 net-zero target, suggests an authority on energy efficiency solutions.
“What we need is a new model: homeowners and businesses need to be incentivized to generate their own electricity,” writes David O’Reilly, vice-president, home and commercial solutions, at Schneider Electric Canada, in an op-ed for The Globe and Mail. “When homes and buildings are turned into producers of electricity, instead of simply consumers, they become “prosumers”—things that are both consumers and producers.”
That’s the best way for Canadians to help ease electricity demand, which is expected to double by mid-century due to electric vehicle uptake, a decarbonizing economy, and a growing population, O’Reilly says.
Get the rest of O'Reilly's thinking here.