Extreme heat running up your hydro bill? How to save money and keep cool

Canada's summer have been getting warmer due to climate change, and it can impact how much you pay for hydro. What are ways to save money and keep cool at the same time?

Summer has been off to a scorching-hot start in certain parts of Canada since officially arriving last week.

The summer equinox, which was marked on June 21, came with a two-day extreme heat event in southern Ontario that took place mid-week, and a sizzling weekend in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland that continued into Monday.

Canada’s summers are becoming warmer than usual due to climate change, and while it poses a threat to everyone’s health, it also comes with a financial risk, said Nick Rajkovich, associate professor of architecture at the University of Buffalo.

“We’re using more electricity in the summertime,” he told Global News.

“We’re running more air conditioning equipment and things like that. Those costs add up pretty quickly.”

Environmental experts for years have called for Canadian infrastructure to be built to withstand the effects of climate change, and have recently cautioned against thinking that air conditioning can be a predominant solution to staying cool.

Many Canadians may not be able to afford home renovations to become less reliant on air conditioning, let alone the system itself in certain circumstances, but there are other ways to use less air conditioning during Canada’s warmer-than-usual summers, experts say.

“We don’t really want to be just reliant on ‘active cooling,’” said Joanna Eyquem, managing director of climate-resilient infrastructure with the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo, who described active cooling as cooling measures reliant on energy consumption.