Wall Street Journal
Summary
It took seven years, but Jocelyn Hittle finally got what she wanted: a heating and cooling system fueled by wastewater at Colorado State University’s new Spur campus in Denver.
When Hittle finally moved into one of the buildings served by this system, the most surprising thing was how utterly unremarkable it felt.
No unusual odors. No strange noises. Just the same comfortable indoor climate she’d experienced in conventional buildings throughout her career.
“As an occupant of the building, everything feels exactly the same,” says Hittle, associate vice president at CSU for special projects and the Spur campus, a three-building complex at the National Western Center in Denver. “The only difference is that we get to tell that story and have our visitors understand that we’re doing something new and how it helps us to meet our energy and climate goals,” she says.
According to Energy Department estimates, Americans flush the equivalent of 350 billion kilowatt-hours of energy from hot water down their drains annually. A substantial portion of this thermal energy is recoverable, yet most municipalities and building managers have barely begun to tap this resource.
Vancouver was an early adopter of this approach in North America. The city’s False Creek Neighbourhood Energy Utility began operating the first sewage heat-recovery system on the continent in 2010.
Wastewater heat-recovery systems, which have been widely adopted in Europe, are gaining momentum in North America as the technology becomes more accessible and cost-effective. Major projects in Denver; Vancouver, British Columbia; New York state; and King County, Wash., are either expanding existing systems or breaking new ground.
“In Sweden, any area that is densely populated is served with district heating,” says Semida Silveira, professor of energy systems planning at Cornell University. “District heating is a very efficient way of heating homes.”
In contrast, most U.S. buildings rely on individual heating systems, which can still recover heat but require new infrastructure for each building. That works, but not as efficiently as centralized solutions, according to Silveira.
However, these projects on a smaller scale are gaining traction, thanks to new systems sized specifically for multifamily properties. In New York state, construction of a wastewater heat-recovery system has begun at Whitney Young Manor, a multifamily housing development in Westchester County, and a system is being designed for the Amalgamated Housing Cooperative in the Bronx, both with support from Nyserda, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.
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