Grant: Applied Research and Development Grants - Level 1

Holland College's Heritage Retrofit Carpentry (HRC) program has a history of working with industry and government partners to test innovative ideas and provide real life projects for students. The government of Prince Edward Island has made a very ambitious commitment to reach net zero energy by 2030 and to do so, will require innovative ideas and new technologies be deployed to help reduce the overall energy consumption by Island residents. Greenfoot Energy Solutions (GES) is a company whose primary focus is to advance the energy efficiency sector in Atlantic Canada and does so by providing unbiased energy efficiency advice, and an entire range of retrofit upgrades. GES has identified a market opportunity in Atlantic Canada to retrofit older homes that were built on sandstone foundations. Holland College will develop a series of three new treatments for insulating sandstone foundations and test those treatments in both the lab and real-world settings against a method that is used in practice but never validated. The new processes for insulating sandstone foundations will then be applied by GES moving forward for all future sandstone foundation insulation projects. Efficiency PEI, a department within the Prince Edward Island government that is focused on leading change on PEI by making it easier and affordable to adopt new lifestyle changes in efforts to reduce energy consumption and lead PEI on the path to Net Zero Energy will also partner on this project.