Community Energy Planning

Dawson Creek's community energy planning has involved several steps to date. Beginning with a baseline of community emissions, the report Dawson Creek and Climate Change (1,211 KB) found that the entire community emitted 110,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in 2006.

In order to reduce these emissions, Dawson Creek has committed to the following greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets for the community: Recommended Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets (90 KB)

14% below 2006 levels by 2012
33% below 2006 levels by 2020
85% below 2006 levels by 2050

The chart below shows the kinds of reductions needed to achieve these targets.

Dawson Creek's Climate Action Plan (533 KB) outlines a list of potential strategies to reduce these emissions from the 3 main energy sources used in Dawson Creek: electricity, natural gas and fuel. Some of the actions outlined are:

• Transitioning to energy sources that produce less greenhouse gas emissions per unit of energy (e.g. relying on wind-powered electricity instead of coal-fired or using biodiesel instead of conventional diesel).
• Using less energy to meet the same needs (e.g. better insulated homes or more efficient appliances).
• Changing behaviour to require less energy (e.g. living in a smaller home or driving less frequently).
• Capturing and storing emissions so that they do not contributed to global warming (e.g. converting brownfields back to forest or capturing carbon dioxide from natural gas processing and injecting it into depleted wells).

Some of the initiatives undertaken by the City are the investigation of wind potential to run municipal facilities such as for water treatment, has right sized its vehicle fleet, and the installation of solar powered street lighting and solar hot water heaters to pre-heat water for heat and washing.

CEP Overview (44 KB)
CEP Baseline Report (1,202 KB)
CEP Baseline Report Tables (101 KB)