By Allan Taylor
Frameworks – Manager of Innovation, SWR
In my last post, I talked about the feeling of possibility that Vancouver inspires – not as a fantasy of perfection, but as a place that blends ambition with grounded experimentation. And while the natural beauty of this city is part of what draws people in, it’s the work happening behind the scenes, in energy systems, building retrofits, and utility partnerships, that really caught my attention.
This post is about what that work looks like in practice.
District Energy: A Smarter Kind of Connection
One of the most impactful systems I encountered was the False Creek Neighbourhood Energy Utility (NEU). It’s a city-owned district energy system that captures waste heat from sewage – a resource that holds steady even on the coldest days – and uses it to provide low-carbon heating to an entire neighbourhood. Derek Pope from the City of Vancouver gave me a tour of the facility and a sense of the thinking behind it: district energy as a tool not just for emissions reduction, but for grid stability.
As we face the challenge of widespread electrification, False Creek’s system offers a glimpse of how thermal networks can take pressure off peak-demand while delivering reliable, local energy. It’s a strategy that’s grounded in area-based energy planning – identifying where density, grid constraints, and heat sources line up to make local systems viable.
A few key takeaways:
- Waste heat isn’t waste if we’re paying attention – from sewage to data centres, we’re surrounded by potential inputs.
- Thermal storage is coming – think of it like a battery, but for hot water.
- We need to plan at the system level – siloed infrastructure planning is a barrier to energy resilience.
Lonsdale Energy: Municipal Ownership, Commercial Agility
In North Vancouver, I met with Karsten Veng, CEO of Lonsdale Energy, another district energy provider – this one a municipally-owned corporation with an interesting governance model. While the City of North Vancouver is the sole shareholder, the organization operates at arms length, allowing it to access private financing and act with commercial agility, while still aligning with public goals.
One thing that stood out: the City mandates connection to the district energy system for any building over 1,000 square metres. That kind of policy leadership is part of why the system has scaled – and why it’s positioned to support deeper decarbonization in the years ahead.
They’re also tapping into diverse energy sources:
- Heat from a local recreational ice rink
- A major upcoming sewer heat recovery system
- And continued exploration of neighborhood-scale solutions
Creative Energy: Incremental Expansion with District Steam
I also had the chance to meet with the team at Creative Energy, which operates Vancouver’s downtown steam system – a legacy of a 1960s airshed cleanup initiative. While it doesn’t benefit from a forced connection bylaw, it’s still finding ways to expand, decarbonize, and adapt.
Their approach is to act on opportunity when it arises, connecting new builds, and enabling existing buildings to retrofit where conditions allow. Right now, they’re considering how their evolving systems might help alleviate peak winter loads on the electricity grid – an important step as more buildings transition off fossil fuels.
Their new district energy systems use a nodal design, combining heat pumps, geo-exchange, sewer heat recovery, and other local sources to balance heating and cooling. It’s a compelling example of what becomes possible when we move away from siloed systems and begin thinking in terms of shared thermal networks and community-scale solutions.
Real-World Retrofits: Performance & Payback
Back at the CaGBC Building Lasting Change conference, I joined a session on low-carbon building retrofits. What stood out wasn’t just the projects – it was the honesty.
Take 33 Bloor Street in Toronto: EPIC Investment realized early on that a full electrification approach wasn’t feasible. Instead, they leaned into heat recovery chillers that tied into existing natural gas systems – achieving a 60% GHG reduction and 50% energy savings.
At 55 University Ave, BGO Canada used triple-pane windows as the trigger to reevaluate HVAC systems and aesthetics, resulting in a 33% GHG reduction and 35% utility savings. Perhaps even more important: these buildings are now avoiding the vacancy issues facing other B-class spaces.
A few key lessons:
- Retrofitting isn’t just technical – it’s relational. Success came through collaboration with tenants, cleaning staff, and security personnel.
- Electrification isn’t always all-or-nothing. Hybrid systems can be stepping stones.
- Measurement & verification matters. Each of these projects included full M&V plans, helping build confidence in results and return on investment.
Local Reflections: What This Means for Us
All of these projects remind me that we already have many of the tools we need – what’s often missing is coordination, incentives, and political will.
Through Frameworks: A Building Innovation Exchange, we’re building space for industry collaboration, curated learning, and systems alignment. The work in Vancouver reinforces the importance of:
- Engaging utilities and municipalities as partners in planning
- Mapping local building stock, energy use, and retrofit pathways
- Elevating district-scale strategies alongside building-level action
We don’t need to copy Vancouver. But we can learn from how it has aligned systems, actors, and policies – and from how it’s still learning too.
Up Next
In Part 3, I’ll explore how institutions like BCIT and UBC are helping transform industry knowledge, workforce capacity, and planning authority – and how their approach to hands-on training, policy experimentation, and campus-scale decarbonization might guide our next steps.
