Newmarket Energy Efficiency Retrofit (NEER) Business Implementation Plan

The Town of Newmarket is planning to launch Newmarket Energy Efficiency Retrofit (NEER), a financing program that aims to deep retrofit 80% of existing homes in the town by 2041. This is a sizeable goal given that Newmarket’s housing stock comprises approximately 29,000 homes and 85% of these are single-family dwellings. The town will create a municipal service corporation to manage the program’s day-to-day operations. It will use the Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) repayment model, which sets up a loan agreement between the homeowner and the municipality. Loan repayments are made through a special local improvement charge added to homeowners’ property tax bills. Newmarket has already completed a detailed business case outlining the NEER program’s design, scope and impact. The business implementation study will take the next steps of developing an engagement plan and creating a business plan for the municipal service corporation that will act as the program administrator. This will be key for examining and validating some of the assumptions made in the original business case, to mitigate risks with program implementation. Environmental benefits: · The program is expected to reduce energy consumption by 54,784 GJ/year and greenhouse gas emissions by 2,973 tCO2e/year · The program is targeting a 20% improvement in water efficiency for each participating home Social and economic benefits: · Participating homeowners are expected to see reduced energy costs from a combination of lower maintenance costs and improved energy efficiency · The program will increase the volume of work for local contractors and reduce their operating costs by removing the need for marketing and promotion · At full scale-up the program is expected to produce dividends for the town Innovative aspect(s): Using a standardized approach to deep-retrofitting homes could significantly reduce the average cost of retrofitting each home, delivering significant performance improvements to the existing PACE model in Canada. Replicability: · The program team has already collaborated with other municipalities in the region to share ideas around PACE program administration and improving customer experience · The project working team includes a representative from Enbridge Gas, who will be able to share lessons learned with the dozens of municipalities within the company’s service area (Project description from original funding application)