In what city engineers said is a happy and surprising discovery, the cost of operating the facility has dropped by 40 per cent while recovery from heat generated from sewage pipes has risen.
As a result, the utility, which provides heat to all of the Olympic Village as well as surrounding commercial and residential buildings, has already met its target of being price-competitive with BC Hydro, Brian Crowe, an assistant city engineer, told city council Thursday.
Next March Hydro will raise electricity rates across the province to about $87 per kilowatt hour. But the city's utility, which services about 1,600 homes and businesses, is able to offer a price of $84 per kilowatt hour and still make a reasonable profit for the city, Crowe said.
Olympic Village's heat-from-sewage utility a monetary success
The Vancouver Sun
December 2, 2010
