Olympic Village district heating system should be replicated across Canada, mayor says

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      As Mayor Gregor Robertson unveiled the False Creek Neighbourhood Energy Utility today (January 14), he declared its model should be replicated elsewhere. All levels of government contributed to what is being called Vancouver’s first renewable district heating system, which is recovering heat from untreated wastewater to power the Olympic Village.

      “It’s partnerships like this that will make it possible to replicate this kind of model—not only in our city but hopefully across our province and our nation—and make a big difference in terms of our carbon emissions and the efficiency that we see in our communities,” Robertson told the media against a grey backdrop. “If we get these models right here at the outset, it really stands us well for advancing this work and creating many more models throughout our country.”

      The $30-million system has been in the works for about five years, and today Robertson flicked on the switch of the NEU, along with federal minister of state for sport Gary Lunn, B.C. education minister Margaret MacDiarmid, and Surrey city councillor Marvin Hunt, who sits on the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ national board.

      “The energy coming out of this plant will provide about 70 percent of the neighbourhood’s annual energy requirements,” Robertson said. “Three of these Olympic Village buildings will also produce a small amount of their own green energy on their roofs, with solar hot water and roof-mounted solar panels. That excess heat gets redistributed into this heat hot-water system powered here through False Creek Energy Centre.”

      The centre is located below the Cambie Street Bridge on the south shore of False Creek. In the bowels of the building today, Cameron Lowry of Trane Northwest in Burnaby gave the Straight an exclusive demonstration. First he pointed to the pipes that allow the intake of sewage heat into what he called a “vapour-compression cycle”.

      “The sewage is entering at 17.8 degrees Celsius,” Lowry said. “The sewage is leaving at 16.4 degrees Celsius. We haven’t dropped the temperature of that sewage very much at all to get 400 percent efficiency, right? Now if you look at the hot water, the hot water is 52 or 53 degrees Celsius coming in, and the hot water is leaving at 63 degrees Celsius. So, we’re at a 10-degree rise in temperature from this, from only a one-degree drop in sewage temperature.”

      Also, added Lowry, the system is five times more efficient than a regular natural gas boiler.

      “With a boiler you put in, say, one unit of heat energy of natural gas into a boiler and you get 80 percent of that heat energy back out,” he said. “So, you have an efficiency of about 0.8....So, for one unit of heat energy that you put into a boiler, you get 0.8 units of heat energy out. For one unit of heat energy we put in here, we get four units of heat energy out. It’s five times the performance of a regular boiler.”

      As well as keeping 2,800 athletes warm during next month’s Olympics, the NEU will serve up to 16,000 residents and businesses when the area is built out, Robertson said.

      Comments

      10 Comments

      Svend

      Jan 14, 2010 at 10:23pm

      Can someone tell me why Gregor Robertson is jumping in there for every photo 'op on this new facility? He had absolutely nothing to do with it. He wasn't even in office nor would it even be part of his jurisdiction.

      astro

      Jan 15, 2010 at 1:41pm

      Can anyone make sense of this? It appears to defy the Laws of Thermodynamics.

      “With a boiler you put in, say, one unit of heat energy of natural gas into a boiler and you get 80 percent of that heat energy back out,” he said. “So, you have an efficiency of about 0.8....So, for one unit of heat energy that you put into a boiler, you get 0.8 units of heat energy out. For one unit of heat energy we put in here, we get four units of heat energy out. It’s five times the performance of a regular boiler.”

      fiat

      Jan 15, 2010 at 11:38pm

      It's a heat pump, like your refrigerator, but for heating rather than cooling. Electricity is used to transfer heat from one place to another (from the sewage to the hot water supply in Olympic Village). A perfectly efficient boiler would convert 100% of the electrical energy input into heat, but the heat pump can move 4 units of energy while using only 1 unit of input energy to accomplish the feat.

      davey g

      Jan 16, 2010 at 1:04am

      astro; that's how it works @ the city . try studying their budget process

      cityman

      Jan 16, 2010 at 1:09am

      this place was built (& surrounding sewer upgrades in the surrounding catchment area) to replace an aging pump station & to stop decades old wastewater spills into False Creek.
      Shows how "commited" they all are
      Decades

      Lizard

      Jan 16, 2010 at 5:48am

      Vapour compression cycle is a fancy name for the refrigeration cycle used in heat pumps this is just a water to water heat pump. Look up ground source heat pumps sometimes in error called geothermal heating you'll get the idea

      I think

      Jan 16, 2010 at 5:49am

      He tried to dumb it down for the general public.

      There is quite a lot more contributing to the system than just the waste.

      leslie v.

      Jan 16, 2010 at 7:41am

      It's typical Gregor. No ideas or thoughts of his own, so just piggyback on the shoulders of others on the parade route.

      webbgerl

      Jan 16, 2010 at 9:26am

      We may not need the system to keep 2,800 athletes warm during the Olympics, El Nino is taking care of that. ;)

      Leighmon

      Mar 3, 2011 at 11:25am

      I can't believe how negative the comments are on this article. This type of technology is essential to improve building efficiency. Gregor is simply trying to promote it for the common good.

      Why so negative?

      I work on alternative energy technology for a living, and I can tell you first hand that this is the future. If we continue to be so negative about it all the time, we'll fall even further behind Europeans and the Japanese. Even China is pulling ahead of us. It's embarrassing... and the main culprit is risk aversion from the public.