Sewage Heat Recovery
Abstract
For the 2010 Vancouver Olympics in the Athletes Village a system of using latent heat in sewer pipes were used. Neighbourhood Energy Utility (NEU) is a low temperature community energy system that brings domestic hot water and space heating to neighbouring buildings by means of heat extraction by heat pumps located at the sewage pump station. This Sewage Heat Recovery System is a less proven technology compared to Geo-exchange (Geothermal Heating). So far there have only been three systems world wide that recover heat from raw sewage. There is one in Tokyo, Japan and two in Oslo, Norway and now one in the Athletes Village in Vancouver, BC. This is the first system to be developed in North America.
The principle objective of this research study is to distinguish what would be the most energy efficient way to meet the heating and cooling needs of a Fire hall; Geo-exchange (Geothermal Heating) or a Sewage Heat Recovery System? And which one would result in being the most cost effective?
The plumbing layout of the Fire Hall has already been designed in a Fall Semester Course called ARET 250 – Plumbing design. Modifications to the plumbing arrangement will be made to the sanitary system, for at the moment the grey water and black water are incorporated into one system and need to be separated into two in order to apply the Sewage Heat Recovery System. This study will also incorporate the use of solar panels that will in sequence heat the domestic water supply of the Fire Hall.
All though Sewage Heat Recovery and Geo-exchange are very similar in design and functionality Chris Baber (the NEU Manager, from the City of Vancouver) states that raw sewage heat recovery would be more applicable and more useful for residential buildings and is more efficient due to the higher temperature and lower installation costs. With this concept in mind, the goal is to gather comparable data in relation to the application of the systems, the operation in which it works and the conclusions drawn by each systems energy efficiency. This data will be presented in form of auto-cad drawings, and comparisons in cost by use of spreadsheets.
References:
http://www.journalofcommerce.com/article/id33548/watersewer
http://www.thechallengeseries.ca/chapter-05/neighbourhood-energy-utility/
About Me
- ARET 222 de Wit
- My name is Kari de Wit, I am a second year student in the Architecture and Engineering Technology Program at Thompson Rivers University. This blog is used to search and recieve relative information that will assist me during the process of my Geothermal Technical Writing Report.
Are you going for net zero on this building? I had no idea this existed.
ReplyDeleteThis is becoming a well developed thesis. It is a bit unclear if grey water heat recovery and sewage heat recovery are to be covered separately, or are you considering them the same thing? I would think that heat extraction from the sewer would be more suitable for a large scale development. It may be difficult to get cost data on this new of a system, particularly if you are applying it at a different scale. I would focus more on comparing the efficiency of the two systems. Try to find more academic sources.
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