Board Chair Report

We are pleased to welcome Emil Alyev, Andrew Halford, R. Anthony Warner and Namiz Nusafer to our growing Board of Directors which meets monthly to develop programs and strategies to serve our OSEA members.

OSEA is grateful to report the receipt of a generous sponsorship grant from Enbridge, a company that has long supported OSEA. Enbridge has actively been pursuing green energy strategies including through administration of the Canada Greener Homes Grant program, energy from waste, Renewable Natural Gas initiatives and hydrogen energy technology development.

OSEA's membership continues to grow but there are still a large number of newsletter subscribers who have not yet joined or rejoined OSEA officially through paid membership. If you are part of the sustainable energy sector, OSEA is your voice and your ally, and we need you to be become an active member of our team to better serve our vitally important industry. In addition we continue to increase the range of the benefits you can leverage through your investment in OSEA membership. Click here to make a modest investment in your business and become part of OSEA today!

We are following the new important new  programs including the Canadian government Clean Energy Tax Credit announced in the recent federal budget and will share them when they are published.

OSEA is following the many other new funding and financing programs for sustainable energy options including the return of custom retrofit incentives from SaveONenergy.ca and the recently announced Powering Ontario's Growth that will advance new clean energy generation from a number of sources, including solar, hydroelectric and wind..

As Board Chair I attended the following events and promoted OSEA membership and collaboration opportunities:

OSEA was a sponsor for the Green Building Initiative (GBI) Sustainable Building and Decarbonization Symposium on May 15th. The symposium brought new and existing members of the GBI and OSEA communities together to share innovative ideas and learn about new resources to collectively reduce climate impacts by improving the built environment. At the event GBI announced that they are developing a new set of Green Globe Programs for Net Zero Buildings. OSEA has been invited to participate in this development and bring our Canadian perspective to this American led initiative so that the programs will be accepted in both countries. When the drafts of the programs are issued for public review and inputs, I will solicit input from our OSEA members. As a symposium sponsor we received all the presentation slides and can share them with paid OSEA members by contacting me at david@ontario-sea.org. Please join OSEA and be able to contribute to this major project.

OSEA joined the Building Decarbonization Alliance Transition Accelerator  and participated in its the first partner workshop. Decarbonization offers opportunities for sustainable energy solutions so please share your ideas with me so that we can bring them forward as the activities are being developed.

OSEA also promoted and attended the Autonomous Vehicle EV and Charging Expo at the Enercare Centre on May 17^th in order to promote electric vehicles and chargers as an important element of Ontario's sustainable energy sector. We negotiated a special discount code OSEA members - a further example of how we are continuing to making OSEA membership ever more valuable to our members

OSEA also promoted and attended the Retrofit Canada Conference in Montreal June 13-14. Again for this even we were able to negotiate a special OSEA member discount code. As OSEA was a promoter, I can share the link to the presentations with OSEA members. Please join OSEA and contact me if you want to see the presentations.

OSEA is now a supporter of the Smart Grid Innovation Network. I had the opportunity to attend their Ottawa Discussion Roundtable event on June 15th. At this event they reported on where their smart grid activities are progressing and how sustainable energy options should be included. We got to tour the NRC laboratories that are working on battery and energy storage innovations. We also visited the Centre for Housing Research that has developed new ways to lower the time and cost of assessing the energy systems in the buildings in order to facilitate the challenges of retrofitting the many homes and buildings to meet the 2050 NetZero goals. OSEA will contribute to the SGIN work projects and help them get the input from our Ontario members.

OSEA promoted and attended the CanREA Summer Solstice on June 21^st in Toronto and is in discussions with CanREA for new opportunities to collaborate and promote all sustainable energy options. As well I met the new Business Development Manager for QUEST and we are also going to look for collaboration opportunities.

We attended the Centennial Innovates 2023 research symposium. Centennial College's Applied Research and Innovation and Entrepreneurship Services (ARIES)  has emerged as a major research leader in the sustainable energy sector. In addition, or the several few years Centennial College has become a key Green Energy Doors Open (GEDO) partner and sponsor and we are now exploring opportunities to deepen this relationship. 

OSEA participated in the Independent Electricity System Operator IESO Stakeholders meeting to ensure that our sector's voice is heard and seen.

OSEA participated in the Toronto Region and Conservation Authority (TRCA) Partners in Project Green (PPG) events including Financing Retrofit and Net Zero financing and the SaveonEnergy updates that announced the new funding for custom retrofit solutions and higher incentives for certain areas.

The OSEA application to the Natural Resources Canada NRCan Deep Retrofit Accelerator Initiative Program is under review and NRCan has advised us that the awards would be announced this summer. If approved, it would provide OSEA with 100% non-repayable funding to promote deep retrofits. This will provide new source of revenue for OSEA and provide opportunities to all our OSEA members and sponsors that provide deep retrofit solutions to gain new business.

Last but certainly not the least, OSEA  is pleased to report that the Government of Ontario has announced the launch of a Plan to Power Ontario’s Growth. This plan includes the return of renewable energy options and provides a renewed mission for OSEA and value of membership. Sustainable energy production and energy efficiency are now much lower in costs and offer the clean electricity options that is needed to reduce the dependence of the gas plants that the IESO has contracted with for a variety of reasons. These include nuclear refurbishment closures and meeting the reliability criteria for being interconnected with our neighbours. We look forward to more details about this initiative over the coming months.

Please contact us if you are interested in volunteering to become more active in OSEA. Areas of activity that we would like to see more support for include:

• Event Planning & Hosting
• Communications and Outreach
• Information Technology Management
• Membership Recruitment
• Committee Work
• Board of Directors 

Ontario’s sustainable energy community is large, but we need far more like-minded individuals, companies, and organizations to affiliate with us for our voice to be effectively heard, and our sustainable energy sector to prosper. Now is the best time to join OSEA as a member or as a sponsor.

David Katz, MBA, Chair

Ontario Sustainable Energy Association

David@Ontario-SEA.org