Burnaby fires up plans for trash-powered heating system

Planned district energy utility is aimed at providing heat,hot water to South Burnaby homes

LaurenVanderdeen

lvanderdeen@burnabynow

com

South Burnaby’s hot water and space heating are one step closer to being powered by garbage

On March 27, council approved a new draft policy for a city-owned and operated “district energy utility” that will run a network of mechanical facilities and underground pipes, channelling heated water to buildings across South Burnaby.

The thermal energy will come from waste heat generated by MetroVancouver’s Burnaby-basedWasteTo-Energy Facility (WTEF), which burns garbage and turns it into electricity.

When theWTEF burns garbage, it creates steam, which is used to power a turbine that generates the

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