Ariterm pellet boiler, 400kW installed on the Cataline Elementary school property.
Taking innovation to a new level at school district #27
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lex Telford, manager of facilities and transportation, has a big job maintaining over 28 facilities, keeping his finger on the pulse of energy reduction strategies, and supervising custodial services and transportation at Cariboo-Chilcotin School District #27 (SD#27). Like most diligent facilities managers, he juggles priorities to ensure school facilities run smoothly, while seeking innovative ways to meet B.C.’s Carbon Neutral Government (CNG) requirements, including offsetting its greenhouse gas emissions. The heating system at Cataline Elementary School, built in 1972, located in Williams Lake, and bordering Thompson Rivers University (TRU), was on Telford’s radar back in 2013. Suffering a cracked heat exchanger, costly to operate, and suspected of producing high emissions, he was concerned its serviceable life was close to ending. Telford knew it was high time to put a comprehensive heating system upgrade plan in place. When approaching the planning, Telford
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Ops Talk • Spring 2017
had multiple goals in mind, including carbon emissions reduction, cost savings, efficiency, and easy maintenance. The requirements of the CNG program were a major driver (i.e., offsets at $30/tonne of emissions), as were provincial carbon taxes at $25/tonne, and the school district’s five per cent annual emissions reduction target. The SD#27 Alexis Creek and Tatla Lake facilities already had pellet boilers (also referred to as biomass boiler) installed, combined with propane for shoulder seasons, resulting in an average of $40,000 savings per annum. But space was a major limitation for a pellet boiler, especially since Cataline was also due for an HVAC mechanical upgrade that would take up additional floor space. Plain out-of-the-box thinking and creative brainstorming brought together a unique and innovative solution that checked all the boxes. Firstly, a decision was taken to construct a separate building on the Cataline property with space for a new state-of-the-art pellet boiler, new compact Viessmann gas boilers, heat exchangers, HVAC mechanical
upgrade, and fuel storage. Next, with economies of scale in mind, and given the sheer power of the proposed pellet boiler, SD#27 approached Jim Gudjonson, director of sustainability at TRU, and proposed the new pellet boiler provide heat not only for the Cataline Elementary building and the EJ Bare kindergarten annex, but also for the entire TRU campus during the heavy winter season. Gudjonson thought using a renewable source to heat TRU in lieu of its current gas boilers that consumed a whopping 6,000 gigajoules per year made perfect sense. Because pellet boilers have limited dial-down capabilities, it was determined to use natural gas boilers (existing boilers at TRU, and new gas boiler heating at Cataline) for shoulder season, pellet boiler heating for heavy winter, and in extreme weather, e.g., -25° C, to rely on the on-site gas boilers for supplemental heat. The framework for this stellar plan was coming together nicely; time to bring in some additional expertise thought Telford. Rocky Point Engineering had already provided engineering oversight on SD#27’s pre-
