December 10, 2010
Dear Ms. Baird:
Thank you for your email of October 1, 2010, regarding feed in tariffs (FITs) for small scale solar photo voltaic (PV) systems. I apologize for the delay in responding.
Congratulations on being the first home in North America to receive Petal Recognition for achieving four of the six stringent Petals under the Living Building Challenge. Your Eco-Sense home in Victoria is an outstanding achievement and I am pleased your family’s climate action efforts have been recognized internationally. By redesigning your energy requirements and educating the community you not only support our provincial climate action goals, but demonstrate to others that real change is possible.
The Province of British Columbia is committed, under the Climate Action Plan, to a comprehensive range of initiatives to reach our legislated emissions reduction target. As the first ever Minister of State for Climate Action, I am encouraged to see families like yours taking positive steps to address climate change. Your family is setting a standard to which I hope other British Columbians will aspire. Together with efforts such as yours, we will mitigate the effects of climate change and maintain a strong, resilient province while addressing the global challenge.
The Ministry of Energy is responsible for energy conservation incentives and promoting renewable energy such as the small scale solar PV system you have installed in your home. I have shared your email with my colleague the Honourable Steve Thomson for his review and consideration.
Thank you again for apprising me of your community work on climate action and one again, congratulations on your achievements.
Yours truly,
“Original Signed By”
John Yap
Minister of State for Climate Action
cc: Honourable Steve Thomson, Minister of Energy
From: Ann Baird
Sent: October-01-10 7:43 AM
To: Yap.MLA, John
Subject: FIT’s for Solar PV – The Greenest House
As an early adopter of BC’s net metering program and A NET SUPPLIER to BC Hydro on an annual basis, we feel it is essential for the BC government to implement FIT’s for small scale solar PV.
Our family is doing what everyone is talking about with energy conservation, net metering, and utilization of sustainable energies. We have coupled this with an enormous amount of positive inspirational education with thousands of tours of our home and hundreds of different media events both locally and globally.
Our home is “The greenest home ever rated on the greenest building program EVER…GLOBALLY”. The “Living Building Challenge” plans an international media announcement in early October rating the first three projects under this green building program.
The Living Building Challenge was initiated by the Cascadia chapter of the US and Canadian Green Building Council and has gone global with the International Living Building Institute with over 70 projects now registered globally…and the first one audited under this program was right here in Victoria, British Columbia. Our local MLA John Horgan is very aware of our home, has visited numerous times, and spoke about our home in the Legislative assembly.
We have written extensively of the barriers that we encountered with implementing sustainable energy technologies. These include HST, property taxes paid on future energy production, challenges of the net metering program, CSA, etc. Full report available by request. We also consulted with the BCSEA for the Barriers project.
The Eco-Sense home is a recent recipient of a Vancity grant for a year long engineering study of the full energy systems of the home. (Solar PV, combination solar Thermal for heating, mass wall systems).
Net metering with sustainable energy technologies, and in particular small scale solar PV, is an essential part of the many solutions that must be incentivized if we as a province are to move forward and lead the way towards a resilient, prosperous future in British Columbia.
Best Regards,
Ann Baird, BSc
The Living Building Challenge
Eco-Sense 
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