According to a report recently released by the International Energy Agency, the world’s energy-related carbon dioxide emissions rose 1.4% in 2012, to a record high of 31.6 billion tons. Furthermore, the agency reported that
According to a report recently released by the International Energy Agency, the world’s energy-related carbon dioxide emissions rose 1.4% in 2012, to a record high of 31.6 billion tons. Furthermore, the agency reported that the energy sector accounts for about two-thirds of global emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases.
Obviously, for any business with an expressed concern over climate change, energy consumption can be a big piece of the puzzle. Moreover, in an age where energy security is an increasing concern, and cheap sources of energy are getting harder to come by, business are looking harder for any edge they can get in reducing their energy consumption, and by extension, costs.
Of course, the cheapest and cleanest energy is always the energy you don’t use. Given a choice between decreasing energy consumption through increased efficiency, or sourcing cleaner energy, energy efficiency projects are almost always the way to go. Examples include T5/T8 lighting retrofits, higher grade insulation, building resealing, more efficient windows, building automation systems (BAS) for heating and cooling, tankless water heaters, and much more. These can yield major reductions in a building’s GHG emissions, as well as reductions in energy costs. And, if energy prices rise, the ROI on such projects becomes more attractive.
The other side of the equation is the sourcing of energy. Companies with mandates to use more clean energy need to pay closer attention to where their energy is ultimately coming from. Furthermore, if the business is planning to purchase carbon offsets, in order to achieve carbon neutrality, the choice of energy sources takes on an added financial dimension.
Traditionally, companies have addressed this by installing onsite renewable energy technology, such as rooftop solar arrays or wind turbines. Another option has been the purchase of renewable energy credits, whereby the company pays a renewable energy provider to dump electricity from renewable sources back on to the grid equal to the amount the company is drawing. Still others relocate to regions where the energy mix is trending towards more renewable sources, such as California or Ontario, or to regions where the GHG emissions from energy sources have historically been low, such as Quebec.
However, in recent years, a niche market has developed for a new approach to power generation and distribution: district energy. A number of municipalities and local energy providers are discovering that by using existing physical conditions, such as the proximity of large buildings and their proximity to natural heating and cooling sources, they can supplement and even replace traditional HVAC technology.
The principal behind district energy is relatively simple. Rather than ship natural gas, the prevailing means of space heating in Canada, to each building, where it is then combusted, heat is produced offsite at a central location. It is then circulated to surrounding buildings via pipes in the form of hot air or steam. In a similar way, chilled water can be drawn in from a local source, and circulated through surrounding buildings, providing a cooling effect to the space inside.
So, how can this technology help your business? First, let’s consider district heating. The principal advantage of using district heating is that the heat or steam can be produced using whichever fuel is most available and cost-effective at the time. A properly designed and operated plant will be able to switch among them. This is a contrast to on-site combustion, where the only option for replicating this effect would be to stockpile multiple fuel types and combustion technologies on the premises, at high up-front, storage, and maintenance costs. Furthermore, a facility using district heating no longer has to maintain heating equipment such as furnaces or boilers, nor deal with the noise and safety concerns such units incur, according to Enwave Energy Corporation. If the particular district energy plant is fortunate enough to be located near a geothermal heat source, participating businesses can also forgo the expense of extracting and transporting the fuels required to produce the heat/steam.
District cooling technology operates a little differently in that it relies on natural heat sinks to provide space cooling. Currently, Enwave’s Deep Lake Water Cooling (DLWC) in downtown Toronto is the world’s largest lake-source cooling system. By using pipes extending deep into Lake Ontario, water from the bottom of the lake, which is always cold, is drawn in to an energy transfer station. Heat exchangers allow for this 