Blogs

Oklahoma State University Partners with Vicinity Energy for Sustainable District Energy

By District Energy posted 2 days ago
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Vicinity Summary Vicinity Energy, a leader in decarbonization with the nation’s largest portfolio of district energy systems, has partnered with Oklahoma State University (OSU) to provide chilled water and steam service to a new medical campus. This project will combine multiple existing buildings into a state-of-the-art hospital. Vicinity will serve the entire 58-bed medical-surgical inpatient hospital for Oklahoma veterans, totaling over 275,000 square feet of building space. The medical campus will use steam and chilled water for space heating and cooling, domestic hot water, and direct steam humidification. By choosing district energy, the campus ...
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State, local building energy codes get makeovers with over $240M from US DOE

By District Energy posted 3 days ago
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Smart Cities Dive Summary The Biden administration has been an advocate of stronger state and local energy-related building codes. In 2022, President Joe Biden launched the National Building Performance Standards Coalition , a group of state and local governments that committed to implementing BPS in their jurisdictions. These standards also showed up as a priority in the DOE’s federal blueprint to decarbonize the building sector , which was released in April. Thirteen U.S. cities have a BPS in place, according to a July report from JLL. By 2026, that number could balloon to at least 40 cities, the report predicts. Cities are taking ...
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Serbia seeks consultant for EBRD-backed renewable district energy project

By District Energy posted 3 days ago
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See News Summary Serbia's mining ministry is seeking consultancy services for the implementation of a 41.9 million euro ($46.3 million) renewable district energy project supported by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the bank said. The ministry will open the procurement for project implementation support and works supervision services for the implementation of the renewable district energy project on September 4, calling interested companies to submit their bids by October 14, the EBRD said in a statement on Monday. The project aims to provide investments in renewable and waste heat based generation in several ...
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ADHOC Brings Student Housing to Montreal’s Technopôle Angus

By District Energy posted 3 days ago
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AZURE Summary An affordable post-secondary residence joins the neighbourhood’s pedestrian-friendly public realm and innovative district energy loop. There’s housing, and then there’s student housing. While the build quality of new homes varies massively across the board, apartment buildings intended for Canada’s growing post-secondary population often feel notably cheaper or more haphazardly assembled than their market-rate counterparts. Not so at Montreal’s Technopôle Angus, where local architects ADHOC have added a sensitive, sustainable and affordable new residential complex to a fast-growing neighbourhood. As part of the Technopôle Angus complex, ...
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Munich secures 44 million euros for geothermal heating expansion

By District Energy posted 3 days ago
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energynews Summary Municipal operator Stadtwerke München (SWM) has been awarded 43.9 million euros in federal funding under the “Federal Funding for Efficient Heat Networks (BEW)” program. The grant is intended to support the expansion of Munich’s geothermal heating network, a project whose total cost is estimated at around one billion euros. The funding will cover 40% of these costs, enabling SWM to boost its capacity in the northeast of the city. These plants are key points in the district heating network, which must meet emission reduction and energy diversification targets. Continue Reading #News #GeothermalandGeo-Exchange ...
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atNorth plans mega datacenter that will help grow veggies and heat homes

By District Energy posted 3 days ago
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The Register Summary Nordic datacenter operator atNorth says its next facility - the biggest to date - is to feature a heat reuse scheme for large-scale greenhouses and local housing. The new campus near Billund Airport in Denmark, branded DEN02, is being designed to cater for data-intensive businesses such as hyperscalers and companies looking to run AI and high-performance compute (HPC) workloads. There are also plans to provide heating and hot water for local communities via the district heating supplier, but atNorth told The Register that while it is in discussions with potential clients, there is nothing to announce at this time. Continue ...
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Empower records 41% increase in customer registration over 5 years

By District Energy posted 3 days ago
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Zawya Summary Emirates Central Cooling Systems Corporation PJSC (Empower) announced a substantial increase in new customer registrations across all sectors in Dubai. The company witnessed a 41 percent growth in the number of new customers registered electronically from both public and private sectors during the past five years, from 2019 to 2023, reflecting a growing preference for Empower's district cooling services. The company also noted that during the first half of this year, the number of bill payment transactions via the electronic payment channels provided by Empower and its strategic partners, including banks and financial institutions, reached ...
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Iron piloted for seasonal hydrogen storage

By District Energy posted 3 days ago
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PEI Summary The use of iron as a low cost approach for storing hydrogen is being piloted by researchers at the ETH Zurich in Switzerland. The approach relies on the reaction of hydrogen with natural iron ore, which extracts the oxygen from the ore to result in elemental iron and water that can then be stored for long periods with minimal losses. Currently in the pilot, to keep the energy required for the discharging process to a minimum, the steam is generated using waste heat from the discharging reaction. Continue Reading #News #WastetoEnergy
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Notre Dame Captures Top Plant Award for South Bend Hydro Project

By District Energy posted 3 days ago
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Power Summary In the 1980s, while completing a fish ladder project around the dam, the city applied for and received a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) exemption to construct a new hydro plant on the dam. Yet, for decades a plant was never constructed, mainly due to economic reasons. The University of Notre Dame was made aware of the exemption in about 2010. While a for-profit power company would have difficulty justifying the cost of a hydro plant on the dam due to the low head and limited money-making potential, the university had other things to consider. “For us, what we were more interested in was getting the ‘green energy,’ ...
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Cornell University - Central Energy Plant Manager

By District Energy posted 4 days ago
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Cornell University Central Energy Plant Manager Ithaca (Main Campus) Full time Job requisition id - WDR-00047453 Energy & Sustainability is comprised of three interactive teams: Campus Sustainability Office, Energy Management and Utilities Distribution and Production,   which work together to achieve our obligations and seize opportunities to reduce our environmental footprint while providing vital utilities services to the Ithaca campus.   The Utilities section of Energy and Sustainability operates the University   energy infrastructure system on a 24-hour, 365 day per year basis. Production facilities include a combined cycle gas ...
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World’s largest air-to-water heat pump to warm 30,000 homes in Finland

By District Energy posted 5 days ago
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Interesting Engineering Summary Finland’s capital city, Helsinki, is building the world’s largest heat pump to keep as many as 30,000 homes warm in the winter while reducing carbon emissions. The pump can operate at temperatures as low as -4 Fahrenheit (-20 degrees Celsius) while being powered by only renewable energy sources. District heating is a commonly deployed mechanism to maximize energy efficiency. It centralizes heat production and distributes it to homes and businesses using a network of underground pipes. The approach is used in many cities worldwide but has conventionally relied on fossil fuels to generate heat. Continue Reading ...
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Government’s Green Heat Network Fund (GHNF) awards £14 million of construction and commercialisation funding for Brent Cross Town

By District Energy posted 5 days ago
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London Post Summary The Government’s Green Heat Network Fund (GHNF) has awarded £14 million of construction and commercialisation funding for Brent Cross Town’s heat network, supporting the project to become net zero carbon by 2030. Brent Cross Town is being developed as a joint venture between Related Argent and Barnet Council with 6,700 new homes, workspace for 25,000 people, a new high street, three schools, extensive sport and leisure facilities, and 50 acres of green space – all supported by the recently opened Brent Cross West mainline station. Low carbon heat will be generated through a fully electric energy centre and supplied to all residential, ...
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Austin Energy announces full deployment of AI-driven Early Wildfire Detection System

By District Energy posted 5 days ago
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Austin Energy Summary Austin Energy is deploying its advanced AI-driven wildfire detection system, marking a significant step forward in enhancing wildfire response capabilities across its entire 437-square-mile service territory. The Pano AI system integrates 13 ultra-high-definition, 360-degree cameras, artificial intelligence and real-time data monitoring to swiftly detect and verify potential wildfires. Once a fire is identified, the system automatically alerts Austin Energy and local fire departments, providing precise location data and real-time imagery to help first responders in their efforts to quickly address and contain the threat. "This is ...
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Enwave commissions latest district cooling expansion in Toronto

By District Energy posted 5 days ago
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HPAC Summary Enwave Energy Corp. celebrated the commissioning of the fourth intake to its Deep Lake Water Cooling (DLWC) district cooling system in Toronto during a ceremony on August 29th at the company’s John Street Energy Centre in downtown Toronto. Construction on the expansion began in 2021, and it includes a 3-km pipe into Lake Ontario, which draws in water at 4C and transports it to the John Street Energy Centre through a newly built tunnel that extends under the Toronto harbour. The expansion has effectively increased the DLWC’s cooling capacity by 60%, with the capability of providing service to an additional 40 buildings. Continue Reading ...
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Tabreed first district cooling company to be eligible to trade carbon credits

By District Energy posted 5 days ago
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Tabreed Summary Tabreed, the world’s leading district cooling company, has made a major advancement in its efforts to decarbonise the cooling sector, achieving the ‘Verified Carbon Standard’ at one of its Abu Dhabi plants, certifying carbon credits to offset emissions. Independent non-profit agency, Verra, which sets the world’s leading standards for climate action and sustainable development, carried out a year-long verification programme at the plant, which supplies a high-profile commercial and tourist attraction development with sustainable cooling services that are vital to its daily activities. The study confirmed that the plant’s operations bring ...
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Empower awards contract to design its second District Cooling plant in Jumeirah Village

By District Energy posted 5 days ago
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Empower Summary Emirates Central Cooling Systems Corporation PJSC (Empower), the world's largest district cooling services provider, has awarded a contract to design its second district cooling plant in Jumeirah Village. The company also announced that the construction of the new plant is scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2025. The Jumeirah Village project is one of the largest district cooling project of Empower, with plans to establish six next-generation plants to serve the growing community with a total cooling capacity of 256,000 tons. The project encompasses two distinct areas: Jumeirah Village Circle (JVC) covering 560 hectares and Jumeirah ...
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Ørsted shuts down its last coal-fired power plant, marking end of an era

By District Energy posted 5 days ago
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TGS Summary Ørsted, one of the world's leading renewable energy companies, shut down its last coal-fired combined heat and power plant, the Esbjerg Power Station, on August 31, 2024. This move marks a significant milestone in Ørsted's transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Once one of Europe's most coal intensive energy companies, Ørsted has drastically reduced its coal consumption since 2006. The closure of the Esbjerg Power Station will bring the company's energy generation to nearly fossil-free levels. The plant, located in western Denmark, had been ordered to remain operational until the end of August to ensure the stability of the local ...
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The Future is Thermal

By District Energy posted 5 days ago
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ReNew Canada Summary Long before Justin Trudeau committed Canada to achieving net-zero by 2050, cities across the country were already hard at work devising community energy plans to reduce emissions generated by urban development. Many of the boldest plans centred on creating or expanding district energy (DE) projects—thermal grids of underground piping, in most cases connected to a central plant, that distributes hot water for heating or chilled water for cooling. Nowhere are plans for expanding the role of district energy to achieve climate goals more ambitious than in Markham, Ont., which boasts two separate DE systems operated by Markham District Energy ...
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Can Meta clean up its data centers with geothermal energy?

By District Energy posted 5 days ago
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The Verge Summary Meta announced a new partnership this week in the hopes that geothermal energy can help it reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Meta and startup Sage Geosystems struck up a deal to develop new geothermal power plants. If they make it to the finish line, the plants would provide carbon pollution-free energy that Meta needs for new data centers in the US. The company has struggled to keep its carbon pollution down since it pledged in 2020 to reach net zero emissions by the end of the decade, its latest sustainability report published yesterday shows . The race to develop more powerful AI tools has ...
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Thompson Rivers University breaks ground on district energy system

By District Energy posted 5 days ago
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ReNew Canada Summary Thompson Rivers University (TRU) took a significant step forward in its journey to achieve zero carbon emissions with a groundbreaking ceremony for its Low-Carbon District Energy System (LCDES). This innovative project, a collaboration between TRU, Creative Energy and BC Hydro, makes TRU one of the first universities in North America to reach zero carbon, underscoring its commitment to sustainability and climate action. The ceremony, held at the future site of the Sustainability Powerhouse on the Kamloops campus, was attended by representatives from TRU, Creative Energy and BC Hydro, as well as local government officials and members ...
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