Any measure that reduces a customer’s overall energy demand can be called conservation. There are many approaches to conservation of energy. Some examples are:

• More efficient technologies can reduce consumption while maintaining our standard of living.
• Operational changes, including application of benchmarking, interval meters or “smart” control systems.
• Load management -- interruptible and dispatchable loads, dual fuel applications, thermal storage, and demand response.
• Fuel switching can reduce the total system energy for a given end-use.
• Distributed energy – e.g. district energy, tri-generation, co-generation, ground source heat pumps, wind, and solar including passive solar applications behind the customer’s meter.

Energy planning is long-term and comprehensive based on sustainability, efficiency and diversity that integrates all energy forms including conservation. In fact, Conservation is considered in Ontario as a source of electricity rather than simply a reduction in demand.

To ensure that the Ontario Green Energy Act maximizes the ability of Ontarians to practice Conservation, the following concepts will be addressed:

• Government policy needs to be based on a transparent application of total, societal costs of electricity. For conservation, this includes the health and environmental costs of generation which is being displaced.
  
• A portion of the net benefits of conservation should be made available for energy conservation programs that promote research, development and education.
  
• Consumers need access to relevant energy information through rating systems, energy performance benchmarks, and energy assessment tools to make informed buying decisions.
  
• All energy customers should receive regular feedback on their energy consumption and relative energy performance compared to their peers.
  
• Energy pricing should reflects its actual, time based costs – this removes the need for subsidized energy prices - users pay the real price of energy and in turn are motivated to practice Conservation.
  
• Smart metering and billing infrastructure combined with real-time pricing of energy is required if Conservation is to be maximized in Ontario.
  
• Vulnerable energy consumers must be protected.
  
• Rigorous codes and standards must be established for the energy performance of commercial, residential and industrial electricity systems.
  
• Utilities must be enabled and encouraged to practice conservation within their generation, transmission and distribution systems – and to help their customers to do the same.