Northwestern Ontario Regional Case Study
Have you heard about our District Energy Prefeasibility Study? CRIBE, in partnership with the City of Thunder Bay, launched a project to determine if a biomass district energy system is a viable option to replace fossil fuels (natural gas) for heating in the downtown north core of Thunder Bay, ON. This study is part of Nextfor’s Northwestern Ontario Regional Case Study.
Kozar Engineering Inc. has teamed with worldwide leading experts in the fields of sustainable biomass heating and district energy system implementation Biothermic Wood Energy Systems Inc. and Peter Anderberg‘s Nordic Heat, to provide a thorough study for the City of Thunder Bay and regional stakeholders.
Key Findings
To help lay the groundwork for a district energy system in the future, there are several steps that should be completed now:
- Conserve energy
- Improve energy efficiency
- Investigate feasibility of installing a district energy system
- Align system implementation with scheduled roadwork and other infrastructure updates
The findings from this prefeasibility study may be applicable for other communities within Ontario. To learn more, please read the summary report and watch the webinar recordings found below.
As part of this initiative, we hosted two sessions on District Energy systems, leveraging the expertise of our international partners at Nordic Heat.
Session 1: Why District Energy Networks Work – Introductory Session
- Decarbonizing Heating in Thunder Bay
- Why District Energy Networks Work (Best Practices)
- Intro to Thunder Bay prefeasibility study
Session 2: How to make District Energy Networks work in practice
- Recap of Session 1
- Presentation of prefeasibility study results
- Taking projects from vision to operations
- Capacity building
- Next steps
