110 homes at an average of $800.00 a year in natural gas cost = $88,000.00 a year. Interest at 4% on $4,000,000 equals $160,000.00 a year, plus operating cost of the plant, and no return for capital cost. Is there some financial benefit that I don’t know about, or was this a massive waste of money to appear green.

I also believe any buildings that are connected still need a backup an added cost not identified. If it’s such a great idea why the subsidies and only government buildings hooked up and not private.

It really isn’t even that green.

We’re burning wood within Prince George’s air shed. That in itself it not great.

It would be better if this wood went to pellets to prevent coal burning elsewhere in the world. Coal makes a lot more CO2 than natural gas for the same amount of heat.

Instead we are now using this wood to prevent natural gas being burnt. By building the district energy system we diverted this wood from offsetting coal use to offsetting natural gas usage.

A better use for this money would have been to lower the boiler temperatures in these buildings and then use heat recovery units to recovery heat from the exhaust air. That way we wouldn’t need gas or wood and the project would pay for itself.

All of the connected buildings do indeed require a back up source of heat, for the existing buildings, they simply retained their existing systems. For the 2 new buildings mentioned, they would have brand new boiler plants, just in case the D.E. system fails. There is even a natural gas fired back up for the District Energy system, its in the new building at 2nd & George St.
There were several privately owned buildings considering connecting to this system, and really, the more buildings connected, the more efficient the whole thing would be.
Unfortunately, the City, in their infinite wisdom, set the rates too high, it would not have made financial sense to the owners to pay more for heating with a connection to the citys pet project.
In one case, the building owner re-fitted the entire heating and cooling systems with high efficiency equipment, received grants for doing so, and use far less gas and electricity on an annual basis to boot.
If the City had made it attractive (less costly) to connect to and use their pet system, more users = lower overall cost per building and greater efficiency as well, it could have been a win win situation. I question whether the citys claims of less natural gas consumed includes the dedicated back up building, with its gas fired boilers, and is the wood waste fired system in use since Lakeland went down?
metalman.

It was a requirement of signing on to the district energy system that all backup heating system be removed. The backup heat comes from the boiler plant on 2nd and George.

If the City of Prince George allowed outdoor wood or pellet furnaces within city limits which are also hydronic heating systems, one would be able to heat 110 homes for around 1.4 million instead of over 14 million.

I am not aware of any requirement to remove back up heating systems to qualify for connection to the District Energy system
In my opinion, such a requirement would stand as an impediment to owners of private building who may wish to connect to the system. Take all your heating capacity away, and depend entirely on the City of Prince George for heat?
That would be a non starter for me.
metalman.

14.1 million dollars could have put solar power and battery storage systems on close to 600 homes turning each home into a power plant . Or wind turbines or both . There is no need to burn things to power or heat . Someone should buy city council a calculator with a good battery .

I think the thing we forget is, A lot of the money came out of upper levels of government as an incentive. Thus the city inherits the infrastructure at a lowered cost. In the meantime some of the adjacent services got upgraded when it was dug thru plus pavement.

The other upside of the situation was, Lakeland Mills. Instead of them burning up their wood waste into the air, they get paid to burn it in the system, which is there long term lease with being the golden child for the city.

Another thing is, the city is in effect endorsing the use of wood fired heating system, so when they get on the air fairies side too much they get put back in their place as well, so its all and all not that bad of a deal.

Solar and wind are not the golden lamb most think it is. Look up the mess Germany got itself into.

Lakeland does not only supply the fuel but the thermal engery as well from their hot oil system. All the city does is buy units of thermal energy from lakeland. Heat from the thermal oil is transferred to the water used by the city in a tube and shell heat exchanger.

Only city hall would claim to own a community energy system which is nothing more than a fairly tale. The city buys thermal energy and that is all.

Every time a new building hooks up, the street has to be torn up again and again?
Good for the digger business. Expensive for the city.

Metalman, in regards to the Lakeland mill if it is still providing the heat even though the milling part is down. Isle Pierre currently provides the hog fuel for both the Lakeland and UNBC operations, so yes they are still burning the wood to fuel the system as opposed to the natural gas backup.

I think the community heating operation is a good thing. It likely cost more than other options for sure, but most of that was paid for by the senior levels of government. Where it will one day prove its worth is if we have a rupture of our natural gas supply from a landslide or other unforeseen situations… should it happen mid winter this community heating system in place will be an insurance policy that is the envy of other communities.

What I find really dumb is that the roads need to be dug up every time a new building is hooked up. Really… couldn’t they have designed that part better with hook-up hydrants located off the main road near where new potential buildings would be located. It was no secret where the wood innovation building would be located when the heat system piping was installed.

We just repaved the section of road they dug up for the hook-up… so is this part of the budget for paving this year as well?

The District Energy System does have a backup source of heat in the natural gas fired one on 2nd ave, This will do nothing in the event of a broken or cracked underground pipe that will inevitability happen with that much pipe in the ground. The way these things usually work is that it will happen during a -40 degree cold snap. At this point if the individual building do not have back up we could have Four Seasons ice rink.
This raises another issue, it is not just water in these pipes but most likely a 50/50 mixture of water and ethylene glycol similar to what is used in cars. When the pipe does break how much of this will leak into the ground with the possibility of finding its way to the aquifers where the city gets our drinking water? At that point fluoride would be the least of our worries when turning on the tap. Even if the pumps are turned off when a leak is detected the pipes can continue to drain by gravity.

Thanks for the info Eagleone, glad to hear that the system was kept running, despite the Lakeland tragedy.
I like some of your ideas.

Does it cost a lot to haul hog fuel from Isle Pierre Mill to the Island Cache, and to the university?
metalman.

You seem to forget that while we were using the government money (which comes out of our pockets to begin with) to build this community energy system other cities were using the money to fix roads which our city employees discovered was possible after the money was spent on an albatross that almost became another tragic money pit for PG taxpayers when the mill explosion happened. There must have been a huge sigh of relief in city hall when the Sinclair Group made the decision to rebuild.