Deep Retrofit Challenge

Lead Proponent

City of Toronto

Project Objectives

The objective of this project is to de-risk investment in deep energy retrofits, build market confidence in retrofits, encourage voluntary compliance with existing building policies, and inform future energy codes.

The City of Toronto will facilitate a Challenge to identify and support 10-12 building retrofits that are able to achieve at least a 50% reduction in annual energy consumption. The Challenge aims to include a range of buildings in the multi-unit residential and commercial sectors. The selected building teams will benefit from technical guidance and financial support through the design, construction, and verification phases of the retrofit process.

Each selected building owner will prepare and submit a calibrated pre- and post-retrofit energy model to evaluate retrofit design opportunities. The City of Toronto will oversee the measurement and verification of each building retrofit to verify electricity, natural gas, and greenhouse gas reductions. The building owners and project partners will participate in knowledge dissemination, which will include public reporting of technical design guidance, financial metrics, and energy and greenhouse gas reductions as demonstrated during the retrofit projects.

Expected Results

It is expected that the project will demonstrate replicable, cost-effective pathways for achieving significant energy and greenhouse gas reductions across several different buildings, de-risking future investment for other building owners and building market confidence.

Anticipated environmental benefits:

• reduce total annual energy consumption of each building by at least 50% while achieving a payback period of 20 years or less
• encourage adoption of voluntary energy codes for existing buildings within the City of Toronto
• inform further development of these and similar building codes