A presentation from Greenwave Innovations shows that the city is making headway to achieve its goals laid out in its Climate Action Plan. 

The Climate Action Plan's goals are to reduce corporate Greenhouse Gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2025 and 45 per cent by 2030 and zero wastewater. These targets are reductions compared to 2019 as a baseline. 

Dean Clark, president and CEO of Greenwave Innovations, explained why they chose 2019 as the baseline year. 

"A lot of other action plans used some pretty old data where there had been improvements and things done up to that point, where you could add those into your wins and we really wanted to use this as where we’re at,” said Clark.  

“This is the most recent data just before COVID where if we’d used that year it would have been really unfair of how low it was. That was the most accurate to the most recent full year coming into where we actually wanted to deploy solutions and technology and analytics and move the needle forward.” 

He added that Moose Jaw is the first municipality in Saskatchewan to have electricity, natural gas and water monitored and possibly the first in Canada. 

"I know for sure it’s the first in Saskatchewan because of our partnership with SaskEnergy to integrate live data off their gas meters and anything that we’ve presented and work we’re doing in other communities outside of Saskatchewan, what Moose Jaw is doing it seems to be coming across as a first,” said Clark. 

At the end of 2023, the city had reduced its Greenhouse Gas emissions by 15.6 per cent and wastewater by 8.5 per cent. 

Sub-monitoring systems for electrical use were installed on 10 buildings in March of 2023 with 550 unique monitoring points. 

The electrical sub-monitoring systems measured a 12.5 per cent reduction compared to 2019, There were 18 energy conservation actions implemented and 42 other items are under investigation for 2024. 

Clark noted that SaskPower rates had increased by about 7.6 per cent in 2023 compared to 2019. This means the actual utility bill paid to SaskPower was down 6.9 per cent in 2023 compared to the baseline. Coun. Kim Robinson said you must dig deeper into the numbers to understand what is going on. 

"In that same time period, our inflation rate went up by 14.8 per cent. So, there’s always a little bit of a caveat to it all as you digest all of this stuff,” said Robinson. 

Clark noted one challenge was the fact that SaskPower's Greenhouse Gas emissions per kilowatt hour spiked up last year. However, he noted that it should come back down in the coming years as SaskPower's goal is to reach net zero by 2050 or earlier. 

In total, the city saved about 1.7 million kWh of electricity or the equivalent of 289 homes per year. 

The city also generated nearly 303,000 kWh through solar panels that represents 2.1 per cent of the overall 12.5 per cent reduction. 

For natural gas, there are still two buildings that need the sub-monitoring system installed. City Hall was delayed due to networking complexity and the Moose Jaw Cultural Centre had issues with wire tampering.  

Coun. Jamey Logan raised concerns about wire tampering. Greenwave's lead engineer Josh Zimroz explained what is being done to protect against wire tampering in the future. 

“For future locations, we’ve specked a different kind of exterior, weatherproof junction box that comes with a lock and key, so that’ll prevent anything on our side from being tampered with. SaskEnergy deals with their own issues, but they’re there to fix it quite fast because they want to get paid,” said Zimroz. 

The natural gas monitoring systems are expected to be completed by April. 

Four out of 12 sub-monitoring metres have been installed for water usage and came on line on Feb. 1. On the very first day, the system detected a leak at the Pla-Mor Palace. 

"The very first day that we installed at the Pla-Mar Palace we had detected a leak that night. We resolved that leak the next day and that leak rate was 290 litres every 15 minutes being wasted,” Zimroz said. 

So far, the system has detected four significant leaks that have been fixed and two other leaks that are under investigation. 

Four other meters are prepped and ready to be installed, while the final four are ready to go but are awaiting new Neptune water meter replacements. 

The water sub-monitoring saw a reduction of 8.5 per cent of wastewater. Also to take into consideration is that was from four of 12 meters or only 28 per cent of the total water consumption. 

In fixing the four leaks detected, Greenwave says the city saved just under 2.8 million litres of water annually or the equivalent of 1.1 Olympic swimming pools. 

"That’s only four of the 12 meters that have been integrated as part of the plan so far, which is only a small percentage. So, that 2.8 million litres, though, does represent 30 per cent of the metres that we’re looking at in 8.5 per cent of the overall water use in 10 buildings. It’s just a massive number to detect those leaks in real time and be able to resolve them right away,” said Clark. 

Coun. Crystal Froese said it was interesting to see how much water was being wasted through leaks. 

“It’s interesting to see what we save when we catch things like leaks. We don’t always think about the water leakage, for example, and how much that can actually impact if left unattended. I think that’s a really important point and it certainly illustrates that,” said Froese. 

The city has a four-year contract with Greenwave Innovations worth $1.38 million. The city budgeted $227,000 for the sub-monitoring systems to be installed. The Climate Action Plan is expected to save the city about $1.8 million over 10 years.