46
WAYS FORWARD
UBC’s burgeoning bioenergy facilities sustainably heat and power our campus Words by Zohrah Khalili Illustration by Ayesha Diwan
U
BC gets a large percentage of its power and heating from clean energy projects like the Bioenergy Research Demonstration Facility (BRDF) and Campus Energy Centre (CEC). The two projects help UBC further its climate action plan, working together to both power the campus and help meet UBC’s target of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 67 per cent by 2020. They function via the Academic District Energy System (ADES), which replaced 14 kilometres of 90year old steam piping and connected over 160 buildings to a new, more efficient hot-water system. The BRDF is a bioenergy facility that processes renewable biomass sourced from urban wood waste to generate thermal energy for heating campus buildings. It is also a vital part of the campus’s sustainability and academic efforts as a Living Lab Ini-
tiative. Living Labs are research concepts which integrate private parties such as academics, students and companies with public institutions like the university and its facilities, in hopes of creating knowledge and community. The CEC is UBC’s $24 million state-of-the-art hot-water boiler facility, which is able to meet all of UBC’s heating requirements. The CEC is the primary energy source for the new hot-water district energy system. The conversion from steam to a hot-water system first began in 2011, and in June 2017 the old steam plant was finally turned off.
THE BACKSTORY David Woodson, UBC’s managing director of Energy and Water Services, has been a part of the projects since 2006. He said that at the time they knew “something was coming to BC,” referring to the possibility of carbon pricing. “We started down a process of what we called our alternative energy study to say ... Before we spend money [on] the existing plan, is there another way to do what we’re doing?” said Woodson. According to Woodson, Energy and Water Services sourced three initial ideas from a study that weren’t ideal for their plans. Interestingly, all three ideas required UBC to have a hot-water loop on campus. The initial ideas all had jurisdictional issues and significant regulation
