Welcome to the collaborative Wiki of

TowerPower Toronto

EVERYONE is welcome!

TowerPower Toronto's Next Meeting

Thursday, April 14, 2011 - 7:30pm

WHERE: Windward Co-operative (Ground floor Meeting Room)

34 Little Norway Crescent  (SW of Bathurst and Queens Quay West)

TOPIC::   Geothermal Game-Changer 

Councillor Adam Vaughan’s presentation will focus on the geothermal project at Ryerson Public School and its potential to serve Scadding Court Community Centre, a re-developed Alexandra Park and parts of Kensington Market. 

This promising pilot project may show the way for other geothermal initiatives in other parts of the city.

Our Previous Meeting

Tuesday, February 8th, 2011

Powering Your Bottom Line:                                     

New Incentives for Energy Retrofits in Residential Towers, 2011 to 2014 

Toronto Hydro’s Bill Scott spoke to condo owners, co-op residents and building managers about a new suite of conservation retrofit programs and financial incentives.

Bill Scott is Toronto Hydro’s CDM Technical Sales Executive (CDM = Conservation & Demand Management).

The Presentation helped us appreciate the opportunities that will be included in Toronto Hydro's new financial incentives for multi-unit residential towers to take conservation to the next level. The financial incentives will encourage and support the implementation of energy efficient projects. Toronto Hydro’s new suite of conservation programs will be announced in the next few weeks, so Bill's presentation could not supply all the details that will soon be finalized and announced in the launch.

As with all subsidy programs, it is best to be one of the first applicants!

Bill Scott's presentation is downloadable here:  Toronto Hydro_New Conservation Incentives_feb 2011.PDF

For more info, visit  www.torontohydro.com/business

Our Previous Meeting

Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010

Guest Speaker:

Our main presenter was Rod Layman, who described the GREEN PHOENIX project he has stick-handled for the last several years. This extraordinary project retrofitted Phoenix Place, a church-owned apartment building in Parkdale.  The retrofit included adding exterior insulation, solar panels to a south-facing wall, and geothermal heating and cooling. Other features include high performance windows, gas boilers, new fresh air intakes and a building automation system to coordinate all these new features. Rod described the benefits and costs of each of these improvements. 

A recently completed case study of the GREEN PHOENIX project is downloadable hereGreenPhoenix_CaseStudy.pdf . The Case Study was commissioned by the City of Toronto's Tower Renewal Project. (More info on the latter can be found at www.towerrenewal.ca  or in our folder here: Tower Renewal Program)  And you can learn more about the GREEN PHOENIX project by visiting www.greenphoenix.ca

In addition, the meeting provided an opportunity for those in attendance to ask questions or to tell us the latest news of the green projects currently underway in their buildings.

Finally,  we introduced our new Wiki website where many of the best presentations at past Tower Power Toronto meetings are now stored, for anyone to read and share with others. With seminars on how to add solar water heating or solar electricity systems or implement recycling or energy conservation programs, this will become an important resource for green committees in condos and co-ops across the city in the months and years to come.

PREVIOUS PRESENTATIONS at TPT meetings

These presentations by guest speakers are downloadable (as Word docs, PDFs, or PowerPoint presentations):

Toronto Hydro_New Conservation Incentives_feb 2011.PDF

Green Roof_Hugh Garner Co-op_March 10.pdf

Incentives for Energy Efficiency_finn.pdf

Incentives for Energy Efficiency_finn_2pg summary.doc

Green Initiatives_RivieraCondos_madill_March 10.pdf

Solar Electric Systems_bartels_Jan13,2010.doc

Solar Electric Systems_bartels_PowerPoint presentation_Jan 13,2010.ppt

Solar Water Heating Windward.doc

Windward 2 page Update Nov08.doc

WINDWARD CO-OP Nov 9 09.pd

Green Phoenix_CaseStudy.pdf

MINUTES

The minutes from most TPT Meetings are available in this folder here on our site:  TPT Meeting Minutes

We've started this Wiki to:

• preserve information we've gathered at our meetings, and make it accessible on an ongoing basis
• encourage collaboration and idea-sharing between meetings, and if you have to miss a meeting
• give you practical information & presentations to help you interest your building's board in energy conservation and green energy production
• encourage new initiatives and participation in the leadership of TowerPower Toronto and the planning and promotion of future meetings
• provide links to related green-energy organizations, suppliers, funders, and government agencies
• other uses we're waiting for you to suggest!

Please create new online PAGES or FILES or FOLDERS, or add to existing items, or suggest changes as we work together or individually on BQNA projects and issues. We can also store uploaded documents (in formats such as pdf, Word, Excel, jpg, etc) that Wiki members can download for viewing and keeping.

For HELP, click on the Help tab in the upper right corner, or on the PbWiki Support Center link to the right, it has many 30-second training videos on specific tasks, and  there's also a more detailed Webinar.

EXPLORE the site using the NAVIGATOR window to the right, which lists the FOLDERS. Inside the folders are documents of various types: 

• live pages which can be commented upon (at the bottom of the page)

• documents which you can only view once you've downloaded them to your computer: PDFs, Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, etc.

You can choose to receive email notifications every time the Wiki is updated. We recommend against it, you'll find yourself receiving too many notifications; instead, we recommend you simply log in regularly (say, once a week) to review updates. Click on Settings tab at the top of this page, and then look at the Access Controls to view your options. To review changes & updates to the site, consult the RECENT ACTIVITY box on the lower right hand corner of the Home Page, where changes are listed chronologically, most recent ones at the top.

TowerPower Toronto's Story So Far

When 50 people from multi-unit residential buildings attended a late September 2006 meeting at the Harbourfront Community Centre, it confirmed that there is great interest among many people in seeing solar water heating and solar electricity-generating projects sprout on the rooftops of downtown condominiums and cooperative housing buildings.  More than 50% of Toronto residents live in multi-unit buildings, yet there are financial and other challenges that make it difficult to establish solar energy projects on their rooftops.

Since that time, the TowerPower Toronto, an all-volunteer working group, has brought together representatives of corporations, government, not-for-profit organizations and interested residents in order to catalyze discussion around rooftop solar for condo and co-op residences.  Several of the co-ops and condos that are members of the TowerPower Toronto are working on their own energy conservation and renewable energy projects. 

At our bi-monthly meetings, participating co-ops and condos report on the progress they have made on their projects, sharing the challenges and opportunities and building on the experiences of each other.   Each meeting also includes brief presentations from renewable energy equipment vendors, condo or coop federations, or granting agencies, when they explain what they do and how they can benefit the coop and condo boards and residents.  

Tower Power Toronto pays particular attention to the various government incentives that are available to multi-unit co-ops and condos. Please see our public website  http://www.ourpower.ca/wiki/ for a summary of some of the government incentives that are available. We'll be adding that info to the Wiki over time.   As attendance at our bi-monthly meetings has grown steadily over the last 2 years, we are looking forward to another productive year, Please join us and encourage any friends and colleagues who might be interested.  

CO-CHAIRS

Tim Grant, (416) 960-1244, tim@greenteacher.com

David Booz, (416) 806-2669, dbooz@boozengineering.com  

You now