Survey of Commercial and Institutional Energy Use: Hospital and post-secondary campuses, 2019
Released: 2022-08-05
Climate change and its impacts have been identified as important issues for Canada. Energy efficiency strategies are intended to mitigate the impacts of climate change, including the National Net-Zero Emissions Building Strategy, designed to achieve net-zero emissions for buildings by 2050 through codes and incentives. The hospital and post-secondary campus component of the Survey of Commercial and Institutional Energy Use provides data on energy demand and consumption of hospital and post-secondary campuses across Canada.
Hospital campuses consumed 58.3 million gigajoules of energy in 2019
In 2019, there were 774 hospital campuses in Canada occupying a total floor area of over 23.4 million square metres (m2). The total energy consumed by all hospital campuses in 2019 was 58.3 million gigajoules (GJ), with an average energy use intensity (EUI) of 2.54 gigajoules per square metre (GJ/m2).
University campuses have a higher average energy use intensity than college, technology institute and CEGEP campuses
In 2019, there were over 750 post-secondary campuses in Canada, the majority being colleges, technology institutes and CEGEPs. University campuses consumed close to 50 million GJ of energy, while college, technology institute and CEGEP campuses collectively consumed almost 20 million GJ. University campuses are more energy intensive, with an average EUI of 1.47 GJ/m2 in 2019, compared with college, technology institute and CEGEP campuses (1.37 GJ/m2).
Note to readers
The 2019 Survey of Commercial and Institutional Energy Use was conducted in partnership with Natural Resources Canada. The survey was divided into two components, one which collected information on commercial and institutional buildings and a second which collected information on hospital and post-secondary campuses. This release describes the results of the hospital and post-secondary campuses component. Data for the energy demand and consumption of commercial and institutional buildings are also available.
The hospital and post-secondary campuses component used Statistics Canada's Business Register as the survey frame and was designed to produce data at the regional level. The survey results are based on a census of hospitals and post-secondary campuses in all provinces and territories.
To be in-scope for the hospital and post-secondary campuses component of the survey, the campus must occupy at least one building completely. If the hospital campus only partially occupies a building, it is not in-scope. Business schools, computer and management training institutions, technical and trade schools, and adult and continuing education schools were excluded from this survey.
Direct comparisons of results with previous reference years cannot be made given changes to the survey frame, target population, sample design and questionnaire content.
Definitions
A gigajoule is a unit of measure for energy consumption equivalent to one billion joules; one gigajoule of electricity could keep a 60-watt light bulb continuously lit for six months.
Energy use intensity is the total energy consumed in gigajoules divided by total floor area in square metres (gigajoule/square metre, GJ/m2) for the campus. Higher energy use per square metre of floor area is considered more energy intensive.
Average energy use intensity is obtained by totalling the energy use intensity then dividing it by the number of campuses; this is done by campus type and region. The result illustrates the energy efficiency of an average campus.
A campus includes a building or groups of buildings and their associated grounds that together form the entirety of the post-secondary or hospital campus.
Contact information
For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 613-951-8116; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).
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