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Downtown District Heating

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Big thinking about small-scale project will warm Edmonton’s heart
Mary Ann Debrinski has a really big pipe dream for Edmonton’s downtown heart. it’s green, brilliant and realistic!

As the City of Edmonton’s Director of Urban Renewal, she and her colleagues are working with ENMAX Energy and EPCOR on a small-scale district energy project that could ultimately heat many downtown buildings with hot water from a centrally located thermal generation facility, and save a whack of greenhouse gas emissions in the bargain.

It’s a concept that can realistically only be pulled off every 25 years or so, she says.

“About that long ago, the City looked at heating downtown buildings with hot water from the Rossdale Power Plant, but even though many buildings’ boilers were due for replacement at the time, the idea was discarded because of the costly distance between the source of heat and its potential users.”

She explains that today, the average age of building boilers is about 25 years, so the timing is again perfect for a small-scale heating plant to be built close to the critical mass of both existing downtown buildings and future buildings in the soon-to-be-developed The Quarters Downtown area east of 97th Street.

The thermal generation plant would occupy about four city lots of space and stand a couple of stories tall. ENMAX, which has developed expertise in district energy and operates one in Calgary, would operate the plant. The hot water it would produce would be piped by EPCOR to buildings and hooked into their heating systems.

Full Story (Transforming Edmonton Blog)
 
Reduce or reuse? Edmonton aims for both in new downtown energy scheme
An expert citizens’ panel just saved the city from what could have been a major misstep in reducing energy use in its downtown buildings.

The first versions of a complex franchise agreement with Calgary’s Enmax to run a new heating system had the city agreeing to buy all 27 megawatts of new heat energy, even if it upgraded its buildings and no longer needed the heat.

Now Edmonton plans to first look at retrofitting its 10 downtown buildings before it commits to an expensive new heat-sharing system.

Enmax said it will launch a marketing campaign to sign up private developers to mitigate the risk.

City councillors heard the details and this new qualified support from its 15-member energy transition citizen advisory committee Monday. Energy audits will go to city council before officials request the next $6.7 million for construction.

“As long as it’s flexible and you’re not handcuffing anyone,” said committee member Chris Vilcsak while giving the committee’s support. He’s president of Solution105, a local energy and utility management company and sat on a volunteer subcommittee struck to critique this new energy-saving plan.

http://edmontonjournal.com/news/loc...n-aims-for-both-in-new-downtown-energy-scheme
 
Committee approves funding for design of central energy system
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BARRY GRAY / SPECTATOR STAFF
A new system proposed by city, ENMAX and EPCOR will replace boilers in the city's downtown in the near future.


Edmonton's executive committee has given the tentative green light to a plan expected to save the equivalent of what 600 cars would emit in greenhouse gases annually.

On Monday, Edmonton's executive committee approved $1.6 million to start design work for a system that will replace boilers with a new process that heats water at a central location and sends it to buildings that are connected through pipes.

The electricity (27 megawatts) will be sent from a central station in the north end of the Winspear Centre to buildings in the city core.

“Currently ... (buildings) have their own boilers and they service their own need,” said Carl Souchereau, director of project development at ENMAX.

“What the buildings will do, is instead of generating their own heat in furnaces, they just take heat from the system so they don't need those boilers anymore.”

Souchereau says they will first connect 10 buildings including Edmonton City Hall, Chancery Hall and Canada Place to the system.

http://www.metronews.ca/news/edmont...ding-for-design-of-central-energy-system.html
 

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