Burnaby moves closer to garbage-powered heating, hot water
Plans are being made for a new way to heat homes in South Burnaby.
South Burnaby’s hot water and space heating are one step closer to being powered by garbage.
On March 27, the council approved a new draft policy for a city-owned and operated “district energy utility” to run a network of mechanical facilities and underground pipes, channeling heated water to buildings across South Burnaby.
The thermal energy will come from waste heat generated by Metro Vancouver’s Burnaby-based Waste-To-Energy Facility (WTEF), which burns garbage and turns it into electricity.
When the WTEF burns garbage, it creates steam, which is used to power a turbine that generates electricity. With the new district energy system, more steam will be recovered to heat water and pumped through regional pipes to neighborhood energy centers in Metrotown and Edmonds.
According to a staff report, those two neighborhoods will be the primary service areas, as the town centers are expected to host almost half of the city’s new homes over the next 20 years.
According to city staff, the neighborhood energy centers will be about the size of “a small house.” They will distribute heat from regional pipes to individual buildings and add heat using natural gas boilers when needed.
New residential buildings will swap their roof-based mechanical equipment for large refrigerator-sized energy transfer stations in the basement, which exchange the thermal energy from the pipes with the building’s heating system.
The project is part of the city’s climate action goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—around 38 percent of Burnaby’s carbon emissions come from buildings. The city expects to reduce about 82 percent of CO2 equivalent annually, or about 22,400 tonnes of CO2e, compared to business as usual.
Service connection to the utility is expected in 2026.
Once in full operation, the system could heat up to 30,000 homes, mostly in multifamily complexes, according to the city.
The city estimates that heat from the WTEF can supply 92 percent of Metrotown’s and 94 percent of Edmonds’s annual heating demand.
Burnaby plans future service expansion to the area between Willingdon Avenue, south of the Trans-Canada Highway, and the Kingsway corridor between Metrotown and Edmonds.
The utility won’t service any neighborhoods north of the Trans-Canada Highway.
According to staff at a development committee on March 8, the heat will be provided at or below market rates and rolled out over 25 years, with the majority of service provided between 2030 and 2040.
The system’s main energy center was originally planned to neighbor the WTEF at Fraser Foreshore Park. However, due to recent public opposition to using land in the proposed area, the city’s general manager of lands and facilities, James Lota, said another spot will have to be found.
“We’re going to have to go back to the drawing board a bit and try and find another spot for it, but we think there’s a plan to get it there,” Lota said at the council meeting.
The city is also studying a boiler buy-back program to buy existing boilers to prepare buildings when the utility is ready for service.
Burnaby’s district energy utility
Burnaby will initially be the owner and operator of the utility as a branch of the engineering department.
The city plans to move it “eventually” to a local government corporation where the utility is owned by the city but operated “as a separate company, and the municipality’s role is limited to governance.”
Staff said North Vancouver’s Lonsdale Energy Company and the Lulu Island Energy Company operate similarly.
According to the staff report, Burnaby already has various district heating systems, such as the Burnaby Mountain district energy utility at SFU, BCIT, Solo District, and Burnaby Central Secondary School, as well as a system currently under construction for the Gilmore Place development.
Staff says the district energy system will create local “green” jobs and be more reliable than traditional heating systems “as they keep operating during power outages and hydro or natural gas disruptions.”
According to the report, it would also reduce the cost of heating equipment like boilers, take advantage of future affordable fuel sources, and “free up rooftops” for developers to include other amenities by relocating mechanical equipment to a building’s basement.
The next steps include working with Metro Vancouver to get “cost-competitive rates” and studying whether to provide cooling through the DES. Staff will also coordinate policies with the City of Vancouver for both sides of Boundary Road.
The policy is set to be officially adopted in fall 2023.
In-stream developments that have yet to receive a second reading by the council will be required to follow the district energy policy.
New buildings of 100,000 square feet or more in Metrotown and Edmonds will be expected to connect to the utility while existing buildings can opt-in.
In 2022, Metro Vancouver announced its first district energy customer would be River District in South Vancouver.
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