December 12, 2016

Introducing CEKAP: The Community Energy Knowledge and Action Partnership

On November 23rd, the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) hosted the kick-off meeting for the Community Energy Knowledge and Action Partnership (CEKAP). About 35 individuals representing 21 organizations attended at the meeting in Toronto. There were also dozens of representatives from Vancouver and Halifax that attended the meeting via teleconference.

About the Partnership

The OCC Secretariat coordinated the development of a successful Partnership Development Grant application with the University of Guelph. The partnership developed through this grant will delve deeper into the challenges and opportunities associated with taking an integrated approach to energy and land use planning at the local and regional scale.

CEKAP brings together five universities and practitioners from seven leading municipalities in the community energy field from across Canada. It is being led by Kirby Calvert at the University of Guelph and Ian McVey at the Ontario Climate Consortium and supported by a team of Canada’s leading sustainable energy policy researchers. Complementing the core group of researchers and practitioners are civil society organizations like QUEST Canada and ICLEI Canada, as well as governance partners including the IESO and the Ontario Ministry of Energy. Together, our goal is to leverage techniques in community-based research and community engaged scholarship in order to improve the design and delivery of community energy plans across Canada.

To learn more about CEKAP, watch this video and visit the CEKAP website. You can also follow CEKAP on Twitter and join the group on LinkedIn to receive ongoing updates.

About the Meeting

The purpose of the kick-off meeting was to bring together individuals representing partner institutions to have a shared discussion about the research objectives and work plan over the course of the three year grant (2017-2019).Consequently, the meeting started off with an overview of the Partnership Development Grant and introductions of each partner. This was followed by the core of the meeting where attendees split into breakout sessions. The breakout sessions were used to seek input on the research agenda that had been developed thus far. In addition to this, the breakout sessions aimed to build consensus around key research opportunities for the partnership to take on. The meeting was concluded with a report back session which was used to share key insights from each discussion group.

Outcomes of the Meeting/Next Steps

Since the kick-off meeting, the CEKAP Research team has consolidated feedback from partners. It has also just released a post-meeting survey to provide another opportunity for input on research priorities. The aim is to release the CEKAP research agenda publicly towards the end of the first quarter in 2017. Stay tuned for more news on the CEKAP front!