Air cooled by the frigid waters deep in Lake Ontario started bringing relief to buildings in downtown Toronto on Tuesday after the valves were symbolically opened on the multi-million-dollar project.
The project, which is believed to the first of its kind in North America, could be cooling significant parts of the downtown by the time the heat and humidity hits Toronto next summer.
Enwave, co-owned by the City of Toronto and the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, will draw cold water from far out in the lake, using three intake pipes 83 metres below the surface to collect fluid that is barely above freezing.
Brought to the John St. Pumping Station, the lake water is used to cool down other water that will then be used to lower the temperature in downtown buildings. The original water continues on into the city system, is treated and enters the drinking supply.
"This is truly the energy of the future, available today," Enwave president Dennis Fotinos said Tuesday.
"[This is] clean, renewable, reliable energy. Compared to traditional air-conditioning, Deep Lake Water Cooling reduces electricity use by 75 per cent and will eliminate 40,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of taking 8,000 cars off of the streets of Toronto."
The company says that they have the capacity to air condition 100 office buildings or 8,000 homes — the equivalent of 32 million square feet of building space. They note that the cooling system reduces energy usage, freeing up megawatts from the Ontario's electrical grid, minimizes ozone-depleting refrigerants and reduces the amount of carbon dioxide entering the air.
Hollywood actor Alec Baldwin, who has a sideline career as an environmental campaigner, was on hand for the ceremony at Toronto's Steam Whistle Brewery, which was one of the first buildings to sign up for the project. Also there was federal cabinet minister Joe Volpe, in his role as ranking Liberal MP for Toronto, provincial Energy Minister Dwight Duncan and Toronto deputy mayor Sandra Bussin.
Mr. Volpe brought with him a $10-million loan that will not accrue interest for two years, one of his staffers told globeandmail.com, the money coming from the Green Municipal Fund with is administered by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.
After six years of work, the Deep Lake Water Cooling project was ready for launch last month but Enwave chose to delay it until mid-August, the anniversary of the 2003 blackout that crippled much of central Canada and the Eastern United States. Mr. Fotinos admitted then that the choice was purely a publicity decision, designed to remind people that "green projects will actually work toward eliminating that situation from happening again."
The downside of the decision is that the project is being launched in the middle of a particularly cool August, during a week when the temperature in downtown Toronto is not forecast to rise above the mid-20s.
