After scrambling to recalibrate their models in the early days of COVID-19-related shutdowns, analysts with Ontario's Independent Electricity System Operator faced more uncharted territory when the hot weather arrived.

Proposals address a range of issues that are likely to be of interest to listed real estate entities and their investors, as well as start-up ventures and other publicly traded service providers to the industry.

Canada Emergency Commercial Rent Assistance will be offered for a sixth month. The announcement comes eight days after the portal for new applications for the relief program appeared to be closed.

With the August 31 deadline for first-time applications for Canada Emergency Commercial Rent Assistance (CECRA) now passed, the three-month program that evolved into five months of relief is closed to new recipients.

The World Trade Organization agreed with Canada that the U.S. conflated wholesale and retail electricity rates to arrive at its supposition that B.C. and Quebec hydro utilities overpaid for biomass power.

Commercial real estate specialists are noting a recent Quebec superior court decision with interest, suggesting it could become a beacon for other tenants seeking rent relief.

Residential consumption is identified as a primary concern and opportunity for the 2021-24 period, along with a continued emphasis on reducing system-wide peak demand

Canada once again places in the top tier of “highly transparent” nations in the newly released 2020 edition of the JLL/LaSalle Global Real Estate Transparency Index.

Many hydro accounts specifically tied to the common areas of multi-residential buildings will no longer qualify for the 31.8 per cent rebate beginning in November 2020.

A temporary adjustment to Ontario’s electricity pricing scheme eliminates cost-saving opportunities that many operators of large commercial buildings were anticipating this summer.

The City of Winnipeg has invited commercial building owners and institutional facility managers to affix their Energy Star Portfolio Manager results on a publicly accessible map.

The timing might have been opportune for uptake of the measure — provided it was adopted into provincial and territorial building codes — because it would have applied broadly in what is currently Canada’s most buoyant commercial real estate sector.

The new GBAC STAR accreditation program is taking the complication and uncertainty out of reopening large Canadian commercial facilities.

For Class A consumers, cost-saving potential will be diminished even if they successfully curtail demand during the five peak hours since those peaks are expected to be lower than usual.

The CECRA program is voluntary. Not all eligible landlords will necessarily take advantage of this program for various reasons.

Commercial and industrial electricity customers will pay the differential above 11.5 cents per kilowatt-hour in added monthly increments beginning in January 2021.

Despite a steep drop in province-wide energy consumption due to COVID-19 triggered business shutdowns, many building owners/managers expect a more modest flow-through dip in operating costs.