Grant: Canada First Research Excellence Fund

Communities around the world have declared climate emergencies and urgently require innovative solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build resiliency. Canada and other Paris Agreement signatories have already committed to making significant reductions by 2030, with many (including Canada) hoping to hit net zero emissions by 2050. However, the International Energy Agency notes meeting these objectives "will require nothing short of the complete transformation of the global energy system." Advancing energy transitions in Canada, with applicability to other nations around the world, presents a unique opportunity to leverage the research strengths of Canadian postsecondary institutions and achieve global success in areas with immediate relevance to the most pressing problem facing the world today. The proposed Accelerating Community Energy Transformation (ACET) initiative will support sub-metropolitan sized municipalities, including remote and Indigenous communities, seeking breakthroughs in implementing their energy transition, including capitalizing on coastal marine renewable resources and non-electric energy vectors. ACET's interdisciplinary systems approach strategically incorporates expertise from engineering, geography, law, political science, Indigenous governance, public administration, business, economics and environmental studies. Universities of Victoria (UVic) and British Columbia (UBC), Royal Roads University (RRU), Yukon University (Yukon U), and the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR) researchers are world leaders in these disciplines as applied to energy solutions. They are uniquely positioned to assist communities in charting paths to energy resilience and sustainability, based on integration of technological innovation, community engagement, policy development, business innovation and Indigenous research. ACET will pursue breakthroughs in renewable energy technologies and their implementation at the community level by engaging new, interdisciplinary perspectives and scientific approaches, informed by novel business models and governance approaches, driven by community-engaged priorities and aspirations. Community-level ACET outputs will be translated and scaled to national global decarbonization efforts, informed by bottom-up community energy transition insights.