Vermont Digger
Summary
District energy, and the added efficiency it provides, is an important, realistic, practical and, most importantly, shovel-ready stepping stone.
Burlington Electric has worked hard for decades to reduce our carbon footprint with innovative energy efficiency programs and generous financial incentives for citizens and businesses. The latest project involves piping hot water from the McNeil wood-fired power plant up the hill to the University of Vermont campus and Medical Center. Termed district energy, this project will capture some of the waste heat released when the plant burns wood to generate power. In the ideal world, we wouldn’t burn carbon and would generate our power with solar, wind and water. But the world is not ideal and energy transitions don’t happen overnight. Every day McNeil runs without district energy, more waste heat goes to the cooling tower and not to buildings in town — a striking inefficiency. This is why I support Burlington’s proposal to increase the efficiency of McNeil — now — while at the same time, aggressively and explicitly planning for a no-carbon future.
Continue Reading
#News#DistrictEnergy