Consumers need to be informed about the need for and value of home performance improvements. They need to develop the confidence that they can easily find professional contractors who can do this work at a high level of quality on time and on budget. To this end, a single clear and definitive brand that communicates that carrying out home performance work is a wise decision and is easy and safe to do using recognized quality contractors needs to be developed. This brand must provide a solid value proposition for contractors and must provide quality assurance. This will be a long-term undertaking, but initial steps can be taken in 2018.
With the new federal/provincial Building Energy Retrofit Partnership program along with potential integration with FortisBC and BC Hydro's DSM portfolio, there is an opportunity to help mobilize industry to support programmatically and improve contractor/ consumer program awareness and understanding. Consumer/contactor confusion with program offerings, requirements and administration is an existing issue and there is a risk for this exacerbating with another "new program" in the design pipeline. With the HPSC and Home Energy Coach website/program infrastructure in place, there is an opportunity for utilities to collaborate with industry on an improved design/implementation model to mitigate potential unintended consequences with launching a new rebate-focused program.