CASE STUDY WHISTLER OLYMPIC VILLAGE
The Olympic buildings were heated and cooled using energy from the existing sewage treatment plant in Whistler Village
OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE
The project is controlled by a technologically advanced ESC automation management system that co-ordinates and optimises the DESS to ensure the maximum of energy saving along with maximum indoor comfort conditions. The control system utilises a fully open network protocol (BACNET), communicating with multiple distributed control panels, including third- party manufacturers controls (supplied with the units), for a fully integrated seamless control system. The DDC control system is monitored by the wastewater plant operators and independently by an outside consulting firm.
energy sharing system (DESS), which takes low-temperature energy from the existing Whistler Village Sewage Treatment Plant and uses it for the heating and cooling of buildings in the project. The DESS was designed with capacity for a community of 400 residential units and their ancillary services – almost all of which are now sold. Treated sewage is pumped from the existing treatment plant to an adjacent mechanical plant room, where it is filtered before passing through a bank of heat exchangers. A two-pipe, reversed-return, closed-loop system around the Athlete’s Village supplies the energy required for all of the heat pumps in Phase 1 of the project. Water from the heat exchangers in the mechanical plant room is pumped through high-density polyethylene piping, around the distribution loops, providing the energy source for the heat pumps within each of the village buildings. There are no circulating pumps or control valves between the connected building supply and the return to the DESS, with control governed entirely by the pressure difference between the supply and return mains. The heat pumps in each unit were selected to provide 60% of the peak capacity for heating and/or cooling, with electric
40 CIBSE Journal February 2014
heating elements installed in each building as backup. The largest pipe to discharge
from in the system mechanical room is 356mm in diameter. Phase 1 flow from the mechanical room
is maintained at 76 l/s. Flow rate for the completed system will be 101 l/s. Space has been reserved for a future heat exchanger and pump. Two gas-fired standby boilers are located in the mechanical room.
District energy sharing system The innovative aspects of this project rest in the district energy sharing system (DESS). The system is providing heating, cooling and domestic hot water to a very large development using the energy that is reclaimed from the sewage treatment plant. The first year’s operation of the system is producing an energy saving of almost 50%, compared with that of a comparable natural gas system. As the system is expanded and the operation refined, this figure is expected to rise to a 60% saving. The distribution piping creates thermal storage, which is used by the building heat pumps, functioning in either heating or cooling modes. The use of a non-freezing compound in the system was not considered necessary because of the temperatures
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