EllisDon – Mohawk College The Joyce Centre for Partnership & Innovation

EllisDon is putting the processes in place to build more net-zero energy buildings in Canada by constructing the first at Mohawk College.

By Janice Hoppe-Spiers

Mohawk College’s The Joyce Centre for Partnership & Innovation will be Ontario’s first net-zero energy institutional building, producing as much or more energy as it consumes when it opens in 2018. “We applied for a government grant and one of the things we thought was important was to differentiate ourselves from other applications for that fund,” Chief Buildings and Facilities Officer Tony Cupido says. “In doing that, we recommended the building be a net-zero energy building.”

The Canada Green Building Council announced a Zero Carbon Building Framework that will become the standard for zero carbon buildings in Canada. The Joyce Centre for Partnership & Innovation was selected as one of 16 national pilot programs to help demonstrate the council’s new Zero Carbon Building Standard and validation process.

“This project was funded by the Government of Canada’s $20 million grant, which does not happen often because they rarely get involved in the post-secondary education construction sector,” Cupido explains. “The $20 million investment is the single largest federal infrastructure funding in Mohawk’s 50-year history. A key requirement is to have all the work completed by April 2018 and that was a challenge for us, but we are certainly at or near our target.”