Program Overview

The “BOMA Toronto CDM Program” is a three-year conservation and demand management program launched in spring 2007 that focuses on buildings over 25,000 square feet.  The Program will reduce the City’s electricity demand by 150 MW over 3 years.

The CDM Program will be promoted through BOMA Toronto membership (owners and allies) but does not exclude non-BOMA members. The Program directs funds to eligible participants towards the capital cost of demand-reducing and energy saving initiatives in their buildings.

To be eligible, these retrofit projects must provide sustainable savings in commercial buildings. The incentive money will flow from the Ontario Power Authority. BOMA Toronto’s role is to provide a turn-key package to the OPA that, in addition to providing more electrical capacity headroom for the City of Toronto, will serve as a model Conservation and Demand Management program in urban centres across the province.

The Program strategy is to generate an incremental number of demand and energy-reducing projects that, without a financial incentive, would not normally be undertaken.

The types of initiatives the Program will jumpstart include, but are not limited to:

1. Lighting upgrades and controls 
2. Equipment replacement (e.g. chillers, fans, pumps) 
3. HVAC re-design (e.g. free cooling or ice storage) 
4. Variable Speed Drives 
5. Building envelope 
6. Building Automation Systems 
7. Tenant submetering 
8. Deep lake water cooling 
9. Natural gas-fired generators

The Birth of a CDM Program

In November 2003, in its submission to the OEB DSM Advisory Group, BOMA Toronto made these points:

• Technologies employed should be proven and sustainable; 
• Measurement and Verification must be consistently employed; 
• Competition drives efficient program delivery; 
• Qualified Energy Service Firms will respond to opportunities to deliver DSM; 
• Financial incentives have been proven to spur new capital investments in energy efficiency.

In February 2006, the IESO reported “...an urgent need for new generation in downtown Toronto by summer 2008”.

In response, (then) Energy Minister Donna Cansfield directed the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) to proceed with the Portlands Energy Centre, a natural gas-fired generating plant with this schedule:

330 MW – summer 2008
220 MW – 2009

In addition to these supply-side initiatives, Minister Cansfield directed the OPA to procure an additional 300 MW of conservation to ensure Toronto has a secure source of power.

In September 2006, the OPA and BOMA Toronto signed a memorandum of understanding setting the groundwork for an Agreement formalizing the creation of a CDM Program.