City Facilities

Buildings can use enormous amounts of energy for heating, lighting and general operations. Even new, advanced facilities use energy during construction and during operation. Therefore City is setting standards for civic facilities that will increase the efficiency of design, decrease energy use and help to reach our climate protection goals.

 

New Buildings

All new civic facilities being built that are over 500 square meters are required to be LEED(TM) Gold and and 30% more energy efficient than standard construction. It is the highest environmental performance standard required by any local government in North America.

Retrofits

Currently retrofits are underway or planned for the 165,000 square meters of City owned facilities to improve energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The energy-saving retrofits include:

  • lighting upgrades
  • heating system upgrades (including boiler replacements)
  • cooling system improvements
  • building automation upgrades
  • ventilation system upgrades
  • water conservation measures

The retrofits are estimated at $15.4 million. They promise long-term savings through avoided utility and maintenance costs. These improvements will result in:

  • An annual reduction of 3,290 tonnes in greenhouse gas emissions - a 22% decrease from 1990 levels (89% of the target for these facilities) and is equivalent to removing 62 cars from the road.
  • Savings of approximately $950,000 annually (based on current utility rates)
  • Electrical energy savings of 3,900,000 kilowatt hours annually (a 10% reduction)
  • Natural gas savings of 55,000 gigajoules annually (a 30% reduction)
  • Water savings of 40,275 cubic metres.

Buildings that have undergone renovation include: City Hall Campus (including East Wing, and the West 10th Annex), Library Square, Vancouver Museum & Archives Complex, National Yards, Manitoba Yards, Vancouver Aquatic Centre, Renfrew Community Centre, Vandeusen Gardens, Bloedel Conservatory, Langara Golf Course, Kensington Community Centre, Hastings Community Centre, Templeton Pool, and many more....

Click here for facility-specific information.

Background

These retrofits, education and construction standards build on a program to reduce electrical energy use started in 1989, partnering with BC Hydro as a Power Smart Partner.

As of 2005, the city's strategy included a partnership with Ameresco Canada Inc, an energy services company tasked with analyzing energy use and identifying, implementing and monitoring energy savings through performance contracts. Savings are guaranteed and used to repay the cost of the projects.

The City is also participating in BC Hydro's Continuous Optimization Program. Through the City’s aggressive program of energy retrofits funded on a cost recovery basis from energy savings, civic buildings are already achieving significantly reduced energy consumption and GHG reductions. In fact, these initiatives have caused BC Hydro to reduce its estimates of energy savings achievable through the Continuous Optimization Program from 10% to 4%. In order to test the limits of this success, the City has applied to participate in this BC Hydro program and has been approved for an initial phase of nine facilities, including: City Hall & East Wing, West Annex (VanCity Building), One Kingsway, Library Square , Sunset Community Centre, Museum of Vancouver, Manitoba Works Yard, National Works Yard, and Vancouver Aquatic Centre.

Working with BC Hydro, the City will partner with Pulse Energy, a Vancouver company, to provide the real-time monitoring and reporting software. Pulse will provide building by building reporting of energy consumption in a dashboard style, web-based report format as well as detailed consumption information. The project is well underway, hardware equipments has already installed in City Hall.

Construction

With minimal interruption to normal operations, upgrade work has been ongoing since 2005 at various facilities. In most cases, public spaces were not affected at all. Just because the work isn't seen, doesn't mean there isn't a tangible impact. The improvements can be seen in lighting systems, improved control of space temperatures and better comfort levels.

Results

Because the project is performance-based, the results of the improvements have to be proven by comparing utility use (and adjusting for weather) from the period before construction to the situation after construction. In the case of City Hall, the energy consumption has shown to be 10% better than the original estimates.

Overall, the City is projecting that by the end of 2010, GHG emissions will be reduced 22% compared to 1990 levels, Natural gas consumption will be down 23% and electricity intensity (kWh/area) down 13%.

All these savings are in addition to the tangible improvements to our built environment. By implementing these energy efficiencies, the city is taking the lead in sustainability and demonstrating the savings for others to adopt. Successes aside, we know that there is more to do, and stay tuned for updates to projects and policy.

More information

Further details can be found: