Turn off the chillers — look at the lake

The first office building in downtown Toronto to link into the city’s Deep Lake Water Cooling System turned off its conventional chillers permanently on July 17.
Oxford Properties building at One University Avenue is now connected to Enwave District Energy’s district air-conditioning system. By next summer that system will be circulating cooling water from the icy depths of Lake Ontario. The water is drawn from an intake 85 metres deep, five kilometres offshore. The Mitchell Partnership (Bob Shute, P.Eng.) is helping to design the heat exchanger plant.
Toronto’s is the world’s largest lake source cooling system, and is expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 40,000 tons annually compared to coal-fired plants. By 2004, it will produce 52,000 tons of cooling, enough to service 20 million square feet, or 100 office towers.
“This is a great day for all of us who live and work in Toronto,” said Councillor David Shiner, in a ceremony at One University to switch off the chillers. “We are very pleased that Oxford is contributing to Toronto’s Kyoto commitment.”