The City of Richmond, which has received a national engineering award for its innovative energy conservation, plans to tap heat from sewer lines as part of its new Lulu Island Energy Company.
An earlier project in the city’s Alexandra district uses a geoexchange heating and cooling system that serves more than 600 apartments. A second building, with 250 apartments, will be connected this year. Geoexchange is a ground source heat pump technology that supplies consistent and low-cost heating and cooling. The $4.3 million Alexander district system won the Canadian Consulting Engineering Award this year from the Association of Consulting Engineering Companies of Canada and Canadian Consulting Engineer magazine.
Peter Russell, Richmond’s senior manager of sustainability, said the city is about to launch the new energy node, near the Richmond Oval, that will draw sewer heat from a Metro Vancouver sewer main. “Our own Gateway Theatre is already connected to a sewer heat recovery system, the first in North America at this scale,” Russell said.
