RC120 SeptOct 2025 - Magazine - Page 16
RENEW CANADA 20TH ANNIVERSARY
“The success of DLWC illustrates how the interests of a major
pension fund, a municipal government, dozens of private landlords
and a provincial government can be aligned for mutual benefit.”
An early example was “deep lake water
cooling (DLWC),” a multi-faceted Toronto district energy project launched in August 2004
by Enwave Energy Corporation that utilizes
frigid water from the depths of Lake Ontario
to cool as many as 200 commercial, institutional and residential buildings in downtown
Toronto, saving copious amounts of electricity
that would otherwise have been needed to
power conventional HVAC units while also
avoiding signi昀椀cant amounts of greenhouse
gas emissions. The success of DLWC illustrates how the interests of a major pension
fund, a municipal government, dozens of private landlords and a provincial government
can be aligned for mutual bene昀椀t.
The switch by multiple landlords to
DWLC’s alternative cooling system saw
a city-wide reduction in city-wide carbon
emissions of 25 per cent (while also gaining
Toronto international acclaim for its green
leadership).
DLWC also bene昀椀ted from tacit provincial support (minimal funding but maximum cheerleading) that, in the opinion of
an observer familiar with the project, “was
instrumental in getting DLWC to the starting
line.” The quid pro quo for the province was
that moving ahead with DLWC helped the
province avoid costly upgrades to the electricity grid that would have been required to
provide air conditioning to the fast-growing
downtown core.
A year after DLWC’s debut, the province
had the 昀椀scal freedom to pursue its emission-busting strategy of closing coal-昀椀red
electricity plants, which began with the shutting of Lakeview Generating Station in 2005.
Some 20 years later, that former brown昀椀eld
site is poised to be redeveloped as a major
mixed-use committee (with a district energy
network managed by Enwave Energy).
“Sometimes, the parties looking to invest
in infrastructure projects are just looking for a
signal that the government accepts a particular direction, rather than the usual demands
for government funding,” suggests a veteran
昀椀nancial expert who was a member of the
OMERS team that persuaded the company to
take the plunge with DLWC. “But that doesn’t
mean that government funders should be let
16—RENEW CANADA – SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2025
o昀昀 the hook if there are demonstrable longrun cost savings for the province’s energy
outputs that require government investment
as a catalyst,” he adds.
Decades after its launch, DLWC is widely
credited with changing how public, private
and institutional investors calculate the risks
and rewards of investing in complex projects
such as district energy schemes that stimulate
multiple land use and other economic bene昀椀ts.
3. The business case for Infrastructure projects increasingly counts the value of wider
community benefits
Although “hard” infrastructure projects
typically require an organization’s leadership
team to sign o昀昀 on a credible business case
before detailed planning is allowed to begin,
the framework used to greenlight projects at
the scale of a neighbourhood today is increasingly likely to re昀氀ect a broader set of drivers
than in the past, adding in calculations for
“wider community bene昀椀ts” to the mix.
Although the plan for Thompson Rivers
University (TRU) to achieve net-zero on its
Kamloops, B.C. campus was put in place in
2013, including a pledge to “be a leader in
environmental responsibility in the higher
education sector” and incorporating “sustainability as a core value,” the search for
solutions for how to meet the net-zero target
has been anything but straightforward. With
some buildings on campus dating back to the
1970s, the need to replace aging gas boilers
couldn’t be ignored.
After initially dismissing plans to convert
space heating on campus to district energy as
uneconomic, TRU’s administration decided to persevere in the search for a昀昀ordable
solutions that would not only complement
the university’s “green” aspirations but which
could leverage “wider area bene昀椀ts” to the
City of Kamloops and send the right signals
to the student population.
Bolstered by a desire to meet provincial
and municipal emission-reduction targets (80
per cent reduction below 2007 levels by 2050),
and remain consistent with the goals of the
University Network for Investor Engagement
(a shareholder engagement program seeking
to leverage and accelerate the transition to net
zero), TRU initiated discussions with Vancouver-based Creative Energy. The eventual
result was a decision to invest in a Low-Carbon District Energy System (LCDES). The DE
system is expected to o昀昀set the equivalent of
100,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions
over a 30-year period at full build out after it
“goes live” some time in 2026, enabling TRU
to claim a position as one of the 昀椀rst university campuses to achieve carbon neutrality.
According to TRU’s VP of Administration
and Finance, Matt Milovick, a key di昀昀erence
between the disappointment of 昀椀nding that
their preferred option didn’t make economic
sense in 2014, and a more positive outcome
following a feasibility study carried out jointly with Creative Energy in 2019, was rapid
improvements in the e昀케ciency of electric
furnaces. This opened the door to a partnership with B.C. Hydro to provide low carbon
electricity. Before construction of the LCDES
could begin, however, TRU and its partners
consulted with Indigenous leaders and had
to overcome a host of “challenging regulatory
and legal barriers.” It was also important to
the university that the newly installed DE
system could o昀昀er bene昀椀ts to neighbouring
private developers and city buildings.
One such complementary investment
announced earlier this year was a commitment from Bell Canada to construct a new
data centre on campus speci昀椀cally designed
to meet surging demand to power AI models
and applications. “Not only is there demand,
but sovereignty, data protection and cyber security are increasingly important,” BCE CEO
Mirko Bibic said in a statement. Bell’s partnership with TRU will allow “students and
faculty to train and run AI models.” The Bell
facility on TRU’s campus, scheduled to open
in 2026, is one of six hydro-powered facilities
in B.C. Bell’s facility at TRU “integrates into
the campus’ district energy system, repurposing heat load to warm campus buildings,” a
spokesperson for BCE con昀椀rmed.
Where will current trends in infrastructure
investment lead?
Our October 2005 article concluded with the
observation that cities which “value their human, physical and natural assets” are bound
to succeed in the long run. We could say the
same for a country. An expanded perspective
on the nature and value of infrastructure will
always deliver a positive return on investment if the focus is human-centred. Waiting
for government to take the lead is no longer
an option in age of partnership. Recognizing
that there can—and should be—wider community bene昀椀ts for every infrastructure play
just makes good business sense.
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