Biomass Profile SFU’s new $33 million Corix biomass plant is helping to sustainably heat a community By Ellen Cools Fueling a community S imon Fraser University (SFU)’s campus in Burnaby, B.C., is now home to a new $33 million biomass plant that is using urban wood waste to provide heating and hot water to the campus and a nearby residential commu-nity, UniverCity. The biomass plant has been operating since October 2020, but the project has been eight-and-a-half-years in the making. For SFU, the motivation behind switch-ing from natural gas to biomass for heating and hot water was two-fold, explains Larry Waddell, SFU’s chief facilities officer. “One, SFU had an aging tradition-al natural gas heating plant that served our campus. So, there was a desire to see what options we might have to replace or extend its life,” he explains. “There was also a desire to try to become more sustainable and respond to the province’s targets for the public sector to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” A UNIQUE PARTNERSHIP At the same time, SFU’s independent real estate development group was develop-ing a piece of land next to the campus into a private residential community, UniverCity. The group that oversaw this project, the SFU Community Trust, wanted to make UniverCity a model sustainable community, and decided to implement a district energy system. They put out a Re-quest for Proposal (RFP) looking for pri-vate utilities to invest in and build such a system, Waddell explains. SFU also decided to participate in this ABOVE: A view of the new $33 million Corix biomass plant providing heat and hot water to Simon Fraser University’s Burnaby, B.C., campus. Photos courtesy Simon Fraser University. FALL 2021 12 Canadian BIOMASS
Canadian Biomass Fall 2021: Page 12
