On Thursday, Nov. 21st, The Canadian Branch organised a plant tour of the Markham District Energy Cogeneration Plant, located in Markham, Ontario. Approximately 30 people attended the tour and were greeted by Mr. Bruce Ander, President of the company. The plant is owned by the Town of Markham.

The plant comprises a 3.3 MW Caterpillar 3616 spark ignited, natural gas fired engine generating set, 1 x 1100, 3 x 700 and 1 x 300 ton motor driven centrifugal chillers, 1 x 300 ton hot water absorption chiller and 2 x 3.4 MWt natural gas fired boilers. The plant supplies hot water (117°C) for heating and chilled water (4°C) for air conditioning on closed loop systems to the local IBM Software Solution Laboratory, the Motorola complex and the adjacent Markham Hydro building.

The Caterpillar engine is equipped with an exhaust gas, hot water, heat recovery boiler and this, plus the engine jacket water heat, is used to feed the absorption chiller. The electrical energy is fed into the Markham Hydro system and is configured to provide power to critical buildings in the event of a grid interruption. The overall thermal efficiency of the plant is said to be 75%.

Following the tour, Mr. Ander gave a brief talk about the plant and answered questions from the attendees. The timing of the meeting was opportune as the government of Ontario recently capped the price of electricity at 4.3c/kWh, which has thrown the recent deregulation of the industry into disarray. This made for an interesting discussion period!

 The District Heating and Cooling system that services a new hi-tech development in Markham Ontario began operation on December 1, 2000. Markham as one of North America's first District Energy system to combine the use of hot water for heating, chilled water for cooling and combined heat and power.
Hot and chilled water is distributed to Markham's first customer, the new IBM Software Solutions Laboratory.
In March a new Motorola complex was be added to the system. The hot water distribution system utilizes European Standard (EN 253) thin walled steel pipe, insulated with PUR insulation, HDPE outer jacket and a built-in leak detection system. The chilled water system utilizes North American Standard Yellow Jacket steel pipe. Both the hot water and chilled water systems operate as closed loops.
The District Energy plant is located adjacent to Markham Hydro's office on the NW corner of Warden and Highway 407. Natural gas fired boilers within the plant produce hot water B|| for the District Heating system.
Several electric centrifugal chillers, in combination with a hot water absorption chiller, produce the chilled water for the District Cooling system. An additional feature is the incorporation of a 3.3 MW gas fired combined heat and power engine into the plant design. The engine produces enough heat to provide the base cooling load for IBM via the absorption chiller. The entire plant can island itself during any grid interruption and provide electricity to critical buildings in the Markham area.

The entire system is owned by The Town of Markham. The motivation behind Markham hydro pursuing a District Energy System was twofold: firstly, the recent ice storm in Montreal providing Markham with a real life example of what happens when a community relies entirely on an outside resource for electricity, and secondly, Markham was actively trying to attract hi-tech industry to the community and was looking for an additional edge.
The District Energy system proved to be the added edge that was needed to convince IBM to locate in Markham and other hi-tech firms, such as Motorola have recently decided to also locate in the area serviced by the District Heat System.