Future Trends & Technologies in Housing Connections

The Ontario Home Builders Association (OHBA) and Electricity Distributors Association (EDA) met to explore overlapping concerns, means by which to accelerate new housing starts, reduce connection cost, and improve the experience of working with electrical utilities in the process of building new homes. This slide set was one of four presented and discussed by the panel which I participated in. Discussions explored technology, policy, process, and finance. More follow-up will now be undertaken: some great ideas surfaced in the discussion.

1. Future Trends & Technologies in Housing Connections Derek Satnik, P.Eng., LEED® AP [email protected]

2. 2 Top trends in our crystal ball “Attainability” Technology shifts (“smart home” products) Transportation shifts Monitors & meters Independence models Creative business models Tools we could discuss: PV EV charging modelling Batteries/Storage/microgrids Community Net Metering Need for a "sandbox“

3. EVE Park won international recognition as one of the most influential designs globally in 2024! Using EVE Park visuals as an example in the following slides for issues common across the industry…

4. Attainable Housing Models Secondary / Accessory Dwelling Units (SDU/ADUs) Sub-meters / monitors Mostly a municipal issue (zoning / planning challenges, defining lots, building code challenges) LDC infrastructure planning challenges: how to plan ahead for “as of right” connection approvals? Who to charge? When to ask for details? Request: don’t delay approvals for this. Defer. Focus on present designs.

5. Technology Shifts “Building Automation” comes Home Smart thermostats Security cameras Digital door locks Video door bell Smartphone integration Not typically an EDA/LDC issue

6. Transportation Shifts Resizing the role of the car and its fuel: EVs Car-share Lyft/Uber Cars as a service LDC issue: consider how this gets modelled. Tech changing faster than policy.

7. Connecting EV chargers: science v. policy -Each plot represents 820,000 datapoints from Nov 2022 to May 2024. Each bin is 100W. -Sum of the major circuits monitored shown on plots 50A Load for 1hr/yr 23A Load for 87hrs/yr 3.8A Load for 50% of the year!

8. Creative Business Models From “affordability” to “attainability” Solar power production Community scale battery Micro-grids

9. Community Net Metering O. Reg. 679/21 Sct. 3.(1)(a) defines acceptable projects: only one listed is W5, Sifton, London Hydro Connection process was managed by HONI: took >1yr Builder’s experience? “They’re making us use the same process as a nuclear plant.” Paving new territory where there was no established process. Slow/difficult for all involved. 1MW/2MWh BESS

10. Peak Shaving / DCM / DSM Builders have no idea what this means, or why they should care. It sounds and feels like an extra process that implies extra cost and delay. It’s a blank page for a blank topic…

11. Barriers to Innovation: Process over People Ultra-low overnight becomes ultra-high peak? Why? (OSPE upset about this) Processes without clear purpose (eg: SPA, zoning conflicts with infrastructure engineering, CNM administrivia) Silver tsunami (boomers retiring: less exp gaining more authority, default to what they know, strained for time to invest in developing new processes) Risk fearmonger at the City: overly conservative re-re-redundant administrivia. Are LDCs any different? (provincial culture of “never a letter less than what the Minister says, nor a letter more…”) OEB figuring out how to let London Hydro actually do Community Net Metering TSSA: learning what a parking tower is Storage & micro-grids, EV integration… anything new is, well, new! (?!?) (Need innovation sandboxes where we can study: builders fear delay) Mother test: if my/your mother can’t understand what you’re explaining…

12. 12 Derek Satnik | [email protected] Derek Satnik, [email protected], www.evepark.ca Thank you!