Sewage heat recovery expansion project for Vancouver’s Southeast False Creek Neighbourhood Energy Utility

In 2010, FCM funded a district energy installation in the Southeast False Creek Neighbourhood Energy Utility (NEU). The NEU is owned and operated by the City of Vancouver and provides heating and hot water to approximately 50,000 square metres of mixed-use buildings, including residential, commercial and institutional uses. The system’s current capacity is 3 MW of sewage heat recovery (SHR). In recent years, the NEU became more reliant on natural gas to meet increasing demand. For this reason, the city wants to increase the energy centre’s SHR capacity by approximately 5 MW. The project is in line with Vancouver’s Renewable City Strategy, a plan to achieve 100% renewable energy by 2050. Innovative aspects: • Representation of the successful long-term performance of the first application of sewage heat recovery technology in North America • Ongoing engagement with Metro Vancouver’s Utility Research and Innovation Division since the early planning stages of the project Replicability: • The shared lessons learned from the existing system were incorporated in the design approach for a sewage heat recovery system at the new North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant Environmental benefits: • Reduction in natural gas input by 95,585 GJ/year while increasing sewage heat recovery by 76,955 GJ/year; the reduction in natural gas input is expected to reduce emissions by 4,776 tCO2e/year • The ratio of natural gas to sewage heat recovery provided to customers will go from 2:1 to approximately 1:3 • The project will reduce levels of nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur oxides (SOx), tripropylene glycol methyl ether (TPM), volatile organic compounds (VOC), and carbon monoxide (CO) by approximately 56% Economic benefits: • The city mandates connection to the NEU via bylaw in specified areas, which serves to minimize risk for upfront capital investment in expansion areas by securing long-term revenues • The NEU uses a cost-of-service model, so that all costs incurred for the NEU’s service are recovered through customer rates, including financing costs associated with infrastructure investments Social benefits: • The project will improve the quality and efficiency of services provided to residents (Project description from original funding application)