Construction of a heating system using steam discharged by the City of Québec’s municipal incinerator

Lead municipality: City of Québec
Lead applicant: City of Québec
Sector: Energy
Approved funding through the Green Municipal Fund: $11,500,000
Loan: $10,000,000
Grant: $1,500,000

The City of Québec, together with the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU) de Québec-Université Laval, is building a trigeneration plant on the site of the Hôpital de l’Enfant-Jésus and a steam distribution system to power the plant using steam produced by the municipal incinerator. The project would meet the hospital’s need for steam, heat and cooling, along with part of its electric power requirements.

The project will reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions produced by the new power plant, improve air quality, reduce the incinerator’s potable water requirements and generate energy savings for the hospital.

Innovative aspect

The proposed project demonstrates the use of transformative knowledge, along with new, advanced practices and technologies, and could help establish new standards or raise the bar for many communities or the municipal sector.

Replicability

In building a partnership with one or more private-sector, university or government organizations, the anticipated results and lessons learned from the initiative could be applied to many Canadian municipalities.

Environmental benefits

  • Fossil fuel consumption and electricity from the grid reduced by 52 percent
  • GHGs reduced by 94 percent, as compared to a baseline scenario
  • Potable water consumption by the incinerator reduced by 60,000 m3/year
  • Chemicals (such as acids), caustics and CO2 will be reduced by 10% in relation to baseline quantities, resulting in projected savings of 28,449 kg, 44,940 kg and 3,028 kg respectively.

Economic benefits

  • The proposed project is likely to generate $2 million in revenues for the City and the CHU.
  • An analysis of net present value over an average period of 20 years demonstrates that the project is profitable and will generate positive cash flows for Quebec City.
  • The return on investment is about 15.9 percent.

Community benefits

  • Community benefits primarily involve savings resulting from better energy management.
  • The project offers major benefits, such as stimulating the local economy, attracting businesses, product support and clean technologies, opportunities for engagement and community revitalization, education, civic pride and public awareness.

(Project description from original funding application)


Increasing the Capacity of Aerated Ponds

Lead municipality: City of Rivière-du-Loup
Lead applicant: City of Rivière-du-Loup
Sector: Water 
Approved funding through the Green Municipal Fund: $400,000

The City of Rivière-du-Loup has 20,050 residents, of which approximately 13,800 (6,009 residences) are connected to the municipal water treatment infrastructure, as are a large number of businesses and industries. In 2005, the City adopted Quebec’s first water management policy and undertook significant work relating to stormwater runoff, including downspout disconnection, separating combined networks based on response plans, adding water meters, and implementing awareness campaigns. However, in recent years, incidents of excess discharge have become increasingly common and, today, the facilities need to be updated to ensure they meet community and environmental needs adequately. The proposed pilot project consists of increasing the capacity of Rivière-du-Loup’s wastewater treatment plant by transforming Pond 1A into a “completely mixed” pond, and by installing an Actiflo ballasted floc settling system at the outlet of the ponds. This combination of techniques and technology is currently not used as a wastewater treatment system anywhere else in the province.


Réemploi +: re-using waste materials to provide a collaborative solution in Lac-Saint-Jean

Lead municipality: Lac-Saint-Jean region (Régie de gestion des Matières Résiduelles du Lac Saint-Jean)
Lead applicant: Réemploi+
Sector: Waste
Approved funding through the Green Municipal Fund: $400,000

Réemploi + is proposing a pilot project to investigate an environmental solution through the re-use of waste materials within a circular economy ecosystem in the Lac-Saint-Jean region. This trial aims to set up systematic, organized re-use operations in ecocentres, and to promote the use of electric vehicles to transport solid waste, and to optimize their journeys in and around Lac-Saint-Jean. The fossil fuel used for the processing, packaging and transportation of waste in all eight ecocentres in Lac-Saint-Jean produces a significant amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Annually, there are more than 2,000 hours of heavy vehicle operations, pushing and loading waste into containers, movable floors and other machines, 3,342 trips and more than 250 hours of shredding. This pilot project plans to significantly reduce GHG emissions and to divert more than 5,000 metric tonnes of waste coming from the ecocentres run by the Régie des matières résiduelles (RMR) each year.


Biomass Heating System

Lead municipality: Municipality of Sainte-Hedwidge
Lead applicant: Municipality of Sainte-Hedwidge
Sector: Energy
Approved funding through the Green Municipal Fund: $240,200
Loan: $208,900
Grant: $31,300

The municipality of Sainte-Hedwidge is part of the Regional County Municipality (RCM) of Domaine-du-Roy and is located in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean administrative region. The project consists of unifying the heating systems of three buildings (city hall, the church and presbytery, and the municipal garage/fire hall), and creating a new centralized biomass heating system. The proposed system is made up of a biomass tank (granules), three biomass boilers and two buffer tanks. The biomass boilers are sized to provide for 100% of heating needs and have a modulation ratio of 3:1 each, which will make it possible to use the biomass system even on a low charge. The equipment running on fuel oil will still be kept in case the biomass heating system malfunctions.


Feasibility study on the implementation of an energy loop – City of Candiac

Lead municipality: City of Candiac
Lead applicant: City of Candiac
Sector: Energy
Approved funding through the Green Municipal Fund: $54,750

The City of Candiac will undertake a feasibility study to assess the implementation of an energy recovery loop to distribute heating and air conditioning between emitters (industrial buildings) and receivers (municipal and residential buildings). The project targets the Montcalm downtown area (700,000 m2), which will be completely revamped in the next few years with new community buildings and new residential zones.


Recycling Bulky Items and CRD Waste in Drummondville

Lead municipality: City of Drummondville
Lead applicant: City of Drummondville
Sector: Waste
Approved funding through the Green Municipal Fund: $36,160

Located between Quebec City and Montreal, the Regional County Municipality (RCM) of Drummond is home to more than 107,000 inhabitants; its largest municipality is Drummondville. The RCM’s Residual Materials Management Plan (RMMP) includes several steps to reduce the amount of bulky items and construction, renovation and demolition (CRD) waste being sent to the landfill. The pilot project will be carried out in Drummondville in partnership with the RCM of Drummond. There are two components to the pilot project: the first aims to recover and recycle bulky items and CRD waste from the residential sector; the second aims to recover and recycle CRD waste from businesses in the private sector.


Sustainable Management of Stormwater in the Blais Sector of Amqui

Lead municipality: Town of Amqui
Lead applicant: Town of Amqui
Sector: Water
Approved funding through the Green Municipal Fund: $29,900

The Town of Amqui is located along major rivers: Lake Matapedia, from which the Matapedia River rises, and the Humqui River, which empties into the Matapedia River in the heart of the city. The City gets its drinking water directly from the Matapedia River, without the need of a treatment plant. The quality of the water and of the aquatic ecosystem is therefore a major public health issue, as well as being of economic, tourist, heritage and cultural importance. The goal of the initiative is to set up a pilot project to ensure the sustainable management of stormwater in the Blais sector. The initiative entails installing sumps and manholes, filter strips, bio-retention areas, turfing and rain gardens. The goal is to achieve a reduction of at least 80% of suspended solids and 80% of the stormwater runoff volume in the neighbourhood. There is also a need to reduce the quantity of pollutants that reach the river and raise awareness of the sustainable management of stormwater among municipal workers, elected officials and citizens.


Sustainable mobility, electric vehicles and car sharing in the Outaouais

Lead municipality: Municipality of Chelsea
Lead applicant: Regional Council for the Environment and Sustainable Development in Outaouais
Sector: Transportation
Approved funding through the Green Municipal Fund: $23,750

As part of its mission to rally the driving forces in the Outaouais around concerted action to identify solutions in response to environmental issues, the Regional Council for the Environment and Sustainable Development in Outaouais (Conseil régional de l’environnement et du développement durable de l’Outaouais – CREDDO) wishes to propose sustainable mobility solutions in the village cores of the municipalities of Chelsea, Cantley, La Pêche and Val-des-Monts, in the Outaouais. This project proposes to carry out a feasibility study to identify facilitating factors, obstacles, as well as the interest of citizens and organizations in four municipalities of the RCM of Collines-de-l'Outaouais in adopting sustainable mobility options, including the sharing of electric and hybrid vehicles.

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