Thank y

ou, Mr. Chair. The Member’s

correct; the existing buildings are quite old and there are a number of lifecycle issues with them, but we have taken steps to ensure that they are safe to occupy. We have stabilized the foundations. We also have, the staff are working in a number of locations throughout the community. We have some leased storage space that some of their equipment and tools are stored in and we also have a number of vacated buildings that are slated to be disposed of with the completion of this project. But in the short

term, we are taking steps to make sure that they are suitable to use and as this is a new project for consideration in the plan, we are looking forward to moving forward and getting those people into a modern shop environment where they can provide better services to our clients. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

That’s an excellent question. In Fort

Simpson we have a central heat plant there that’s a biomass plant and it’s adjacent to the site where this new bu

ilding that’s under construction now is going

to be located and we plan on connecting that to the biomass district heating system in Fort Simpson. So, that’s been part of the plans and we’re proceeding on that basis.

The Member is correct; in Norman Wells in their Capital Asset Program we are putting in a wood pellet boiler there, as well, and we certainly will be looking at Inuvik as our priority consideration as we get into the development of that project. We will likely be considering one there as well.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Certainly, I would say we’ve gone through several cycles of upgrading lighting in our Yellowknife facilities. We used to have the lower efficiency fluorescent lights we went through, when that technology was the newest technology, and upgraded most of them to the most efficient fluorescent technology that was available in the day.

In terms of the LED lighting, which we believe is the emerging technology, we are now going back through and looking for opportunities to upgrade those li

ghting packages again. So, really there’s

quite a bit of work to do to go to that next level with LED lighting and we’re starting to do that through some of the work in this plant.

Much of our exterior lighting has been converted. The floodlights and those types of fixtures that are on most of the night on photo cells, they have been more advanced technology. They were some of the earlier ones that were easier to put in, but now that the general purpose lighting has become more cost- effective and more reas

onable we’re going back now

and starting the analysis. So I think as we move forward with the Capital Asset Retrofit Program we are going to see many more projects like that as that technology becomes more mainstream.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There are a number of things in the mechanical systems, the circulation pumps, moving to variable frequency drive on our air handlers and on our glycol pumps. Our recirculation pumps are another opportunity. We’ve got lots of projects that we’ve completed along those lines in the Capital Asset Retrofit Fund. They have shown significant quick paybacks and reductions in electrical consumption. Lighting control systems that have outside lighting sensors that can dim down the lights in office space and make better use of the natural lighting is another area where we’ve done a lot of work, and we continue to retrofit on that. Then, obviously, we are also seeing the decrease and the reduction in the cost around solar technology, so we’re starting to look at opportunities to use more solar panels and solar generation in our projects and in our buildings.

In the Capital Asset Retrofit Program we have two smaller scale solar projects that we’re going to put on government assets. They’re not in Yellowknife, but there is one on the new shop in Norman Wells which we will be putting on to see how well we can integrate that technology into governme

nt buildings. We’re also doing one, I

believe, on a health centre in Wrigley as well. We are doing a review to see what the potential is to put solar on some of our roofs in Yellowknife to see if we can use that space. But we also have to take into account the impact that those panels might have on snow load or snow accumulation, the operation of air handling equipment, air conditioning equipment, and other facilities that are on the roof, so there are some technical aspects that we have to evaluate when we do that study as well as the shadow studies from adjacent buildings. We’re starting to look at those opportunities,

but I don’t have a total number yet

from our staff on what the potential would be.