Twin Lakes, AlbertaDecember 5, 2023
This blog highlights the capstone project for the CALS601 course (Leading Climate Action in Society Part 2)
How can organizations heat their buildings without carbon? I tackled this question through my work at Bow Valley College in Calgary. In short, we negotiated a short-term contract amendment with our district energy provider to purchase carbon neutral heat in exchange for a green fee. The funds that previously went to the federal carbon tax could now be used to invest in local decarbonization solutions at the district energy plant, supporting all organizations on the district energy system.
Let’s dig into the details. In many jurisdictions, the recommendation is to electrify heating systems. But due to technical grid constraints in downtown Calgary and Alberta’s carbon intensive electricity grid, that option isn’t feasible for us. I decided to focus on our district energy system instead. As the name suggests, district energy means many buildings in the same geographic area are heated from a single high-efficiency boiler system. Hot water is piped underground and then extracted via a heat exchanger. Although this system is more efficient than a traditional onsite boiler, it still relies on natural gas. Therefore, the College still has to pay the federal carbon tax.
So in 2023, we negotiated a contract amendment with Atlantica (owners of the district energy centre) to purchase waste heat from their combined heat and power unit in exchange for a “green fee”. This waste heat is considered carbon neutral because under the international Greenhouse Gas Protocol, carbon is allocated either to the electricity or the heat created from a combined heat and power unit. Atlantica decided to allocate the carbon to the electricity rather than the heat they were selling us, meaning they no longer needed to include the federal carbon tax on our bills. In the process, we reduce the greenhouse gas associated with our operations. Most importantly, that green fee can go toward Atlantica’s future efforts to decarbonize, such as through the installation of heat pumps, electric boilers connected to solar power, and even potentially hydrogen. Funds stay in Calgary to aid transition in one of the most carbon-intensive provinces in the country.
This decarbonization will not only help Bow Valley College, but all buildings on the district energy system. Other buildings on the system have already reached out to Atlantica wondering if they can make similar contract amendments, which has the potential to speed up the transition even more.
I realize that amending contracts isn’t the most glamorous work, and I want to be clear that purchasing waste heat from a fossil fuel based system is not an effective longterm climate solution. But these types of interim projects can set the stage and open up financial avenues for some really important energy transition work to take place.
As a student in the portfolio stream, I took three elective courses in my final year in the program. I studied Legal Aspects for Environmental Management and Climate Policy and Governance. These courses, as well as the Modelling a Business Case for Climate Action course earlier in the program really helped support my thinking and strategies as I worked on this project. For a full account of what I learned in all courses in the program, please see this blog post.
To learn more about this project, please visit the Bow Valley College website. To learn about other climate action projects, research and reflections undertaken my members of the first MACAL cohort, click here.