Enwave commissions latest district cooling expansion in Toronto
August 30, 2024 | By HPAC Magazine
The fourth intake to the company’s Deep Lake Water Cooling system includes a new 3-km pipe into Lake Ontario and expands its district cooling capacity by 60%.
Commissioning ceremony: (l-r) Olivia Chow, Toronto Mayor; William Fernandes, acting deputy general manager, Toronto Water; Lou Di Gironimo, general manager, Toronto Water; Sam Oosterhoff, associate minister, Energy-Intensive Industries; and Carlyle Coutinho, CEO, Enwave Energy Corp.
Enwave Energy Corp. celebrated the commissioning of the fourth intake to its Deep Lake Water Cooling (DLWC) district cooling system in Toronto during a ceremony on August 29th at the company’s John Street Energy Centre in downtown Toronto.
Construction on the expansion began in 2021, and it includes a 3-km pipe into Lake Ontario, which draws in water at 4C and transports it to the John Street Energy Centre through a newly built tunnel that extends under the Toronto harbour.
The expansion has effectively increased the DLWC’s cooling capacity by 60%, with the capability of providing service to an additional 40 buildings.
The DLWC system has been existence for 20 years, now servicing more than 100 buildings in downtown Toronto. It’s the world’s largest system of its kind, providing cooling to hospitals, commercial buildings, residential buildings, data centres, and entertainment venues.
With the expansion, it’s estimated the system will save 220 million gallons of water annually and avoids over 60 megawatts of peak electrical demand from Ontario’s grid.
“The expansion of our DLWC System is a significant milestone for both us and the city of Toronto,” said Carlyle Coutinho, CEO of Enwave Energy Corp. “This unique partnership directly supports Toronto’s ambitious strategy to reduce GHG emissions overall and achieve net-zero emissions by 2040. We are proud to provide a system that contributes to these efforts in a meaningful way, while offering communities a viable path forward to reduce emissions, consumption and costs.”
The DLWC System expansion project is supported financially by a grant from Canada’s Low Carbon Economy Fund, Champions Stream and a $600 million loan commitment supporting projects across Enwave’s portfolio, including the DLWC System, from the Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB) to accelerate the system’s expansion and scale.
