BCSEA Webinar - Where Do You Turn When You Need to Find Policy on Community Energy?

This webinar presents a research project under the Accelerating Community Energy Transformation (ACET) initiative that’s tackling exactly this question. Policies and supports for community energy are vital to accelerating decentralized energy transitions, but they vary widely across jurisdictions due to differing regulatory frameworks, governance structures, and resource endowments, often leaving communities unsure how to identify or use them in practice.

To address this barrier, the Pan-Canadian Analysis of Community Energy Policy project is mapping federal, provincial, and territorial policies, strategies, and programs that support community energy decarbonization and resilience. The project examines who these policies are written by and for, what they’re designed to achieve, and where their geographic focus lies. Early findings show barriers to accessing this information, including inconsistent terminology, fragmented sources across jurisdictions, and the influence of private utilities on transparency, making it harder for communities to pinpoint relevant regulations and funding. This session shares findings from British Columbia and beyond, discusses these access barriers, and explores ways to accelerate community energy from a policy perspective.

Webinar participants will have the chance to share their own experiences navigating community energy policy and contribute ideas on how these findings could help accelerate community energy transformation across Canada.