Kate Porter is a condo resident in the Armdale neighbourhood of Halifax who wants to join the fight against climate change, but says complex provincial regulations on electricity are holding her back.
Porter and some of her neighbours in the condo want to install solar panels but when the condo board brought the idea to Nova Scotia Power, the utility said the rules it must follow prevent collective ownership of solar panels.
Residents say that puts solar-panel systems out of reach for people who can’t afford to buy their own.
“I’m mostly confused. It doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Porter said in an interview with CBC.
“It definitely would have helped me save money on my power bills but also, it would have maybe made me feel like I was doing a little bit more of my part to help out with the climate change situation,” she said.
Scott Hart is the president of the condo’s board. In an email, he said that the current Nova Scotia Power regulations only allow access to solar energy on individual accounts. He said the condo hoped to install the panels collectively.
“But because the condo corps account is only used for a few parking lot lights, they wouldn’t give us approval for panels that produced more power than that account used,” he said.
He said the residents are allowed to install solar on an individual, unit-by-unit basis.
“But then we are stuck with jurisdiction — the condo corp owns the roof and is responsible for upkeep, repairs and maintenance. If the shingles need to be done, it would be up to the individual owner to move and store their panels while we do the work,” he said.
“It would be much easier if the condo corp owned them and did it all together in a planned way.”
Tony Hall owns Podium Properties, a company that manages the Royalton in Halifax that has had solar panels heating residents’ water for about 15 years. (Paul Poirier/CBC)
But Tony Hall, the owner of Podium Properties, said it does not have to be that complicated.
Podium Properties manages the Royalton, an apartment building in Halifax where solar panels were installed 15 years ago. Hall said the panels are used differently than most in the solar industry.
The solar panels are located on the building’s south-facing lawn and are used to pre-heat the building’s water, so it’s an internal system owned by the condo board and is a shared expense among the residents.
Hall told CBC in an interview that the panels were installed to reduce the condo’s carbon footprint and to reduce costs. He said the resident’s have seen a drop in their bills of up to 20 per cent.
“It’s a steady saving compared to other buildings of similar sizes and I think it’s a source of pride,” he said.
Solar panels are installed on a Cole Harbour, N.S., home in this file photo. Residents of multi-unit homes say it’s easier for single-family homes to use solar power because of government regulations in the province. (Robert Guertin/CBC)
He said the system is seamless and runs itself, and he recommends that other condos look into solar energy.
“There’s obviously the greening which is a great thing for the future,” he said. “But also I think that it’s how quickly people see the savings which is really the driving fact.”
Hall says he would like to see the government and service providers make solar panel operations easier for condos so more people would do it.
“I think that the future is in the simplicity of all,” he said. “When they see the benefit and the cost, that’ll take the confusion out of everything.”
New provincial program in the works
The Nova Scotia government is aiming to address this issue, said Patricia Jreige, Natural Resources and Renewables spokesperson, in an emailed statement.
“Government is always looking to expand solar installations,” she said.
The upcoming community solar program, she said, is expected to be implemented later this year.
Phil MacKenzie owns MacKenzie Solar Engineering, a solar panel consulting and installation company. He said that from a technical perspective, installing solar panels for collective use is complicated. (Mark Crosby/CBC)
Phil MacKenzie runs MacKenzie Solar Engineering, a solar consulting and installation company. He said that there are many technical complications when it comes to installing solar panels on condo buildings because usually, each unit has its own power meter.
“It’s challenging from an accounts perspective, metering perspective, and from the regulation side of things,” he said.
Complications arise
“They’ve set in place a couple of ground rules for solar projects and as long as you are able to stay within the confines of that framework, then you can get a solar project going, but sometimes it’s just not possible,” he said.
MacKenzie said he hasn’t worked on many of these types of projects, “but on projects that I’ve looked at for condominiums, it does get complicated quickly where you have multiple account holders with one single roof.”
Polycorp, a Nova Scotia real estate developer, started a petition to ask political leaders to allow multi-unit buildings to install solar panels because it, too, is running into roadblocks.
In an emailed statement, Nova Scotia Power spokesperson Mia Atia said another option is for customers to subscribe to its community solar garden program, the first of which is in Amherst. That’s where N.S. Power installed 4,500 solar panels to generate green electricity for the provincial power grid.
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
