1. Introduction

1.1 Background

This Foundation Report prepares the groundwork for the Energy Efficiency Working Group (EEWG)'s deliberations by providing facts and conclusions about trends, institutions, barriers and opportunities. The report is intended to serve as a knowledge base for the further work of the EEWG, which includes research papers on specific topics and a final report. The intended audience includes specialist and generalists. However it is assumed that readers have some background in energy policy and analysis.

The EEWG intends to explore the role of government actions to improve the productivity of energy use in the medium to longer term. Accordingly, the Foundation Report focuses on what a sustainable energy efficiency framework would look like, as opposed to providing immediate budget or program recommendations.

1.2 Objectives

The objectives of this study are:

• To enhance the policy community's understanding of energy use and energy efficiency (EE)
• To describe and assess recent EE trends
• To present the range of potential estimates for national energy-use reductions from cost-effective EE
• To set the stage for the remainder of the EEWG's work.

1.3 Approach

In order to meet the objectives, the project team undertook the following activities:

• Preparation of an outline with annotations
• A survey of Canadian statistics and reports on energy use and historic and potential EE
• A compilation of information about agencies and organizations with EE mandates
• Analysis of data and issues
• Discussion of potential directions for further work.

1.4 Organization of this report

The report is organized as follows:

• Section 2 defines some basic terms and discusses the implications of alternative ways of measuring them
• Section 3 discusses contextual issues
• Section 4 provides a summary of recent trends in energy use, and their key drivers. Trends in energy use are decomposed into different effects, including energy efficiency
• Section 5 identifies the key institutions, and representative others with energy efficiency responsibilities
• Section 6 summarizes research in Canada on the energy efficiency "resource" - its scale and sources
• Section 7 identifies and discusses barriers to development of energy efficiency, i.e. the reasons why seemingly cost-effective opportunities are foregone
• Section 8 summarizes the lessons learned and speculates about some further conclusions
• Section 9 draws together the EEWG's work to date, provides initial thoughts on the overall policy orientation, and defines the EEWG's next steps.