Background

The Region of Waterloo in southern Ontario treats its wastewater at a number of plants including the three largest: Waterloo, Kitchener and Galt.  These three plants produce 13,000 to 22,200 cubic metres of methane-rich biogas per day (equivalent to the carbon footprint of 2,700 people) as a byproduct of processing. They use some of this biogas to produce heat for their own use, while flaring off excess biogas and purchasing electricity from the grid for their energy needs. 

As the Region’s population grows, the amount of wastewater is expected to increase, leading to higher electricity consumption and emissions created from flaring biogas—both of which are contrary to the Region’s mandate to improve air quality, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and produce and use renewable energy. Electricity costs in Ontario are also expected to rise, increasing municipal costs. The Region saw these projections as an opportunity to upgrade facility infrastructure to better align with climate change–related goals and help in the transition toward net zero. 

Project goals

The Region planned to lower electricity costs and eliminate biogas flaring by installing dual-fuel (biogas and natural gas) cogeneration facilities at all three wastewater treatment plants. These facilities would utilize 100 percent of their biogas and reduce emissions.

Approach

The planning phases for the project involved projecting population growth (and the corresponding increase in wastewater quantities) and determining how that would affect the plants’ capacities and electricity and heat requirements. Modelling suggested that while the cogeneration facilities would initially use natural gas as a supplement, the proportion of natural gas needed would decrease as additional wastewater and therefore biogas became available.

One key idea was to coordinate facility capacity with population growth over the equipment’s estimated 20-year lifespan to maximize biogas usage and reduce emissions, rather than matching their capacity to current biogas availability.

After consulting with community members and other stakeholders, the Region designed and constructed the project. They completed and brought the cogeneration facilities online in 2022.

Results

Upon project completion, the Region began monitoring and optimizing performance. They diverted all biogas into the new system, eliminating that source of emissions while also creating electricity and heat, providing an annual savings of $1.5 million and approximately 1,900 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e). Over the 20-year lifespan of the facilities, the Region forecasts overall net savings of more than $16 million and 38,000 tCO2e.

The project won a 2022 Award of Excellence at the Canadian Consulting Engineering Awards.

Lessons learned

This project was highly complex both technically and contractually. The Region found it helpful to have a single contractor responsible for all three facility installations to find efficiencies and learnings throughout the development process. For instance, they redirected workers from site to site as needed to minimize downtime.

Working with multiple facilities also meant working with multiple electricity distribution companies. Fully understanding the differences between various local connection requirements and approval processes from the outset would have helped avoid delays.

Better understanding how the gas conditioning and cogeneration systems interface with each other would made it easier for operations staff to troubleshoot issues and seek technical support.  Entering a long-term service agreement with the gas conditioning supplier, like the one with the cogeneration supplier, may also have been beneficial.

A certain amount of technical troubleshooting related to with thermal efficiencies was required at system launch, which could have been avoided with a clearer understanding in advance of how the hot water loop systems were set up.

Next steps

The facilities are now in operation and ready to utilize current biogas levels as well as increased levels in the future as the population grows. As the amount of available biogas increases, the need for natural gas required will decrease—until eventually, there might be minimal to no need for it at all.
 

Launched in December 2023, the Emissions-Neutral Buildings Information Exchange (ENBIX) brings together partners to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the construction, renovation and operation of buildings. Hosted by the Alberta Ecotrust Foundation and their local LC3 Centre the Climate Innovation Fund, this initiative is accelerating the transition to an emissions-neutral built environment for new and existing buildings across Alberta.  

The new initiative promotes sharing of innovative ideas, solutions, best practices and lessons among interested parties in the building and construction ecosystem, providing information on industry training opportunities, bringing together peer groups and zeroing in key topics like embodied carbon. It is industry-governed, with foundational support from the City of Calgary, the Calgary Construction Association, the City of Edmonton and its Emissions-Neutral Building Industry Advisory Group, and the Smart Sustainable Resilient Infrastructure Association.   

ENBIX is based on similar models including British Columbia’s Zero Emissions Building Exchange (ZEBx) hosted by ZEIC, the Metro Vancouver region’s LC3 Centre. During the development of ENBIX, ZEBx provided lessons learned from their early years of operations including information about the relationship between ZEBx and industry partners in BC.  

Meanwhile, the Halifax LC3 Centre, the Halifax Climate Investment, Innovation and Impact Fund (HCi3) has provided $80,000 in funding for another multi-party building exchange program that is preparing Nova Scotia’s building sector for a net-zero future. The Building to Zero Exchange (BTZx) is now live, growing capacity to scale up the creation of high-performance buildings.  

With three advanced energy performance building exchanges now launched, we have critical building industry experience being actively facilitated locally and across the LC3 Network  

CEF’s capacity for innovation is reflected in the design of the City of Peterborough’s Home Energy Efficiency Program (HEEP), which launched in February 2024 with $5.75 million in CEF funding. HEEP is testing a first-of-its-kind blend of PACE financing with private capital, enabling building owners to select the funding model that best meets their needs. The City intends to leverage more than $5 million in private capital to support both streams of funding. The program is built on an integrated service model that includes a comprehensive, one-stop web portal and energy coaching service to guide owners through their retrofit journey.   

When it updated its greenhouse gas emission reduction targets in 2019, Peterborough determined that homes accounted for 39 percent of the total, making energy retrofits an integral part of the local effort to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. HEEP focuses on low-rise residential buildings, both owner-occupied and rental, with loans of up to $125,000 or 10 percent of building value and an incentive structure that rewards higher emission reductions. The program design supports households with low-incomes through an equity lens by limiting enrolment to landlords who sign a no-renoviction commitment. 

The private funding stream offers financing as low as $1,000, while the PACE support starts at $15,000. Loans are repaid over a 20-year period, with no penalty for early repayment under the PACE stream, and participants can apply for a second project as long as their total funding doesn’t exceed the program maximum.  

An arena retrofit project in Ituna, SK, population 700, will benefit local residents as well as the neighbouring communities of Kelliher, Melville, Little Black Bear First Nation, Muskowkewan First Nation, and the rural municipalities of Bon Accord and Kellross, a total area population of 8,200.

The Ituna Community Arena was built in 1961 and was at risk of being declared unsafe to use without the retrofit it desperately needs. The decades have taken their toll on the arch-rib style facility, and in recent years heavy snowfalls, high winds and hailstorms have brought the walls and roof to an almost unusable state. The updated building will be a modern, functional and energy-efficient recreational space that everyone in and around the community can enjoy year-round for many years to come.

Once completed, the retrofit will serve surrounding rural communities and local First Nations. The project demonstrates new knowledge, practices and technologies that have never been used in any of the town’s buildings, including:  

• An insulated steel structure to be constructed over the existing ice surface boards, lobby and dressing rooms.       
• An LED lighting system.      
• Installation of condensing hot water heaters, in-floor heating, a walking track and wheelchair-accessible washrooms.

CEF’s capacity for innovation is reflected in the design of the City of Peterborough’s Home Energy Efficiency Program (HEEP), which launched in February 2024 with $8.625 million in CEF funding. HEEP is testing a first-of-its-kind blend of PACE financing with private capital, enabling building owners to select the funding model that best meets their needs. The City intends to leverage more than $5 million in private capital to support both streams of funding. The program is built on an integrated service model that includes a comprehensive, one-stop web portal and energy coaching service to guide owners through their retrofit journey.   

When it updated its greenhouse gas emission reduction targets in 2019, Peterborough determined that homes accounted for 39 percent of the total, making energy retrofits an integral part of the local effort to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. HEEP focuses on low-rise residential buildings, both owner-occupied and rental, with loans of up to $125,000 or 10 percent of building value and an incentive structure that rewards higher emission reductions. The program design supports households with low-incomes through an equity lens by limiting enrolment to landlords who sign a no-renoviction commitment. 

The private funding stream offers financing as low as $1,000, while the PACE support starts at $15,000. Loans are repaid over a 20-year period, with no penalty for early repayment under the PACE stream, and participants can apply for a second project as long as their total funding doesn’t exceed the program maximum.  

With a mandate to operate affordable housing in the municipalities of Fort Saskatchewan and Strathcona near Edmonton, Heartland Housing Foundation (HHF) already manages two affordable housing complexes, four seniors’ lodges, and five rent-geared-to-income self-contained seniors’ apartment buildings. The new structure in Sherridon will feature photovoltaic solar arrays on the roof and parkade, a high-performance building envelope, high-performance windows, efficient lighting, a heat pump and heat recovery systems. All the units meet SAH’s affordability target, 80 percent of them fall below the median market rate for Edmonton rentals, and 24 percent are more deeply affordable, targeting participants in Alberta’s Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped (AISH) program.   

The project is HHF’s first foray into net-zero construction. The modular building design combines shipping container construction on the building’s ground floor with standard wood construction on the upper floors. It also incorporates cost-saving measures to maximize affordability, such as basic finishes, no common amenity rooms, and reduced electrical costs due to the net-zero design. The design is so innovative that it was selected as a co-investment opportunity by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. 

On top of the social support of providing affordable housing, HHF is working with other local organizations—including the Robin Hood Association, the provincial Family and Community Supports program, and the Families First Society—to deliver a wider mix of social benefits. For example, the Robin Hood Association, with a mission to help individuals with disabilities experience quality lifestyles, has committed to filling a portion of the project’s units and providing ongoing support to those residents.  

Beyond the specific building, the modular concept for Sherridon has a very good chance of being applied to other projects, neighbourhoods, and communities. Modular construction is meant to scale quickly, making it easy to build and assemble new units once a design is tested and proven. HHF will share the comprehensive development model behind the project with other non-profits and is also committed to the local knowledge-sharing and talent development that will build local capacity for future net-zero projects.