Understanding Ontario Energy Efficiency Amendments

The Canadian Institute of Plumbing & Heating (CIPH) recently sponsored a webinar entitled “Understanding the Amendment to Ontario’s Energy Efficiency Regulation.” The presentation featured speakers from the ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (MMAH), and the Ontario Ministry of Energy.
Senka Krsikapa, who is manager, energy efficiency standards, Ontario Ministry of Energy provided an overview of the most recent amendment to Ontario’s energy efficiency regulation, O. Reg. 404/12. Changes in the amendment Reg. 412/15 include four additional products and revisions to 14 existing products.
Products that are of interest to the HVAC industry and that have a rolling incorporation with regulations from a jurisdiction outside Canada include: refrigerated bottled or canned beverage vending machines (compliance date of July 1, 2016); commercial automatic ice makers (compliance date of January 28, 2018); walk in freezers and coolers (compliance date of June 5, 2017); furnace fans (compliance date of July 3, 2019); computer room air conditioners (compliance date of July 1, 2016); room air conditioner, (compliance date of January 1, 2017); and central air conditioner or heat pump <19 kW, liquid-to-air or evaporatively-cooled units (compliance date of July 1, 2016).
HVAC related products that do not have rolling incorporation and instead have new Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS) include: furnaces, gas-fired, input less than 65.92 kW for mobile homes and units with integrated cooling component (compliance date of July 1, 2016); liquid to air geothermal heat pumps (compliance date of January 1, 2018); water chillers (compliance date of January 1, 2017); residential water heater, gas fired tank type not more than 22 kW (compliance date of April 1, 2016); and small and large gas fired commercial boilers (compliance date of January 1, 2017).
The second presenter, Danny Hui, building code advisor, Building  & Development Branch, ON, for MMAH discussed certain provisions of the Building Code – Part 12.
He noted that for current applicable MMAH Supplementary Standard SB-10 Documents, users must have the September 14, 2012 update and for the MMAH Supplementary Standard SB-12 Documents, users must have the September 2, 2014 update, as all others are out of date.
The Supplementary Standard SB-10 contains five divisions that address general application of energy efficiency building design, prescriptive energy efficiency design criteria that also describes limitations on peak electrical demand and annual carbon dioxide emissions. It also contains simplified energy efficiency requirements for the construction of certain Part 9 non-residential buildings that are not using electric space heating.
The Supplementary Standard SB-12 contains three chapters: general; acceptable solutions for achieving energy efficiency compliance for permits applied for before January 1, 2017; and acceptable solutions for achieving energy efficiency compliance for permits applied for after December 31, 2016.