180 Toronto buildings have abandoned energy-intensive air conditioning by pumping freezing water from the depths of Lake Ontario through pipes in the walls and floors.
What do city hall, General Hospital, hotels, data centers and the stadium that hosts the Raptors have in common in Toronto? They are “water-cooled” buildings. 5 million square meters (54 million square feet) of real estate saves 90.000 megawatt hours of electricity per year. Enough energy to power 25.000 homes.
Deepfake Lake Water Cooling (DLWC), buildings cooled with water from Lake Ontario.
Toronto's system is the largest of its kind on Earth. It relies on three tubes that sit nearly 6 kilometers (3,5 miles) south of the city, 85 meters (280 feet) beneath Lake Ontario. These pipes suck up freezing water (4°C, 39°F) and pump it into a central station, which then sends it to buildings. The hot water that comes out of the buildings reached by the system is reintroduced into the lake to make up the difference, dissipating the heat it absorbs.
An ambitious project that is winning the game
Toronto's $120 million DLWC system, built and operated by the Enwave company, initially struggled to find customers in the city. Tangible results were needed (for example a bank, Scotiabank, which saved 3 million kilowatt hours per year) to increase its adoption. And now the project is ramping up.
A new program (€70 million) to increase capacity in the city by a further 60% is testament to the popularity of DLWC as a low-emission cooling system. “It's a great investment,” said Carlyle Coutinho, president of Enwave. “It would be difficult to continue to grow commercially without increasing baseload.” And he's right.
Clear as water (from Toronto)
Time is teaching us more and more of something that already seemed obvious to some. Which? If you use the unique characteristics of each territory, the energy resources are found. If the characteristics of each territory are exploited without respect, the resources run out. Trivial, right? Yet at times it seems utopia.
In Toronto the water cooling projects works. In Hong Kong for now it reaches only one building (and with sea water): it is the large HSBC headquarters, which I visited when it was still under construction.
