Blatchford’s award-winning District Energy System (DESS) is growing with the community – starting with its first energy centre, aptly named Energy Centre One.
With the vision to be a 100% renewable, carbon-neutral neighbourhood, the DESS plays a major role by providing Blatchford’s homes and buildings with a renewable source of energy for hot water, heating and cooling. Since 2019, it’s been harnessing shallow geothermal energy from a geoexchange field of 570 boreholes (each 150 metres deep) beneath a local stormwater pond – and then sending that energy to Energy Centre One, where a highly efficient heat pump increases the temperature before pushing it out to homes through a network of underground pipes.
How District Energy Sharing works in Blatchford
Where does the “sharing” come in? Excess heat energy can be removed from one home and put back into the system to be used in another. And in the summer, heat can be sent to the geoexchange field to be stored for use in winter.
Speaking of seasons, Edmonton is no stranger to extreme temperature swings and the strain they cause the electricity grid. Blatchford’s DESS helps to reduce that strain by providing homes with a year-round temperature of between 10 and 20°C. When a resident wants to increase or lower their home’s temperature beyond that range, they do so by using the energy efficient heat pump their home comes already equipped with, resulting in only a moderate electricity draw.
Expanding an award-winning District Energy System
It’s an exciting time for Blatchford as more people choose to call this sustainable community home. It also means the DESS needs to grow. That’s because at full buildout this system – which has already won two international awards from the Federation of Consulting Engineers – is anticipated to be one of the largest ambient systems in Canada with a masterplan of 14 million square feet of connected buildings.
Last year the Government of Canada awarded a $23.7M grant to Blatchford’s DESS to help add another 13.1 MW of heating and 12.3 MW cooling capacity to the system. This includes installing a second heat pump, extending the distribution piping network, and designing and constructing a Sewer Heat Exchange Energy Centre that will add sewer heat as a second source of renewable energy to the system. It’s unique to have two sources of renewable energy in a DESS and innovations like this help to position Edmonton as a proud leader in climate change action and resilience.