Thompson Rivers University
IN-27: Innovation D

To align with the university’s sustainability vision and carbon reduction goals, one of the project mandates for the new 60,000 square foot Industrial Technology Training Centre (opened May 2018) is for the building to utilize low carbon heating. Initially, the building was designed to utilize biomass heating, and to interconnect to the adjacent and existing Trades and Technology Centre. When the biomass heating was halted by city council, the source of low carbon heating for these buildings was switched from biomass to electricity, which is mostly produced via hydroelectric generation. A centralized 720 kilowatt electric boiler plant acts as a district heating system for both the new and existing buildings. The heating strategy is utilizing the electric utility for the primary heating. The district system interconnects with the existing natural gas boiler plant in the Trades and Technology Centre, and the interconnection piping reverses the direction of flow and allows the natural gas plant to back-feed both buildings in an event of a failure of the electric plant. When compared to conventional natural gas heating, the centralized electric boiler plant reduces total carbon emissions by over 250,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide annually.