Oakridge Park | 13 Towers | 154m | 52fl | 5M sqft | U/C

[interrobang]

Originally Posted by officedweller

I presume these are air conditioned?
Some of the operable windows look pretty skinny.

All heating and cooling of Oakridge Park is by a centralized district energy system (DES). In this case, Oakridge Energy was established as a partnership between Creative Energy and Corix. Creative Energy is partly owned by Westbank who is one of the developers of Oakridge Park.

The wall/shroud that is being installed on the roof of building 2 (northwest corner) is designed to conceal the cooling towers that will be installed on the roof. There is also a closed-loop geoexchange system under the parkade.

[officedweller]

Thanks.
Hopefully the systems work well.

[cairnstone]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Thanks.
Hopefully the systems work well.

They work very well at draining the pocket book. Really need to stop building to the LEED standards and go back to basics for affordability. I believe the surrey center district energy costs 30% more than having regular hot water heat and power. There was a reddit or FB page and most post bitching about the costs that are on top of the maintenance

[GenWhy?]

Originally Posted by cairnstone

They work very well at draining the pocket book. Really need to stop building to the LEED standards and go back to basics for affordability. I believe the surrey center district energy costs 30% more than having regular hot water heat and power. There was a reddit or FB page and most post bitching about the costs that are on top of the maintenance

I mean, Surrey centre is hardly even 50% complete and don't these system get most cost efficient as more projects are on-boarded?

Last I looked at a industrial / office site in Mount Pleasant folks were saying how the cost of the Olympic Village system has been steadily decreasing as OV is pretty much built out and the system is expanding south and east.

Is the Oakridge system expanding beyond their project? Oakridge definitely isn't small to get it's own system, but would seem short sighted.

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by GenWhy?

I mean, Surrey centre is hardly even 50% complete and don't these system get most cost efficient as more projects are on-boarded?

Last I looked at a industrial / office site in Mount Pleasant folks were saying how the cost of the Olympic Village system has been steadily decreasing as OV is pretty much built out and the system is expanding south and east.

Is the Oakridge system expanding beyond their project? Oakridge definitely isn't small to get it's own system, but would seem short sighted.

But isn't the False Creek district energy intentionally under recovering their annual costs so that those early adopters aren't paying for a larger share of the capital costs?

https://council.vancouver.ca/20211201/documents/1e.pdf

And I think that sort of assumes you build out a system that can serve that future market without the capital costs to upgrade/expand the system. The expansion of 1.9 million square feet of building space means there's another $100 million dollar investment for the Olympic Village system and they already doubled the amount of their heat recovery from sewage recently.

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-...-and-hot-water

From the article: they said the water for the False Creek sewage is warmer because of waste flow from the Creative Energy system. I wonder what happens if CE decides to extract more heat from their waste?

Here's the BCUC documents on the Oakridge system

https://www.bcuc.com/OurWork/ViewPro...licationid=899

And their website:

https://oakridge.energy/

Doesn't sound like it will expand beyond Oakridge Park.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by GenWhy?

I mean, Surrey centre is hardly even 50% complete and don't these system get most cost efficient as more projects are on-boarded?

Last I looked at a industrial / office site in Mount Pleasant folks were saying how the cost of the Olympic Village system has been steadily decreasing as OV is pretty much built out and the system is expanding south and east.

Is the Oakridge system expanding beyond their project? Oakridge definitely isn't small to get it's own system, but would seem short sighted.

As a user of the system in OV, it absolutely isn't decreasing in cost (as promised). They have had routine price increases every year, above CPI inflation until the recent inflation bump.

The monthly cost is easily twice as much as natural gas boilers, and the advertised lower capital and maintenance costs are just lies.

I'm not bitter about it though.

[FarmerHaight]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

As a user of the system in OV, it absolutely isn't decreasing in cost (as promised). They have had routine price increases every year, above CPI inflation until the recent inflation bump.

The monthly cost is easily twice as much as natural gas boilers, and the advertised lower capital and maintenance costs are just lies.

I'm not bitter about it though.

Is the system in OV just an example of bad execution? I learned the other day that the district cooling plant in the Loop in Chicago uses 30% less energy compared to each individual building having its own cooling system.

Conceptually, it makes sense that district heating and cooling systems could be more efficient and cost effective.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by FarmerHaight

Is the system in OV just an example of bad execution? I learned the other day that the district cooling plant in the Loop in Chicago uses 30% less energy compared to each individual building having its own cooling system.

Conceptually, it makes sense that district heating and cooling systems could be more efficient and cost effective.

Well it was the first big attempt by the City here so that might have had something to do with it. The high level financials are available but it's hard to say if they are out of whack or not. It could be a good deal in 30 years?

It's nice to be low to zero carbon, but it ain't cheap.

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by FarmerHaight

Is the system in OV just an example of bad execution? I learned the other day that the district cooling plant in the Loop in Chicago uses 30% less energy compared to each individual building having its own cooling system.

Conceptually, it makes sense that district heating and cooling systems could be more efficient and cost effective.

But most of those projections probably factor in the long term building boiler maintenance/replacement so maybe it's a wash (from a current tenant perspective). And unless your input costs are super low (sewage heat waste recovery or burning off waste wood scrap) etc. then it might make sense but a lot of them have natural gas boilers as well and throw in any premium on renewable natural gas.



https://www.fortisbc.com/services/su...tural-gas-cost

The UBC system seems like it's a majority of biomass supplied from wood waste.

https://energy.ubc.ca/ubcs-utility-i...rgy-hot-water/

[cairnstone]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Well it was the first big attempt by the City here so that might have had something to do with it. The high level financials are available but it's hard to say if they are out of whack or not. It could be a good deal in 30 years?

It's nice to be low to zero carbon, but it ain't cheap.

Carbon is just marketing to make things cost more. And in 30 years you will be hit for surcharges for capital cost upgrades

[Changing City]

...

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Well it was the first big attempt by the City here so that might have had something to do with it. The high level financials are available but it's hard to say if they are out of whack or not. It could be a good deal in 30 years?

It's nice to be low to zero carbon, but it ain't cheap.

It's more expensive (currently) because our electricity is so cheap. The technology of the SEFC NEU was based on one in German - there's a similar waste hear to heating loop in Cologne, for example. While we pay 11c a KWh base, and 14c over that, in Cologne they pay 55c (US) so 73c Canadian. Our electricity price will rise as we have to pay for new infrastructure and supply, so the relative value of the NEU may become more apparent.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Changing City

It's more expensive (currently) because our electricity is so cheap. The technology of the SEFC NEU was based on one in German - there's a similar waste hear to heating loop in Cologne, for example. While we pay 11c a KWh base, and 14c over that, in Cologne they pay 55c (US) so 73c Canadian. Our electricity price will rise as we have to pay for new infrastructure and supply, so the relative value of the NEU may become more apparent.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. That in the future NEU will look cheap because the alternative will be electric boilers?

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. That in the future NEU will look cheap because the alternative will be electric boilers?

I'm suggesting that it seems expensive because our electricity is very cheap, but that may change as we have to spend more (so pay more) for our future electricity needs. In Europe where the centralised system was created, it probably a cheaper system, because they pay much more for electricity.

The alternative is that as other low-cost electricity - wind and maybe solar - get added to the BC grid, the small loop heat recovery systems like yours, Senakw and Oakridge will always cost more.

And I hadn't thought of it, but if electricity gets even cheaper, or stays relatively cheaper, it's possible that (like the Downtown heat system) introducing electric boilers would make sense (certainly as top-up, rather than the gas boilers currently in place).

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by Changing City

I'm suggesting that it seems expensive because our electricity is very cheap, but that may change as we have to spend more (so pay more) for our future electricity needs. In Europe where the centralised system was created, it probably a cheaper system, because they pay much more for electricity.

The alternative is that as other low-cost electricity - wind and maybe solar - get added to the BC grid, the small loop heat recovery systems like yours, Senakw and Oakridge will always cost more.

And I hadn't thought of it, but if electricity gets even cheaper, or stays relatively cheaper, it's possible that (like the Downtown heat system) introducing electric boilers would make sense (certainly as top-up, rather than the gas boilers currently in place).

Seems like Senakw will use electric boilers for peaking and NG for backup as well.

Electric Boilers 1 x 1000kW (1x 1000kW future)
Natural Gas Boilers 3x 1600kW (6x 1600kW future)

https://creative.energy/projects/senakw

https://docs.bcuc.com/Documents/Proc...pplication.pdf

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by Changing City

And I hadn't thought of it, but if electricity gets even cheaper, or stays relatively cheaper, it's possible that (like the Downtown heat system) introducing electric boilers would make sense (certainly as top-up, rather than the gas boilers currently in place).

Creative Energy is installing two (or three?) electric boilers at 720 Beatty downtown.
From the 720 Beatty thread posted Jan 15, 2023:

Originally Posted by madog222

^Thanks for posting that!
I didn't know of the change in scope for the Creative Energy steam plant. This major redesign would explain the slow progress we've seen.

The 2021 approved design was for 2 new boilers under BC Place (Expo Plant) and retaining & refurbishing the newer boilers in the existing Beatty Plant. Then when the electric boilers were announced the plan was for two new electric boilers to be installed in the Beatty Plant (presumably scrapping all the existing gas boilers) and keeping the planned gas fired Expo Plant. Source: https://assets.ctfassets.net/8a0wf23...on_Project.pdf
Now they are installing four new boilers in a new Beatty plant, scrapping the entire existing plant, and cancelling the Expo Plant.

Here's a summary from your link:



Now the only question is how many electric and gas boilers make up the four. We know there will still be at least one gas boiler as the new design references a flue stack. Given the configuration of 3 big and 1 small boiler I would guess the three big are electric and the odd one out is gas.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Changing City

I'm suggesting that it seems expensive because our electricity is very cheap, but that may change as we have to spend more (so pay more) for our future electricity needs. In Europe where the centralised system was created, it probably a cheaper system, because they pay much more for electricity.

No it's expensive because natural gas boilers are cheap and efficient. And the gas is cheap and plentiful here.

Electric boilers would be a lot more, despite the cheap electricity. It's expensive to use it for heating. Ask anything with electric baseboards.

[LeftCoaster]

The premium to go electric over gas is not really all that high in a centralized system. It's high enough that when presented with no incentives to switch the usual choice will be gas but going all electric is actually not that much of a premium these days... which is why most are doing it.

The Stack downtown went all electric on their own accord and it wasn't a huge premium.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

The premium to go electric over gas is not really all that high in a centralized system. It's high enough that when presented with no incentives to switch the usual choice will be gas but going all electric is actually not that much of a premium these days... which is why most are doing it.

The Stack downtown went all electric on their own accord and it wasn't a huge premium.

According to the City document above comparing various systems, NG boilers are $50 per MWh, Electricity is $119, NEU is $125.

They call gas $100 in the document with a "clever" footnote to indicate half of that is for capital costs of boiler replacements over time. As if none of the other options have replacement and/or ongoing maintenance costs.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

No it's expensive because natural gas boilers are cheap and efficient. And the gas is cheap and plentiful here.

Electric boilers would be a lot more, despite the cheap electricity. It's expensive to use it for heating. Ask anything with electric baseboards.

I have baseboard heating and electric hot water. It's not especially expensive in a well insulated space with double glazing. Cooling in contemporary summers costs much more than it used to - and a gas boiler does nothing for that!

Gas is (too) cheap, although Fortis suggests the carbon tax is now about the same as the cost of the gas, and the tax will double again over the next few years, so electricity may be a better economic option, provided the cost of electricity doesn't go up too much.