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Posted Jan 26, 2010, 3:36 PM
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Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: B3K Halifax, NS
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Sewage might be hot stuff
Developer eyes thermal energy from Bedford plant
By CHRIS LAMBIE Business Editor
Tue. Jan 26 - 4:54 AM
Halifax is planning to harness heat from a Bedford sewage treatment plant to sell to a nearby housing development.
Provident Development Inc. is planning to break ground on a 16,700-square-metre residential and commercial project this spring, according to a municipal report.
The company "has expressed a strong interest in purchasing thermal energy from the adjacent" sewage treatment plant, said the report, which will be discussed at today’s regional council meeting.
"There’s gold in that there shit," said Coun. Sue Uteck (Northwest Arm-South End), the chairwoman of the municipality’s energy and underground services committee.
A study of the municipality’s sewage treatment plants conducted in 2008 "confirmed a significant opportunity existed for heat recovery," said the staff report.
Last November, Halifax Water commissioned an engineering study to confirm the idea’s technical and financial feasibility.
"That report should be completed by March 2010," the report said. "Initial indications look very positive."
Known as a district energy system, the proposed concept would provide heat and, potentially, some cooling to several struct-ures.
The venture would be a pilot project for the municipality’s planned Green Thermal Utility.
The report recommends checking with the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board before going ahead.
"It’s just a question of whether, in fact, there is any (board) regulatory oversight required," Mary Ellen Donovan, the municipal solicitor who prepared the report, said Monday in an interview.
"The general thinking is no, so this is really just a bit of due diligence."
The Bedford facility will extract heat directly from sewage, which can be 12 C or warmer, Carl Yates, the general manager at Halifax Water, said in an interview.
It will involve running either a series of coils or discs directly through the sewage.
"There’s water running through the coils and that gets warmed," Mr. Yates said.
The municipality will use heat pumps to warm that water even more, he said. That water will be pumped in a loop to two nearby Provident buildings, where it will provide heat.
"I could see it providing energy for easily a couple of thousand people," Mr. Yates said of the Bedford sewage plant.
Mill Cove could produce the equivalent of 30 megawatts of energy, he said, noting the Halifax sewage plant has the potential to produce five times that.
"Sewage is energy. There’s a lot of energy that’s certainly coming from the homes. So it’s an opportunity to take that energy and reuse it."
Besides direct revenue for the city, the project could create new local jobs and make businesses more competitive due to reduced and predictable energy costs, the report said.
The municipality is also looking at using the Alderney 5 Energy Project to cool a nearby office building. That underground thermal energy storage system was constructed by drilling 80 holes, each 150 metres deep, and coupling them with a sea-water cooling system. Cold energy is then harvested during the winter months and stored underground.
"There are significant environmental benefits associated with the use of sewage heat recovery and sea-water cooling, namely reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, reduced noise and local air emissions from district energy infrastructure," the report said.
A "rough estimate" of the cost of a heat-recovery system at the Mill Cove treatment plant and a geothermal ocean loop for cooling purposes is $3 million, it said.
"With the district energy supply option, subject to confirmation through ongoing consulting work, the developer would avoid approximately one-third of this cost in capital costs for ‘business-as-usual’ infrastructure. The developer would purchase approximately $200,000 (to) $300,000 of thermal energy per year from the direct energy system, with operating costs in the order of $45,000, or approximately 1.5 per cent of capital costs."
The same document notes that the Alderney 5 Energy Project has had a "district energy contract ‘parked’ but ready to execute with the owner of Queen Square for over a year."
That system is slated to be working by March.
"Queen Square would require approximately $150,000 (per) year in thermal energy," the report said. "The estimated capital costs are approximately $1.5 million for Queen Square. There have been some discussions with the developer for King’s Wharf, but (the Green Thermal Utility) project timing is not well aligned for at least the first phase of that project."
The total $4.5-million cost of the projects "can most likely be offset by at least $2 million" from the province’s EcoTrust program, it said.
"Although subject to confirmation, it appears that the annual revenues would be sufficient to offset the balance of the project’s capital cost."
( clambie@herald.ca )
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