HOT|COOL NO.4/16 - "From one generation..."

P20

The pathway to achieving these goals as outlined in the plan included such campus energy system improvements as: • Upgrading and standardizing building controls and metering, • Retrofitting all existing buildings to LEED Gold energy efficiency standards, • Installing new modern hot water district heating networks, • Selectively implementing local area district cooling networks, • Upgrading on-site heat supply utilizing combined heat and power and high-efficiency boilers, • Upgrading on-site cooling supply utilizing waste heat absorption and high-efficiency compressor chillers, and • Installing solar photovoltaic. In 2014, Garforth International completed a preliminary design for upgrading the Trafalgar and Davis campuses’ district energy networks. In 2015, Ramboll was engaged to provide more detailed production and distribution system design, some of which is still ongoing and is expected to be implemented by 2018. Just west of Toronto in Oakville, the Sheridan Trafalgar Campus is partially supplied with steam for heating and domestic hot water by a central steam system with condensate return. Two small groups of buildings share hot water boilers, effectively forming very small islanded district heating networks; other buildings are heated by individual boilers or gas-fired roof- top units. The average age of the steam piping is 25-30 years, with average network heat losses estimated to be 25%. According to Sheridan’s energy plan, these losses can be reduced by a factor of roughly three through a steam-to-hot water conversion. Plans call for Trafalgar’s existing steam boilers to be replaced by new gas-fired hot water boilers. The steam piping will be replaced with hot water piping and energy transfer stations to serve a total of 140,000 sq. m via a 1.6-km (trench) network. The conversion of the steam distribution will be a multiyear process coordinated with the implementation of building efficiency measures. A new energy centre will replace an existing chiller plant and all the old boilers on campus. The energy centre will house: • a CHP plant with 1 MW of thermal capacity and 0.85 MW electrical capacity, provided by a rich-burn natural gas CHP engine; • 6 MW of peaking/backup gas condensing boilers; • 100 cu m of hot water storage; • 3 MW (850 tonnes) of electric chiller cooling capacity; and • 50 cu m of chilled- water storage. The Trafalgar Campus cooling system, which supplies chilled water to part of the campus, will serve 42,735 sq. m through an existing piping network, which will be partly upgraded and extended.

E.g. Stanford installed over 32 km (20 miles) of hot water piping and converted 155 buildings to receive hot water instead of steam in less than three years, from autumn 2012 to spring 2015. Canada is not holding back Already in 2011, The University of British Columbia in Canada, commonly referred to as UBC, embarked on their Academic District Energy System (ADES). The project involved replacing their aging steam heating infrastructure with a more efficient hot water heating system. The ADES will allow UBC to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions substantially, and also address deferred maintenance. The project is one of not only UBC’s signature initiatives but also a signature project for Canada.

More information about the project and the ambitions of UBC can be found here: http://energy.ubc.ca/projects/district-energy/

A good case Sheridan College in Ontario, Canada, is one of the province’s leading post-secondary institutions. Founded in 1967, Sheridan currently educates more than 50,000 students on four campuses in three Greater Toronto Area cities – Oakville, Brampton and Mississauga. In 2010, Sheridan determined that it spent CAN$4.4 million annually on natural gas and electricity, reflecting a 42% increase since 2005. Given the uncertainties about future energy prices, Sheridan forecasted that its annual energy cost could rise to between CAN$7.5 million and CAN$10.6 million by 2030. While this level of energy consumption is comparable to that of similar institutions in Canada and the U.S., it is between 40% and 100% higher than European best practices, indicating the potential for greater energy efficiency.

Figure 2 – Pipes at Sheridan College

In response, the college outlined the following goals in its integrated energy and climate master plan, finalized in 2013: to reduce primary energy use by at least 65 % and greenhouse gas emissions by 47 %, both by 2030 from 2010 levels, and to achieve acceptable economic returns on the total investment.

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