Environmental Programs and Services Available to Food Companies

A valuable array of programs is available to food companies who wish to cut energy expenses, lower production costs and contribute to a cleaner environment. Some of the following services offer financial incentives to become more energy efficient. Others provide access to innovative strategies and renewable energy businesses. All are useful tools for any food company wishing to remain competitive in today's business climate.

Sewer Use Rebate Programs

What is it?

In Ontario about 95% of all food and beverage manufacturing establishments are connected to municipal water and sewer services. Water and sewer infrastructure is costly and many municipalities are eager to help their industrial users make wise and better use of these services. For this reason, they have instituted sewer use rebate programs.

Municipalities calculate ratepayers' sewer charges as a percent of water intake or consumption. Sometimes industrial users discharge significantly less water to the sewer than they consume, and are therefore eligible for sewer use rebates. Some food processors have been known to use these rebates to finance even greater water efficiency projects.

Since 1998, audits of more than 250 different food processors in the Greater Toronto Area showed that water-efficient processors discharge between 30% and 70% of their water to sewer. In 2003, the majority of food processors still had return-to-sewer factors in excess of 95% of water use.

For Example….

Here's a hypothetical example.

If a company's wastewater charge is $1.00 per cubic meter and its daily sewer use is calculated at 100 cubic metres, its wastewater volume charge would be:
$1.00/ cubic m. (wastewater charge) X 100 cubic m. (sewer use) = $100 per day in wastewater volume charge.
If, however, there were a difference of 20% between water intake and sewer discharge, (100 x 20%), the sewer rebate would be calculated as $100 X 20%, or $20 a day. This equals $5,000 a year.

The conclusion: sewer use rebates are a cost avoidance measure. It pays to pursue the rate change.

How to apply?

There are several steps common to all sewer use rebate programs in the province.

• Contact your municipal water/sewer utility and ask to speak to the expert on conservation. Ask them about retroactive rebates.
• Document your water intake and output, and have it verified and signed by an engineer.

Natural Resources Canada Programs for Energy Efficiency

Natural Resources Canada has a family of programs that include:

Energy Innovation Programs

The Energy Innovator Program, part of CIPEC, (Canadian Industry Program for Energy Conservation), is a stepping stone to funding, information sharing and cost-cutting strategies that will help increase your competitiveness. The latest development is the CIPEC Leaders Network, a joint industry-government program. If you become a CIPEC Leader, you gain access to a number of beneficial programs:

• access to the ecoENERGY Retrofit incentive for the implementation of energy-saving projects at small- and medium-sized industrial facilities
• eligibility for an ecoENERGY assessment incentive for process integration studies
• discounts to attend NRCan's Dollars to $ense energy management workshops
• access to NRCan's industry officers to help you find what you are looking for, whether it is information on energy-related incentive programs, support for research and development, technical guidebooks or case studies
• access to on-site customized workshops
• recognition as a corporate leader, including a feature story in the Heads Up CIPEC newsletter, should you want to publicize your energy efficiency success stories

Becoming a CIPEC Leader is simple. You sign a voluntary participation statement that indicates your company's commitment to making energy efficiency a priority. By so doing, you make a public commitment to establish energy efficiency targets, quantify base-year energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and report annually on energy-efficient measures implemented and results achieved by your company. A template is available from Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) to help you prepare your report.

Today, more than 1,000 facilities from a wide range of industrial sectors have registered their commitment to energy-saving improvements with CIPEC. Energy managers from the food industry meet on a quarterly basis. Presentations from experts help food industry managers develop innovate and efficient practices for their companies.

For more information contact: cipec.peeic@nrcan.gc.ca, or visit the CIPEC website. (http://www.oee.nrcan.gc.ca/industrial/cipec.cfm?attr=0)

The Ontario Wind Resource Atlas

The Ontario Wind Resource Atlas (www.ontariowindatlas.ca) is a prospecting tool that can be used to approximate wind resources in any given region in the province. It allows users to view colour-coded maps of Ontario for any one-square kilometer in the province. The maps illustrate Ontario's wind energy potential and will help identify promising sites for future wind energy development. As professional assessment of wind resources and technical feasibility is recommended before proceeding with wind turbine installations, this Atlas can be of great practical value.

Data in this atlas is based on Environment Canada figures to produce day versus night and year-by-year variability data.

RETScreen International Clean Energy Project Analysis Software

The Canadian Dam Association has developed a free, clean energy analysis software package called RETScreen*, considered the international standard for clean energy project analysis.

RETScreen is a unique decision-support tool developed with the contribution of numerous experts from government, industry and academia. The software can be used world-wide to evaluate the energy production, life-cycle costs and greenhouse gas emission reductions for various types of energy-efficient and renewable energy technologies (RETs). The software also includes product, cost and weather databases; and a detailed online user manual.

Agriculture and agri-food industries will find the tool useful for assessing environmental emissions and costs implications for biomass energy assessment, energy efficiency actions and co-generation opportunities.

This free software can be accessed from the Canadian Dam Association website. (www.cda.ca/cda/main/RETScreen.php)

The Source for Renewable Energy

The Source for Renewable Energy (www.energy.sourceguides.com/) is a comprehensive, online buyer's guide and business directory to more than 10,000 renewable energy businesses and organizations worldwide. It is a good source of supplier and equipment information for food and beverage companies that are actively seeking renewable energy equipment.

The searchable directory provides listings of businesses by location, product type, business type or business name. Renewable energy related businesses are constantly being added, and if yours is such a business, you can use an online form to be included in the directory.

The Clean Energy Portal

The Clean Energy Portal (www.cleanenergy.gc.ca/index_e.asp) is a web-based tool to find contact information on Canada's environmental energy sector and access up-to-date details on international climate change initiatives.

The website contains:

• information on 1,000 Canadian clean energy firms
• information on financing resources for clean energy projects
• information on key technologies and government resources that are central to clean energy and climate change
• research on Canadian and international climate change initiatives.
  

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