Opportunities and challenges in energy demand reduction for Canadian residential sector: A review

Developing energy independent and sustainable communities has gained a high level of global interest in recent times. The Federal Sustainable Development Strategy for Canada (FSDS) has defined the addressing of climate change and the shrinking of the environmental footprint as priority themes in its sustainable development approach. In the pursuit of planning net-zero to net-positive community energy systems, reducing the energy demand of the residential buildings is the first priority, particularly as the residential sector accounts for 17% of the secondary energy use in Canada. Various technical, behavioural, and policy level interventions are available for reducing residential energy consumption. In this review, demand reduction interventions have been categorised as efficiency, saving and conservation measures. The benefits, limitations and challenges present in adopting those strategies are discussed for various regions in Canada. Even though there is an advanced level of knowledge available on energy demand reduction, the scattered information needs to be brought together to develop a combined and inclusive approach for residential demand management. Collected knowledge will inform decision makers engaged in the design of residential buildings and planning of sustainable communities to identify the interventions which can be implemented in a given locality. This review aims to address the above gaps through a comprehensive review on potential energy demand reduction methods, especially for Canada. The implications of the findings to Canadian residential energy sector as a whole are discussed in the final part of the review.