These are resources for any individual or group wanting to make progress with energy conservation measures or renewable energy production for
Multi-Unit Residence Buildings (MURBs).
If you don’t see answers to the questions or problems you have, please let us know and we’ll get to work adding them.
This wiki is a work in progress and will be made better with YOUR input. Let us know how we’re doing, or better yet, join in the effort!
Edit1. Introduction to Renewables for MURBs
Tower Power Toronto IntroductionEdit2. Technical info for medium scale projects
Edit3. Energy Efficiency Opportunities
Edit4. How to move a Board and General Membership Forward
Edit5. Legal issues for each building style: condos, federal co-ops, city co-ops (formerly provincial), commercial apartment buildings
Edit6. Funding sources and incentives available for MURBs
Edit7. Meeting minutes from previous meetings
Edit8. Summaries of presentations by expert speakers
Edit9. Pages for buildings doing projects with progress diaries
Edit10. Links to online resources & downloadable documents
EditNext Meeting
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Windward Co-op, Waterview Room, 34 Little Norway Crescent, (1 block west and 1 block south of Bathurst and Queens Quay).
The last meeting of Tower Power Toronto featured a presentation from Windward Co-op on their recently installed solar hot water system. The presentation included a visual tour of all the components of the system and information on the equipment installed. They also lead us through a chronology of the project and an extensive discussion of why they did it and how they made the project happen. It was a very illuminating presentation and discussion.
Befitting Tower Power Toronto's new purpose, the rest of the meeting was dedicated to aiding those in other buildings to move forward their own renewable energy and/or energy efficiency projects. Representatives of five buildings spoke about their own projects, what challenges and opportunities they are facing, and what they need to move forward with these projects.
We are continuing to solicit input on the direction of the Tower Power project. Our goal is to develop a library of tools that will be useful for a wide range of multi-unit residential buildings and locate them on the Tower Power wiki, hosted on the OurPower.ca web site. We encourage all condos and co-ops to share what they have learned and pose questions for the group using this easy to use interactive tool.
Our next Tower Power Toronto meeting on January 13th will feature a presentation by Dennis Bartels, of Next Generation Alternatives, a Toronto non-profit that helps condos add solar electricity panels to their rooftops. Dennis will provide details and advice about everything you need to know about how these systems work, their costs and benefits, and how best to approach the board of your co-op or condo. Now that the province will pay up to 80 cents a kilowatt for solar electricity that small producers feed into the electrical grid, producers can now earn a healthy return on their investment - besides improving our environment.
Dennis' presentation at our January 13th meeting provides a perfect opportunity for the board members of your building to get all the information they need in order to fully consider solar electricity as a project for their building.
We hope you can join us. The meeting will start at 7:30pm on Wednesday, January 13th in the Waterside Room at Windward Co-op at 34 Little Norway Crescent, 1 block west and south of Bathurst and Queen's Quay.
Looking ahead, our March meeting will focus on the greening initiatives of various co-ops and condos. Representatives of green committees from several buildings will share their successes and challenges.
Questions? Please don't hesitate to contact either of the Project co-chairs below.
Tim Grant, (416) 960-1244, tim@greenteacher.com
David Booz, (416) 806-2669, dbooz@boozengineering.com