CCEM 102 – Question 1

[Carly Johansson]

Can you think of any opportunities for waste heat recovery in your community? Do you know of any instances where waste heat is already being recovered?

[Carly Johansson]

We have numerous waste heat recovery opportunities in Yukon that we’re not taking advantage of – mostly because they are not of priority. HRV’s have been standardized in the Whitehorse building code, and Watson Lake has a district heating system set up to capture waste heat off the diesel generator there, but that’s all I can think of offhand. For the most part I find the majority of the public is fascinated by the concept of electricity, its cost, and how it is generated. But heat – heat is typically overlooked and we are slow to capitalize opportunities. Is this true for other regions?

[Jen Grebeldinger]

Our local swimming pool has waste heat. The heat is not only wasted, but a chiller is used to cool this seasonal heat to keep the pool water from overheating. It would be great to see this heat be used for food production, as a community garden is right next to the pool. The high school is nearby as well, so dumping the heat into the geothermal field could be another option. It would be great to see the wasteful chiller taken offline.

[Carly Johansson]

Kjell
Has there ever been any talk of waste heat recovery from the sewer lines in Ganges, as it is my understanding that Ganges is not all septic fields like most of the island – there probably a good amount of heat recoverable there? Also curious as my folks just moved to the island.

[Jen Grebeldinger]

In the Northwest Territories there are numerous opportunities for waste heat recovery given the significant number of communities with diesel generated electricity. 25 of the 33 communities in the NWT have diesel-generated electricity. You can see how power is supplied to each community in the NWT using the following map: https://ntpc.com/our-community/community-map . The diesel electricity systems are not very efficient, with ~ 2/3 of the diesel fuel burned that is lost as waste heat, so pursuing waste heat recovery would have a significant impact on community greenhouse gas emissions.

Fort Liard & Fort McPherson have had waste heat recovery systems set up by the Northwest Territories Power Corp. (NTPC): https://ntpc.com/smart-energy/how-to-save-energy/residual-heat-recovery In addition, the Snowshoe Inn (Fort Providence) also has a waste heat recovery system in place that provides heat for the main hotel building plus the restaurant and Snowshoe Centre across the road.

Location of the generators is one of the determining factors for consideration of waste heat recovery as is the cost to set it up. Fortunately, NTPC has been interested & willing to set it up for the communities of Ft. Liard & Ft. McPherson.

There are likely also significant opportunities in the industrial sector as well, given the off-grid set-up for a number of large, mining operations. I am just not aware of what those exact opportunities are.

[Carly Johansson]

Hi Teresa – could you comment on why NWT has had such success with waste heat recovery? We have several potential projects in Yukon in all four of our off-grid communities, and yet we’ve really only seen one developed (Watson Lake), and none have really taken off. Waste heat recover and district heating seems like such a “low-hanging” fruit in the Yukon – and yet attracts very little interest. It’s too bad really.

[Carly Johansson]

In the Greater Victoria region there is a waste heat recovery project that has won awards – Saanich Peninsula Wastewater Treatment Plant Heat Recovery. The Wastewater treatment facility recaptures waste heat from the treatment plant effluent and supplies hot water to heat the Panorama Recreation Centre pool. This has saved significant amounts of NatGas that would have been used to heat the pool water.
I also hear that waste heat recovery is a potential renewable energy system process to be used at the Westhills development in Langford BC.

[Jen Grebeldinger]

Hi Ryan – Since the NWT Power Corp. has been instrumentally involved with the two main community Waste Heat Recovery installations underscores the importance of having a project lead that is well-positioned financially & operationally to be able to undertake such an effort.

As for the Snowshoe Inn in Ft. Providence, this installation was done ~ 30 years ago, my understanding is that the folks running the Inn & the Snowshoe Centre + Restaurant (heating only not HW) have been pretty keen & very capable mechanically to explore & implement these innovative approaches.

I will forward a pdf of a CMHC Case Study on the Snowshoe Inn’s Co-Generation system by e-mail … I can’t seem to find a link to it off of the Internet 🙂

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