Hidden deep beneath the parking garage, however, there’s something that sets this condo apart: 32 boreholes more than 250 metres deep that will soon be using the earth to heat and cool the building with virtually no carbon emissions.
This summer, Mattamy Homes, one of the biggest homebuilders in North America, signed a joint venture agreement with geothermal company Diverso Energy, to roll out the technology on a mass scale. Diverso will drill and maintain the geothermal systems beneath buildings and provide year-round heating and cooling to residents at a fixed rate.
So rather than a condo board taking ownership of a boiler or cooling tower, and paying for the natural gas and electricity to run them, Diverso owns the system and recoups its investment over time while residents can heat and cool as much as they please without any impact on their bills.
Not just reserved for single buildings, geothermal energy has also been used in district energy systems that heat and cool multiple buildings, including U of T’s St. George Campus and a subdivision in Markham. The Enwave district energy system that heats and cools 200 buildings in the downtown core uses similar technology to cool office towers and condos in the summer, but pipes waste heat into the lake rather than the ground.
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