Vancouver turns sewage heat into renewable energy for buildings

False Creek NEU’s impact goes beyond the buildings it serves. Its success has helped demonstrate that sewage and wastewater heat recovery can work at the utility scale, and has encouraged other communities throughout Metro Vancouver to explore similar approaches. Every day thousands of showers, sinks and toilets flush warm wastewater down the drain. Now some of that heat is not going to waste in Vancouver. Instead, it is being recovered from sewage and pumped into buildings to power one of the city’s largest low-carbon heating systems, states a report by the International District Energy Association (IDEA). The city’s False Creek Neighborhood Energy Utility (NEU) has been recognized with the System of the Year Award by IDEA for 16 years of reliable service, innovative sewage heat recovery and its long-term carbon emission reduction strategy. Scroll down to understand the concept and its benefits for the larger goods.From Olympic village to citywide serviceThe report states that the False Creek was originally built for Vancouver’s Olympic Village for the 2010 Winter Games. The goal was simple: eliminate the individual building heating systems, traditionally powered by fossil fuels, ...