Green Home Guide
Whether you're planning to build or renovate your home, this guide will help you meet a greener standard and join other Edmontonians in our quest to become a carbon neutral city!
What is EnerGuide?
EnerGuide is Canada’s energy rating and labelling system that certifies the energy efficiency of new and existing products and homes. The EnerGuide rating allows you to easily compare the energy efficiency of major household appliances sold in Canada. EnerGuide also provides a standard measure of your home’s energy performance.
How Does Your Home’s Energy Performance Stack Up?
The EnerGuide label shows you (and future buyers) exactly how energy-efficient your home is and allows you to compare against similar homes in your neighbourhood and across Canada. If you’re planning to renovate or sell your home, the rating shows your home’s present level of energy efficiency AND projects the level it could achieve with recommended upgrades.
What the Numbers Mean
As of 2016, the EnerGuide raiting system has changed. The new EnerGuide labels show the gigajoules (GJ) per year that a house uses.
GJs per year is a unit of measurement for energy on an annual basis. The higher the GJ per year number, the less efficient the home is. The closer to zero the GJ per year measurement is, the more efficient the house is. Homes that produce more energy than they use will have a rating of zero.
| Did You Know? According to Natural Resources Canada, a one-point improvement on the EnerGuide rating scale typically reduces a home’s energy consumption by 3-5%. |
Home Energy Labelling Program
The City of Edmonton is currently developing a new and existing home energy labelling program called Know Our Homes YEG. The goal is to develop a Voluntary Home Energy Labelling Program Plan and Implementation Plan.
On June 20, 2012, Edmonton City Council supported the development of a New and Existing Home Energy Labelling program, as outlined in the Green Building Plan.