District Heating and Waste Heat Collection - FS for the Porter Creek Bench

The City of Whitehorse will examine the feasibility of using geoexchange technology and waste heat recovered from existing sewers to satisfy the heating requirements of a new planned sustainable neighbourhood in the Porter Creek Bench lands. The sustainability goals of the project stem from the Whistle Bend Planning Study, which focused on environmentally responsible design for this new community of up to 10,000 people, and from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Strategy funded by GMF 2156. The first phase of the study will gather information about the site, existing sewerage, development plans and regulatory requirements. It will also involve weighing the potential of these technologies in light of financial, technical and management criteria. Next, the team will drill three boreholes at the site to perform thermal and hydraulic testing. Based on the subsurface conditions, the team will select the most viable geoexchange and waste-heat options and will design a conceptual district heating system. The use of alternative heating and distribution technologies would reduce the consumption of electricity, oil and diesel fuel for home heating, significantly lowering emissions of CO2, methane and nitrous oxide. The capture of waste heat from sewer mains is an innovative and replicable approach for addressing the energy needs of other similar municipalities.