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WHAT WE’LL SEE DOWN TWO PATHWAYS��Research by Boltzmann Institute, McMaster Institute for Energy Studies and FVB Energy Inc. Final Report due March 31^st 2025��

The Boltzmann Institute’s mission is to reduce harmful emissions from human energy use through research and education

The Boltzmann institute is undertaking research with financial support from the Government of Canada to advise the Net Zero Advisory Body no less., with McMaster institute of energy studies and FVB Energy Inc as subcontractors.
My view has shifted somewhat since I wrote the proposal for this about two years ago. We’ll still compare the impact on the electricity system and the cost to consumers of two pathways to zero emissions from buildings, But I've grown less sanguine about the realistic prospects for the first pathway.
Which is the pathway Canada is on relying largely on electrification.
Though it hasn’t progressed too far, as I will explain.
Why would it? Why would the majority of building owners fork out large amounts of cash, which they doubtless have other uses for, to change their heating systems, when they don’t have to?
The alternate pathway would involve more district energy than is apparently imagined possible by senior levels of government; and I mean not only for new development or public buildings, but also, crucially, for existing private buildings.
****

As we heard at the last session, the municipalities are doing a lot, but they need more help from senior levels of government. There’s little prospect of that unless you do something about it.
I’ll give you an example, if you’ll bear with me to ram home this point.
The final report of its Electrification and Energy transition panel entitled Ontario’s Clean Energy Opportunity included an Appendix entitled “What we heard” noting they had heard good things about DE, but nothing about it was carried into any of its 29 recommendations. The closest was to recommend comprehensive energy plans. I don’t know what use a non-comprehensive energy plan, but there no explicit mention of thermal energy. It talked explicitly about electricity, natural gas, building envelope improvements, hydrogen, carbon capture and storage for crying out loud, but district energy,? nada, it don’t exist as far as the Ontario Gov is aware . Yet there are 47 DES in Ontario as of 2014. There are no CCS projects that I ‘ve heard of. This panel seemed curiously detached from reality on the ground.
Then there is Ontario's Cost-Effective Energy Pathways Study,. As far as I can see its been done by modellers who don’t know anything about DE. After 39 years I personally most of the people in Ontario who know DE and they aren’t among them so they probably won’t identify DE as a cost effective energy pathway. We're trying to communicate with the Ministry to remedy that and you should too.

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Toronto Region Total Emissions, 2017-2022 (MtCO₂eq)

The Boltzmann Institute’s mission is to reduce harmful emissions from human energy use through research and education

From TAF Carbon Emissions Inventory 2022

First.,lets look at a bit of history – some one said if you don’t know your history you don’t know where you;’re going, if anywhere and this is a good case in point.

I credit the Toronto Atmospheric Fund for this slide., which shows very well that

#1 Buildings create a significant portion of total emissions in the GTHA.

#2 no progress has been made in reducing these emissions

Which is sad because In my opinion, buildings should be amenable to decarbonization by 2050. I am so sure about the other sectors, but the main source of emissions from buildings are simply for space heating and DHW which need such low temperatures that we ought to be able to decarbonize them and without much electricity as I will explain,

But we’ve been barking up the wrong tree.

TAF concludes its summary of their 2022 emissions inventory report by saying the solutions are well understood. I beg to differ. It’s true a lot of people will tell you the solution is electrification but they’re wrong and it's going to cost you big, you won’t get affordable heating or electricity unless much more serious and strategic planning Iis conducted for heat not just electricity. I’;ll explain.

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. The shape of the space heating annual load makes both short-term and seasonal storage a prerequisite for the energy supply system.

The Boltzmann Institute’s mission is to reduce harmful emissions from human energy use through research and education

We have made a preliminary estimate of the impact of electrification of heating which we're going to refine with our research during next year but the early results show much bigger impact than the IESO admits.
These results are not crystal balling or modelling as such, but rather straight engineering calculations based on historical facts and a few reasonable assumptions based on long experience in the business of district heating.
The blue lines indicate the actual electricity demand in this province from the summer of 2018 through the summer of 2020.
The red lines indicate what the power would have been if all gas heated buildings had been switched to heat pumps. It assumes 30% GSHP and 70% ASHP.
The incremental extra demand from heating would have been about 50 gigawatts - about double what the IESO seems to think. And this is before normal growth and electrification of other sectors.
So, anyone who tries to tell you that energy costs are going down because of electrification is dreaming in Technicolor, just ignoring history and the factors which dictate electricity rates which are the costs of course. You just can't electrify everything without building more capacity and that costs a lot of money and that will increase the rates, especially when the load you're adding namely the heating loads has such a low utilization The ASHP’s only have about a 10% utilization which will drag the average system down from about 60% where it is now to about 30% so you could say very roughly that would double rates right there . It's not quite as simple as that but it's almost as simple as that.
Does this mean we should just on gas and not doing anything to bring emissions down? No-oooo. There’s an alternative that can give you low and stable heating costs which has proven in almost all cold countries.

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Modeling of power demand for electrification of space heating

Dr. Martin A. Green*

The Boltzmann Institute

February 10, 2024

The Boltzmann Institute’s mission is to reduce harmful emissions from human energy use through research and education

*mgreen@bi-ib.ca

We have made a preliminary estimate of the impact of electrification of heating which we're going to refine with our research during next year but the early results show much bigger impact than the IESO admits.
These results are not crystal balling or modelling as such, but rather straight engineering calculations based on historical facts and a few reasonable assumptions based on long experience in the business of district heating.
The blue lines indicate the actual electricity demand in this province from the summer of 2018 through the summer of 2020.
The red lines indicate what the power would have been if all gas heated buildings had been switched to heat pumps. It assumes 30% GSHP and 70% ASHP.
The incremental extra demand from heating would have been about 50 gigawatts - about double what the IESO seems to think. And this is before normal growth and electrification of other sectors.
So, anyone who tries to tell you that energy costs are going down because of electrification is dreaming in Technicolor, just ignoring history and the factors which dictate electricity rates which are the costs of course. You just can't electrify everything without building more capacity and that costs a lot of money and that will increase the rates, especially when the load you're adding namely the heating loads has such a low utilization The ASHP’s only have about a 10% utilization which will drag the average system down from about 60% where it is now to about 30% so you could say very roughly that would double rates right there . It's not quite as simple as that but it's almost as simple as that.
Does this mean we should just on gas and not doing anything to bring emissions down? No-oooo. There’s an alternative that can give you low and stable heating costs which has proven in almost all cold countries.

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Modeling of power demand for electrification of space heating

Dr. Martin A. Green*

The Boltzmann Institute

February 10, 2024

The Boltzmann Institute’s mission is to reduce harmful emissions from human energy use through research and education

*mgreen@bi-ib.ca

We have made a preliminary estimate of the impact of electrification of heating which we're going to refine with our research during next year but the early results show much bigger impact than the IESO admits.
These results are not crystal balling or modelling as such, but rather straight engineering calculations based on historical facts and a few reasonable assumptions based on long experience in the business of district heating.
The blue lines indicate the actual electricity demand in this province from the summer of 2018 through the summer of 2020.
The red lines indicate what the power would have been if all gas heated buildings had been switched to heat pumps. It assumes 30% GSHP and 70% ASHP.
The incremental extra demand from heating would have been about 50 gigawatts - about double what the IESO seems to think. And this is before normal growth and electrification of other sectors.
So, anyone who tries to tell you that energy costs are going down because of electrification is dreaming in Technicolor, just ignoring history and the factors which dictate electricity rates which are the costs of course. You just can't electrify everything without building more capacity and that costs a lot of money and that will increase the rates, especially when the load you're adding namely the heating loads has such a low utilization The ASHP’s only have about a 10% utilization which will drag the average system down from about 60% where it is now to about 30% so you could say very roughly that would double rates right there . It's not quite as simple as that but it's almost as simple as that.
Does this mean we should just on gas and not doing anything to bring emissions down? No-oooo. There’s an alternative that can give you low and stable heating costs which has proven in almost all cold countries.

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The Boltzmann Institute’s mission is to reduce harmful emissions from human energy use through research and education

Before concluding I must debunk a false assertion, I saw in an email that low grade heat available locally is very limited compared to total demand. Just the opposite. There is a lot more than heat rejected from cooling.. But appreciation of that requires awareness of what can be done with thermal storage because the availability of waste heat is not usually coincident with demand.
This diagram from an IEA guide to district heating operators shows how they can expand and also decarbonize. Gradually shutting down this and adding that. There are over 200 district heating systems in Canada which could do both. – expand and decarbonize.
For a start, top left, all communities receive more energy as sunlight, than they need for heating, but you've probably heard that solar thermal is only good for swimming pools. That is in the absence of seasonal heat storage.
Furthermore, many cities in Canada are on lakes, which are gigantic solar collectors and storage vessels with natural thermal stratification such that a large baseload could be extracted using equipment similar to what the U of T are using. Then thermal storage could follow the load .
Not every community has waste heat from industry , but many have water treatment plants (Toronto has 4) with warm effluent year-round and they all have sewers and buildings with cooling systems, some rejecting heat year-round, including supermarkets and data centres, which are spreading like weeds.
Surplus power to heat could be accessed by any community given industrial ASHP ‘s with of course thermal energy storage . There will always be lots of surplus power in Ontario. Heres a factoird that should bloe your mind – our research on the Two Pathways project has unearthed the nugget that a zero emissions generation mix in Ontaario would have more surplus clean electrity available than what it would supply to domestic elecctricity icustomers. Monetizing this vast otherwise wasted resource would help keep energy costs down
which the government wants … or so I’ve heard.
***
The Danes, Germans, Austrians, Chinese have all proved that SDH will work with seasonal storage but before all of them , over 17 years ago, Albertans proved this in a town called Okotoks in a housing development known as Drake Landing Solar Community.
Lake Ontario has an average surface temp of 19C in summer with 14C in fall from which
On our study tour in June we hope to visit the 180 MW sea water based heat pump plant serving the Stockholm Exergi. That serves the equivalent of about 18,000 homes (surely with less electrical infrastructure than 18,000 ASHP, especially given it’s a flexible load ).

Harvesting renewable energy with a single heat pump that can provide the same amount of heat as many, spread out solar thermal panels may be more cost effective from a capital and maintenance perspective.
David MacMillan mentioned a small-scale application at the Waterfront Community Centre

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The Boltzmann Institute’s mission is to reduce harmful emissions from human energy use through research and education

Now I want to flip back to some theory and emphasize just how much the electricity system could benefit from further development of heat networks in terms of flexibility and reliability as illustrated by this diagram
For example, the U of T still have boilers for backup, so their industrial heat pumps which I imagine will draw a couple of megawatts each could be a flexible load ,which, having backup, could be shut off at peak times . This would be very useful to the electricity system.. They would not require significant expansion of the entire electricity system as would be required for in-building heat pumps.
This is a thermal distributed energy resource. (DER) You may have heard the term DER in reference to solar PV; but that won’t provide capacity during winter peaks like a heat network could by either shutting off its heat pumps or starting up small CHP, combined heat and power, also known as cogeneration, which U of T also has, as do Enwave, York University, Regent Park, Mirvish Village, Ontario Tech, MDE and many DES.
The IESO’s APO makes clear that Toronto in particular will be greatly in need of DER when they shut down the gas plants. Specifically, the Portlands energy centre, York energy centre, Halton hills, Goreway and the cogen at the airport. Getting sufficient power into Toronto has been problematic for as long as I can remember but will be even more challenging when they phase out those gas plants, if they ever do, but that would be more likely the more DER. These links make heat networks a powerful form of DER.
***

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Markham District Energy

Thermal Energy Storage

Heat only

Combined Heat & Power

Diurnal

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Enwave’s Well

Cold in summer

Deep Lake Water

Hot in winter

Diurnal

486 Front St W

Toronto

Here is a shot taken by an engineer I known from the bottom of the well that Enwave Energy Corporation constructed under a new tower at 486 Front St – that’s where the Globe&Mail used to be on the corner of front and spadina

Its sized for 7.6 million litres, 7,600 m3 which would give it about 450 MWh of heat storage in the form of hot water – although Enwave has a steam system, they are expanding with hot water using this storage to optimize daily production versus demand.

Then in summer, they ‘ll use it to store chilled water they can produce constantly from their DLWC to meet the varying cooling demand

This illustrates a common situation where the source of heat or cooling (remember thi s is not gas or electricity but some form of waste or renewable energy) is either constant or even counter-seasonal to the demand but TES makes it feasible to use.

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Here is another borehole thermal energy storage system in Canada but this one is only used for heating . Using heat from solar collectors they can raise the ground temperature to about 95° C so they don't need heat pumps to take the heat out. The downside is that it does not also serve cooling, which would require temperatures floating between about 35C at the end of summer to 15 c at the end of winter and therefore, like the U of T, need a heat pump to supply 70C heating.

You can see the collectors with no snow on them on the garage roofs and a simplified diagram showing seasonal and short-term storage.
Its been operating about 17 years but the CBC recently reported the owner/operator ATCO is thinking of decommissioning it. One person I asked about this said the problem is the solar thermal collectors. that need a lot of maintenance which is hard because they are spread over many roofs.

Another said that the refurbishment costs were too high to justify based on the relatively small revenue stream – only 52 houses.

So perhaps the lessons from this are don’t put the solar collectors on roofs and go big or go home.

*****

The seasonal storage in the form of boreholes was drilled under a school softball pitch you can just about make out in the picture top right.

That would be a shame because this technology is intrinsically long life.. What could very well be deteriorating are the controls – they often do and should not be a big challenge to fix.. This system did prove that the concept works but of course any mechanical energy system needs maintenance and periodic refurbishment, especially controls..

OK, the capital was heavily subsidized by the feds and province, but it was a demonstration project.

By analogy, the price of solar PV used to be much higher , but engineers do what engineers do, eventually bring down the cost if there is a demand.

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University of Toronto

Thermal Energy Storage

Boreholes

Heat and cold

Waste Heat

Seasonal

Here is a an example of a borehole thermal energy storage completed by U of T just this year and I believe it will be going into service this year using waste heat from cooling systems and from a flue gas condenser in the steam plant
This heat will be stored by heating the ground around about 370 boreholes up to 250 meters deep. This will be a giant underground thermal battery. Like any battery, it's not a source of energy but its a storage vessel for heat.

But unlike electric batteries store which energy for only a few hours this will store energy for about 4000 hours (from summer to winter).

And its going to reduce emissions from the St George Street steam plant, by about 15,000 tonnes per year. So now wer’re starting to get real with emissions reductions, but its only through TN with TES.

Some other borehole thermal energy storage systems such as at Princeton University and Okotoks in AB which I’ll referred to next, also have buffer tanks which can follow the heating load thereby obviating the need for peaking boilers.
****

The question I'd like you to ponder is if the U of T can do something like this, what's stopping other building owners, for a start , all the buildings on Yonge Street from Queens Quay to Finch? It could form a trunk from which branches could natural grow out from. Or in the 30 or so high-density nodes the city has identified where again distribution from these nodes could gradually radiate out like the spokes on a bicycle wheel.

They could but they would have to collaborate . I’m talking about the who’s who of commercial real estate in North America - the Oxford’s ,the Cadillac Fairviews, the Morguards, Quadreal etc.

Then …. why couldn't the Government of Ontario ask them or at least them what their plans are with a very strong implication that if those plans are do not describe a pathway to 0 emissions it will be regulated federally or provincially. The feds have jurisdiction for fighting climate change, the province has jurisdiction for energy and they shouldn't be shy about collaborating. they have the right to intervene here.

And This is just an idea of my own by the way make it clear whatever happens it won’t be subsidized by electricity ratepayers. The clearly considerable cost of expanding the electricity system to meet heating load - generation transmission and distribution, should be fully on the demand charges and delivery charges, perhaps even with a surcharge on new demand above say 1 MW, but that's a detail. The principle is that those who cause capacity to be built should pay for it, when there’s a clear alternative that would be less costly to ratepayers.

This would be within the remit of the Ontario Energy Board.

Before concluding I must debunk a false assertion in an email from someone that low grade heat available locally is very limited compared to total demand. In fact there is a lot more than just from cooling.

24 MWH

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The Boltzmann Institute’s mission is to reduce harmful emissions from human energy use through research and education

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The Boltzmann Institute’s mission is to reduce harmful emissions from human energy use through research and education

Now I want to flip back to some theory and emphasize just how much the electricity system could benefit from further development of heat networks in terms of flexibility and reliability as illustrated by this diagram
For example, the U of T still have boilers for backup, so their industrial heat pumps which I imagine will draw a couple of megawatts each could be a flexible load ,which, having backup, could be shut off at peak times . This would be very useful to the electricity system.. They would not require significant expansion of the entire electricity system as would be required for in-building heat pumps.
This is a thermal distributed energy resource. (DER) You may have heard the term DER in reference to solar PV; but that won’t provide capacity during winter peaks like a heat network could by either shutting off its heat pumps or starting up small CHP, combined heat and power, also known as cogeneration, which U of T also has, as do Enwave, York University, Regent Park, Mirvish Village, Ontario Tech, MDE and many DES.
The IESO’s APO makes clear that Toronto in particular will be greatly in need of DER when they shut down the gas plants. Specifically, the Portlands energy centre, York energy centre, Halton hills, Goreway and the cogen at the airport. Getting sufficient power into Toronto has been problematic for as long as I can remember but will be even more challenging when they phase out those gas plants, if they ever do, but that would be more likely the more DER. These links make heat networks a powerful form of DER.
***

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The Boltzmann Institute’s mission is to reduce harmful emissions from human energy use through research and education

You are invited to our study tour to learn more about how to do this.
We will visit 11 district heating systems that are all expanding and decarbonizing in seven countries with slightly different approaches, and we will all have a jolly good time, cruising the Baltic Sea during what I'm told is a beautiful part of the year .
I should hasten to say none of this is been paid for by the government, although our research project will benefit from the learning. It’s on our own time and expenses. To give you an idea of cost in case you're interested in coming, mine has totalled 6700 $ Canadian, flights, hotel and cruise, but it could be less if you get someone to go with you to share a cabin, don't spend two nights in a hotel in Amsterdam, not absolutely necessary, and don’t include a side trip to Yorkshire.
This is not to educate engineers. Engineers in Canada can already design and build heat networks - what we need is better and broader understanding of the marketing, financing, regulatory, legal and political and business and community and governance and ownership issues involved in getting them started … to serve existing private buildings. A good way to get that is …. talk face to face with folks what done it.
And with that invitation. I'll end there.
***

where I’m going to visit the company that owns and operates the district energy system in Leeds, among others in the UK, to learn more about policies such as heat network zoning, part of the Energy Bill recently introduced in the UK

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The Boltzmann Institute’s mission is to reduce harmful emissions from human energy use through research and education

Credit:

DESIGN GUIDELINES FOR DISTRICT ENERGY-READY BUILDINGS

Now I want to flip back to some theory and emphasize just how much the electricity system could benefit from further development of heat networks in terms of flexibility and reliability as illustrated by this diagram
For example, the U of T still have boilers for backup, so their industrial heat pumps which I imagine will draw a couple of megawatts each could be a flexible load ,which, having backup, could be shut off at peak times . This would be very useful to the electricity system.. They would not require significant expansion of the entire electricity system as would be required for in-building heat pumps.
This is a thermal distributed energy resource. (DER) You may have heard the term DER in reference to solar PV; but that won’t provide capacity during winter peaks like a heat network could by either shutting off its heat pumps or starting up small CHP, combined heat and power, also known as cogeneration, which U of T also has, as do Enwave, York University, Regent Park, Mirvish Village, Ontario Tech, MDE and many DES.
The IESO’s APO makes clear that Toronto in particular will be greatly in need of DER when they shut down the gas plants. Specifically, the Portlands energy centre, York energy centre, Halton hills, Goreway and the cogen at the airport. Getting sufficient power into Toronto has been problematic for as long as I can remember but will be even more challenging when they phase out those gas plants, if they ever do, but that would be more likely the more DER. These links make heat networks a powerful form of DER.
***

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27+ potential DE start-ups

About a dozen years ago the then Efficiency office of the City of Toronto identified 27 locations in the city that had anchor customers useful for starting new DES.
You may wonder … couldn’t other owners of existing buildings do something like what the U of T have done? I’m talking about the who’s who of commercial real estate in North America;, big, deep pockets corporations - the Oxford's, the Cadillac Fairviews, the Morguards, Quadreal etc..
no law of physics prevents it .. but it would cost them a lot of money up-front, and they don’t have to . The simple payback of 15 years is probably not good enough for the private sector – they’re just not going to do it until the government tells them to – saying that’ runs counter to my preference .. I'd rather they made a business decision informed by carbon pricing, but …. it doesn’t look like that's happening
If told by government they must go to zero, their first thought might be standalone electrification. Running the numbers they would find GSHP would be better. But then they would realize that would cost a lot of money, upfront, difficult to recover through rents. That might lead them to realize they could get clean heating and cooling for no upfront cost to them by signing long-term service agreements with capable deep pockets DE developers. Such long-term contracts are like gold to investors and bankers. That's why the CEO of the Canada infrastructure bank Ehren Cory said, “we love district energy” and why a couple of pension firms bought Enwave., it's a safe, predictable revenue stream forever. Multiple contracts lower the risk to lenders meaning the DE developers can get lower cost financing than the customers could if they did the job themselves. And the cost of energy from these capital-intensive projects is very sensitive to the cost of financing. This is a way to help keep energy costs down.
The key is a policy framework making DE service virtually an offer they can’t refuse, and we could talk about how to do that for a long time.
***

But frankly although these systems can be built and financed largely by the private sector, they need government leadership to get the buildings to act collaboratively as a teams and all three levels of government to realize that strategically this must happen or we won’t get to net zero.

I’ve met with numerous people in the Ontario Ministry of Energy to explain why they don't need to spend hundreds of billions of dollars and raise everybody's Hydro rates - if they would only develop enabling policies, together with the federal government and the municipalities to make it attractive for both the building owners and developers.

The city of Toronto is already favorably disposed to District energy but it's not going to do it. And to be fair it doesn't have the resources, and it shouldn’t have to do it. After all, gas is supplied by the private sector.

****
So I'm only here telling you about this to give you a better understanding of the strategic rationale so that when more DE proposals come up which I am sure they will you’ll understand whats at stake. That’s my limited objective today.�
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And the EEO has identified where there are high heat demands to support DES starting with a high revenue stream before branching out to less dense areas like single family homes.

You’ve probably heard people (who don’t know what they’re talking about) say that DE is only makes sense for the big buildings downtown where it is now through Enwave. But I’d say that’s the past when it was considered OK to heat buildings by burning gas. The times they are a changin’

I don’t expect the city or any level of government to make the multi-billion $ investments necessary to buildout DE to the extent it could eliminate all emissions from buildings. I expect big business to do that in a suitable policy environment.

One last thought regarding that before I finish – the DE business is very similar to real estate. It takes a big investment up front and then takes in revenue from rent, or people paying their mortgages over a log period of time. There are on-going operating, maintenance and administration expenses, but they are relatively small compared to the revenue, which goes mostly to paying back and giving a return on the up-front investment.

The moral is that just as investors invest in real estate, with the right encouragement they will invest in DE.

Any questions?

Back to the present and past: 10 years ago the City’s EE Office located 27 potential DE start-ups. FVB were awarded a contract to investigate 3 of them. I was the Project Manager for those 3 studies. 1 resulted in a small project, 1 potential project is still planned and all 3 could be viable. Probably all 27 plus now others could be viable, but the City hasn’t had the budget to investigate any more

All that is needed is …. Money, money, money, many years ago I was in a Finance class and the first day the professor said Finance is the most important business subject because without money nothing gets done … no feasibility studies, and, therefore no design and construction.

There are a few areas of low hanging fruit that have attracted private investment, like Enwave’s expansion west from the Well and Mirvish Village, to be serviced by Creative Energy – Vancouver’s equivalent of Enwave.

Others won’t be attractive to the private sector because DE start-ups tend to be small and require a disproportionate amount of planning and engineering, co-ordination and beau oracy to be overcome, involvement of many parties and risk… in terms of how long it will take before the fat lady sings, i.e. all the customers needed to carry the debt are under contract.

Municipalities are key. Among other things, the only practical way for pipes to get from point A to point B is along the road allowance.

In Sweden, and other European countries, most DES were started by municipalities, which had enough money to do feasibility studies and invest because they have income tax.

Our municipalities are tax-paupers, have lots of other responsibilities and (with the exception of Toronto to an extent) cannot afford to employ the staff needed to even think about thermal networks, never mind develop them.

So, in Canada, eh, it will depend on federal or provincial infrastructure funding.

**

Back in 2012 the City’s EEO identified 27 nodes that have potential to be the starting points for new DES. They awarded a $360,000 contract to FVB for pre-feasibility studies on just 3 of them, of which just 1 so far resulted in any shovels hitting the ground. I was FVB’s Project Manager and I can say that all 3 could have been projects, except for lack of money to build the projects no matter how good the feasibility report was. That’s point #1

Point # 2 is that I’m sure the EEO would have like to have done more than 3 feasibility studies, but, frankly that’s all the budget allowed. And the City has a lot of other responsibilities.

Municipalities in Sweden enjoy a share of income tax. And most of their TN’s were started by municipalities.

Since Canadian municipalities are unlikely to get a share of income tax any time soon, the only way this road to zero emissions I’ve been talking about is going to get paved is with financing from the federal government, who can create as much money as they like, because its backed by income tax.

And it would surely be easier to finance 27 start-ups that create long-term contracts with customers at fixed rates providing a highly predictable and assignable revenue stream than it would be to finance 450,000 building retrofits with no assignable liquid assets.

***

1 resulted in a small project at Exhibition Place, connecting Hotel X basically

another I believe is still planned for development on city land that was freed up by taking down those terrible overpasses at the Six Points

And the third was based on mostly existing buildings in Scarborough Centre, I don’t know the status But I do know it could have been made into a bankable project. Any of these 27 would need a lot of work to complete full feasibility studies, including signing customers and lining up financing.

Why isn’t more of this potential being developed? .. What is a very relevant the difference between Canada and Sweden?

They’re both cold in winter. So that’s not the difference. It’s because in Sweden the municipalities get some of the income tax. They have the money to do it, but Toronto doesn’t.

So what can we do?
***
Another 2 of the nodes were West Don Lands and East Bayfront on which about 10M$ was spent on development including pipe in the ground in West Don Lands and an Interim Plant in East Bayfront, serving the Corus building, yet the owner, Waterfront Toronto still cancelled the DE project because, although they had 30M$ approved, they didn’t know where they were going to get the rest of the money to complete the project, which would have been about 150M$ I still bear the scars from that project .. Not only that one, but that especially.

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COP 2.5 ASHP

Even if all that electrification was achieved it still wouldn’t reduce emissions for the province.
It would reduce emissions from buildings but increase them from electricity generation, as apparent from this chart that the IESO) published in its 2023 Annual Panning Outlook, but dropped from the 2024 version, though I don’t think the facts have got any better.
In this province for the foreseeable future gas plants are going to be operating more and more frequently. According to this yellow line gas generation was on about 25% of the time last year, but this lhows it going eventually to 100% of the time.
Obviously, the gas plants must be phased out in order to decarbonize by electrification.
When will that happen – no-one can say. I wouldn’t bank on it been anytime soon.

So what is to be done, should we just keep heating buildings with gas?

No there’s a third way, better than either gas or electricity.

***
And this will create a lot of surplus power which could usefully go to heat. I’ll come back this.

***
future additional electricity demand will be generated for an increasing % of the time by gas plants at efficiencies varying from about 50% when the demand is not so high that combined cycles are on margin to about 30% during the peaks when simple cycle steam or gas turbines are on margin

The resulting emissions from electricity generation per unit of electricity at any point in time are referred to the marginal emission factor , which might be stated as in this charte on the left vertical axis in tonnes of CO2 emitted per MWh generated. Recognizing the importance of this data the IESO has started including it in their annual planning outlooks and this is from the latest.

The percentage of time in a year that gas is on margin, which, gas is the last resource to be dispatched, means simply the percentage of time that gas is operating is shown on the right axis.

For an example when Pickering shuts down in 2026, the IESO project s gas plants will be operating about 80% of the time. And an additional MW of demand constant throughout the year would result in the additional emissions of about .36 tons or 360 kilograms. That would likely be higher during peak hours.

In comparison a MWh used in an ASHP pump would reduce building missions by about 440 kilograms from the building, but the net saving for the province would only be about 80 kilograms, 440 minus 360

The savings could be much higher if a GSHP was used, about 700 kilograms of CO2 for a net saving of about 340 700 minus 360, about 4 times the net emission reduction,.

And is a cost issue to consider which is the requisite capacity of the electricity system to meet the peak energy flow to power ASHP at very low temperature, which is about the same as electric resistance.

This is what would require Toronto hydro to double or triple its capacity, which would inevitably double or triple the delivery charges you pay, not to mention the increase in the cost of electricity itself for all that extra generation and transmission.

That would not be such a problem we've grown so see pumps because they retain their efficiency in winter. Better yet in in combination with thermal energy storage could even be turned off in peak hours which would make them dispatchable loads, effectively a distributed energy resource

***

Furthermore, electrification of heating will not reduce emissions by much depending on the technology used., so long as gas is on margin the majority of hours. That's because each incremental MWh of electricity consumed is going to require more gas generation to supply the grid according to the marginal emission factor at the time.

Electricity and heat integrated GoO doesn’t seen to be oing … electricication planel

My rough estimate for ASHP’s is that each MWh generated to supply ASHP ‘s replacing gas furnaces will reduce building emissions about .44 tonnes (440 kilograms) of CO2. But as you can see from 2026 when Pickering shuts down that won't be much more than the consequent emissions required to generate that electricity.

By those same calculations, an ordinary GSHP with a COP of about 3 would avoid about .57 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions which would be a significant more than the emissions from the required electricity generation. Even better a GSHP taking heat from a warm source like sewage or a geoexchange field might avoid about. 0.77 tonnes/MWh of required electricity so then we would be making progress.

Of course, that would require more investment and becomes more economic if that were spread out among multiple users, which is what thermal networks do.

***

But this doesn't take into account refurbishment of Pickering so it may not be turn out to be not quite as bad as this but there always going to be emissions created from incremental electricity use so long as gas remains on the margin durimg peak hours which it looks like being for quite some time not just in Ontario but in the US UK Europe all over the world so when you hear talk about heat pumps driven by clean renewable energy it's just greenwashing, they won’t be driven by clean energy so long as gas is on margin – in fact, they’’ll be driven by gas fired generation with hardly any net emissions reduction. It's about time someone told the emperor he’s not wearing any clothes.

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District Heating Study Tour Route May 24 – June 8^th, 2024

The Boltzmann Institute’s mission is to reduce harmful emissions from human energy use through research and education

You are invited to our study tour to learn more about how to do this.
We will visit 11 district heating systems that are all expanding and decarbonizing in seven countries with slightly different approaches, and we will all have a jolly good time, cruising the Baltic Sea during what I'm told is a beautiful part of the year .
I should hasten to say none of this is been paid for by the government, although our research project will benefit from the learning. It’s on our own time and expenses. To give you an idea of cost in case you're interested in coming, mine has totalled 6700 $ Canadian, flights, hotel and cruise, but it could be less if you get someone to go with you to share a cabin, don't spend two nights in a hotel in Amsterdam, not absolutely necessary, and don’t include a side trip to Yorkshire.
This is not to educate engineers. Engineers in Canada can already design and build heat networks - what we need is better and broader understanding of the marketing, financing, regulatory, legal and political and business and community and governance and ownership issues involved in getting them started … to serve existing private buildings. A good way to get that is …. talk face to face with folks what done it.
And with that invitation. I'll end there.
***

where I’m going to visit the company that owns and operates the district energy system in Leeds, among others in the UK, to learn more about policies such as heat network zoning, part of the Energy Bill recently introduced in the UK

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REFERENCES

https://www.ontario.ca/document/ontarios-clean-energy-opportunity-report-electrification-and-energy-transition-panel

https://esmia.ca/en/projet/cost-effective-energy-pathways-study-for-ontario/

https://carbon.taf.ca/sectors/buildings

https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/climate-change/greenhouse-gas-emissions/inventory.html

https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/water-environment/environmentally-friendly-city-initiatives/transformto/

https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2024/ie/bgrd/backgroundfile-244190.pdf

https://www.ieso.ca/en/Sector-Participants/Planning-and-Forecasting/Annual-Planning-Outlook

https://www.ieso.ca/en/Learn/The-Evolving-Grid/Pathways-to-Decarbonization

https://www.utoronto.ca/news/u-t-s-proposed-geoexchange-project-front-campus-one-urban-canada-s-largest

https://cib-bic.ca/en/media/the-frame/article/underground-thermal-networks-key-to-net-zero-emissions-goal/

https://task55.iea-shc.org/

https://solarthermalworld.org/news/seasonal-pit-heat-storage-cost-benchmark-30-eurm3/

https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy23osti/85332.pdf

https://www.stockholmexergi.se/en/about-stockholm-exergi/

bi-ib.ca

The Boltzmann Institute’s mission is to reduce harmful emissions from human energy use through research and education

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The Boltzmann Institute’s mission is to reduce harmful emissions from human energy use through research and education

From Pathways to Decarbonization, December 2022, the Independent Electricity System Operator

And when considering what to support, there should be strategic consideration of the consequent cost to the consumer. You’ll hear that district energy infrastructure is very expensive, but has theralternate cost of reinforcing the electricity system been considered? That’s what we will do.

We now know from this report from the IESO that the costs of adding electricity capacity will be very expensive.

This was the IESO's projection of the growth in summer peak demand in its decarbonization scenario, blue line. It goes to about 35 gigawatts in 2050. The green line is the current annual planning outlook without a commitment to decarbonization.

So, the difference between the blue and green lines is the additional capacity needed for decarbonization, e.g. ,charging EV’s and DHW - not that much in summer.

The decarbonization scenario, would have a winter peak in 2050 of about 60 gigawatts, almost 3 times the current peak, implying new construction over the next couple of decades equivalent to about double the current system (which took over a century to build). And ithe IESO estimates it will cost about $400 billion in 2021 $

They also estimated this will raise the cost of electricity about 20% in real terms. But we think it could be more. this is something we're going to analyze very carefully

***

and I don't believe that properly includes the increased cost of delivery charges which could double or triple.

BTW, Delivery charges are 70% of my hydro bill because I use electricity sparingly and so of necessity do a lot of low-income folks so this will hit them the hardest.

***

But would this even be enough?

Quebec is a good comparator. It has a lot of electric heating, a population only about 60% of Ontario’s, but its winter peak is 43 GW, about double Ontario’s and it says that 80% of that is due to heating, which would be about 34 GW, so Ontario with an equivalent amount of electric heating, grossed up for population might be expected to have about 57 GW just in heating.

Someone might say oh the impact won’t be that much because we will be using ASHP, which are more efficient. But here’s the confusion. ASHP pumps are more efficient on average throughout the year but not at the peak, when the outside air temperature is about minus 20 or below. At that very low temperature ASHP are about the same efficiency as electric resistance heaters so the impact on the peak demand of electrification using primarily ASHP would be similar to a scenario that installed all new electric resistance heaters. And Quebec is living example of what that would look like.

So the investment required in the electricity system might be even more than as estimated in the P2D report.

It may be harder to build against the nimbyism of today especially long-distance high voltage transmission.

In fact. the IESO estimated the capital cost of this decarbonization scenario in 2021 overnight dollars would range from 376 to 434 B$ depending on transmission for which there is a considerable uncertainty naturally because they don't know where all the new generation would be located. For example, some of the wind may be in the north, a long way from the load centres.

The IESO suggested this might increase the cost of electricity in today's dollars by about 20%. We intend to examine this critically, shining a particular light on the impact on low income and modest users of electricity.

To their credit Toronto Hydro has been quite candid in their estimates of future rate increases. In their Climate Action Plan, they state that Toronto Hydro’s extrapolated capital investment of $10 billion to enable the City’s Net Zero Strategy could result in annual average estimated distribution rate increases for residential customers of 8 to 9% per year from 2025 to 2029 — four times greater than historical 2% inflation.108 In the following rate period, from 2030 to 2034, distribution rates could increase by 5 to 6% per year on average to enable the required capital investment.

The transformers and wires etc must have sufficient capacity to meet the load at peak times. If heating is largely electrified the peak will switch from summer to winter and TH’s capital plans will be greatly impacted by the amount of heating demand that is electrified.. But some could be avoided by DH instead of 100% electrification.

more than a dozen Copeland Stations in the next 25 years to increase system capacity

These charts seem to imply about 25 gigawatts additional would be caused by heating.

***

For example, on my own hydro bill ,delivery charges $46.43/ month represent 70% of my bill. Distribution is 74% of that and Toronto hydro’s current rate application for 2025 -2029 is proposing a rate increase that increase the distribution charges I would pay by about 23%, that’s just in the next 5 years or so and comes nowhere close to electrifying all the heating in Toronto. So, for me and other thrifty users of electricity, the percentage increase in delivery charges due to electrification could eventually be a lot more than the percentage increase in the electricity itself and therefore the combined bottom line of our bills could be a lot more than 20% in real terms. And a lot more still in $ of the year. We aim to make all this clear in our final report.

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The Boltzmann Institute’s mission is to reduce harmful emissions from human energy use through research and education

From Pathways to Decarbonization, December 2022, the Independent Electricity System Operator

376 - 434B$ (2022$)

Projection of the winter peak demand in the decarbonization scenario goes to about 60 gigawatts in 2050. It means constructing in the next couple of decades more again than has been built in over a century.

Again, the difference between these two curves indicates the extra power required to decarbonize the economy including heating.

That required to deal specifically with heating is indicated by the difference between the summer peak you saw on the last slide and the winter peak shown here. That difference, about 25 GW, is the equivalent of about 25 large nuclear reactors {PAUSE]
This will not be cheap. The median of their estimated range is $400 billion in 2022 overnight $ - a lot more with escalation and interest during construction.

I’m not saying 400 billion $ is all due to heating. I don't have that capability; all I can see is that of the 35 GW increased peak demand about 25 GW is due to heating.

They also estimated this will raise the cost of electricity about 20% in real terms.

These are all the IESO’s numbers - not ours

But we think the cost to consumers could be even more.

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Modeling of power demand for electrification of space heating

Martin A. Green*

The Boltzmann Institute

February 10, 2024

The Boltzmann Institute’s mission is to reduce harmful emissions from human energy use through research and education

*mgreen@bi-ib.ca

This slide illustrates the utilization of the electricity system in various scenarios including 30%GS70%AS per the previous slide ,the red load duration curve, no electrical heating, the blue curve and another scenario, 30%GS70%DE, the green curve.
This green curve with DE instead of AS would have a demand only slightly above the existing and that’s because of the GS so it's utilization of the electricity system would be 61% according to this data, versus 63% currently, the blue curve. A little less and therefore the unit cost costs of electricity would be little higher.
You see when we have a grid that is 100% clean, almost all costs will derive from the capital investment, which is driven by the required capacity of infrastructure. Then , the unit cost of electricity is inversely proportional to the utilization. The lower the utilization the higher the unit costs, cents per kilowatt-hour .
With that understanding look again at the 70%GS70%AS scenario, the red curve whose utilization drops to 30%. That's what the data computes to. You can sanity check that yourself right now by looking at the area below the red curve, which is the energy delivered in GWh as a percentage of the area below a rectangle that you could construct in your mind's eye by drawing a line across from the almost 70 GW peak. It looks like its about 30% doesn’t it?
If the government was sincere in fighting climate change as well as keeping energy costs down, it should pay attention to this. But it doesn’t. Yet.

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IESO 2024 Annual Planning Outlook (APO) Seasonal Peak Demand Forecast

The independent electricity system operator doesn't believe a transformation is underway in building heating as revealed by this figure from their latest annual planning outlook.
The dark blue dashed line is their forecast of the winter peak going to about 35 GW in 2050.
But the top line, in yellow dashes depicts the projection of the winter peak in their P2D decarbonization pathway which assumed a heat pump in every building. That went to 60 gigawatts by 2050.
The difference of about 25 GW is mostly what they estimated would be caused by electrifying heating demand throughout the province with a mix of GSHP and ASHP, probably mostly the latter.
But to quote from this latest APO “(the transition to Net Zero) will not materialize without drastic changes in policy, technology and customer behaviour.” Thus, spake the IESO.
I won’t disagree that drastic changes are needed. It’s their precise nature that concerns me. Should it include more subsidies from poor taxpayers like me to relatively rich building owners to improve their buildings? Which is like Robin Hood in reverse. Should it include expanding the electricity system another 25 GW, the equivalent of 6 Darlington’s? How would that help keep energy costs down? And is it likely to happen?
Or is there a more practical alternative?

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Even the IESO knows they’re wrong.
This is a screenshot I took from a presentation you can find on the IESO’s website about their 2023 annual planning outlook.
I’ll talk about mainly about the chart on the right the winter peak demand and this same info is in the 2024 APO, published this March but that chart is not so nice as this one.
Please ponder the difference between the Pathways to Decarbonization Study, the light blue line versus the planning outlook, the dark blue line.
By 2050 this difference is 25 GW … about equivalent to 6 Darlingtons, it represents a few hundred billion $ of your money- ratepayers money that’s all.
Why the difference?
The P2D report assumed electrification of all the building heating in the province .
That difference of 25 GW represents the additional electricity expansion that would be required.
Its ingenuous to suggest, as many do, that this would not be a problem – that same P2D report suggested it would raise the cost of electricity about 20% in real terms, and we think that was low balling it.
***

The independent electricity system operator doesn't believe a transformation is underway in building heating as revealed by this figure from their latest annual planning outlook.
The dark blue dashed line is their forecast of the winter peak going to about 35 GW in 2050.
But the top line, in yellow dashes depicts the projection of the winter peak in their P2D decarbonization pathway which assumed a heat pump in every building. That went to 60 gigawatts by 2050.
The difference of about 25 GW is mostly what they estimated would be caused by electrifying heating demand throughout the province with a mix of GSHP and ASHP, probably mostly the latter.
But to quote from this latest APO “(the transition to Net Zero) will not materialize without drastic changes in policy, technology and customer behaviour.” Thus, spake the IESO.
I won’t disagree that drastic changes are needed. It’s their precise nature that concerns me. Should it include more subsidies from poor taxpayers like me to relatively rich building owners to improve their buildings? Which is like Robin Hood in reverse. Should it include expanding the electricity system another 25 GW, the equivalent of 6 Darlington’s? How would that help keep energy costs down? And is it likely to happen?
Or is there a more practical alternative?

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The 3-C Approach

Conserve

Connect

Convert

low energy demand and temperature building design

creation of and connection to thermal networks

convert fossil fuel sources to rejected/waste heat, renewable energy or non-GHG generating heat

The Boltzmann Institute’s mission is to reduce harmful emissions from human energy use through research and education

Now I want to flip back to some theory and emphasize just how much the electricity system could benefit from further development of heat networks in terms of flexibility and reliability as illustrated by this diagram
For example, the U of T still have boilers for backup, so their industrial heat pumps which I imagine will draw a couple of megawatts each could be a flexible load ,which, having backup, could be shut off at peak times . This would be very useful to the electricity system.. They would not require significant expansion of the entire electricity system as would be required for in-building heat pumps.
This is a thermal distributed energy resource. (DER) You may have heard the term DER in reference to solar PV; but that won’t provide capacity during winter peaks like a heat network could by either shutting off its heat pumps or starting up small CHP, combined heat and power, also known as cogeneration, which U of T also has, as do Enwave, York University, Regent Park, Mirvish Village, Ontario Tech, MDE and many DES.
The IESO’s APO makes clear that Toronto in particular will be greatly in need of DER when they shut down the gas plants. Specifically, the Portlands energy centre, York energy centre, Halton hills, Goreway and the cogen at the airport. Getting sufficient power into Toronto has been problematic for as long as I can remember but will be even more challenging when they phase out those gas plants, if they ever do, but that would be more likely the more DER. These links make heat networks a powerful form of DER.
***

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To wind into this, I’m going to do a quick technical review of large-scale thermal energy storage – which is the key because building heating (and cooling) is very peaky and seasonal – the gas system can handle this but trying to chase these loads with the extremely expensive apparatus of the electricity system is very capital inefficient and will not give us affordable energy.

There are four different ways of large-scale thermal energy storage applied in thermal networks, also known as district energy.

For strictly diurnal, that is daily, load following. tanks are normally used, which could be below or above ground and I’ll show you example of each that we have in the GTHA. And the way these work is just like your familiar hot water tank. There is internal piping that puts in or takes out hot water at the top with an equal and opposite flow of colder water from or into the bottom. The pits work the same way as depicted I this diagram.

Seasonal storage can use boreholes, or pits or aquifers,
The boreholes and aquifers work because heat doesn’t move very fast underground so thefheat pit in will be likely be sucked out again before it migrates too far – that’s what this is trying to illustrate..
Tanks and Boreholes have been extensively used in N. America, but not so much pits and aquifers, yet
but I’ll show you examples of each of them

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TES in Rostock, Germany, fed from cogeneration and electric boiler when renewables on margin

.