Digital Home Energy Labels

Residential buildings are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions across Canada. Approximately 30% of emissions in Calgary, and 20% in Edmonton, come from residential homes.

Home energy labelling is the practice of providing homeowners with a simple indication of the energy efficiency of their home. The most well-known program in Canada is the federally-supported EnerGuide.

By helping homeowners to better understand the energy efficiency of their current or potential homes, energy labels can create a better-informed residential housing market that values energy efficiency.

Digital energy labels are the next innovation in this field, as they can drive universal participation in home energy labeling while concurrently providing market-wide access to the labels to allow for comparisons between homes. Investment in and testing of new technologies is essential to the development of effective, accessible tools that will accelerate the home energy revolution and ultimately reduce community emissions.

About Lightspark Engage Pilot

A recent pilot project led by the Alberta Ecotrust Foundation and funded by the Alberta Real Estate Foundation demonstrated the potential of digital home energy labels. Using Lightspark's technology, the project predicted the energy use of all single-family homes in Edmonton and Calgary, providing a market-accessible digital energy label for display on a map.

The outcomes were promising, with 500 REALTORS and 41,000 homeowners engaging with the platform, resulting in over 84,996 digital home energy labels being viewed over just a three month period. The platform's self-audit feature allowed homeowners to input their home's characteristics, improving the accuracy of predictive measures and providing personalized retrofit recommendations.

Find Out More

The key outcomes, challenges and recommendations for municipal policy makers and decision makers when contemplating a digital home energy labeling system, have been summarized in this policy report.

A complementary report by Lightspark with more technical details on the Lightspark Engage Product Launch in Calgary and Edmonton is also available.

Check out our blog post Transforming Energy Efficiency: The Case for Digital Home Energy Labels to learn more.