Deep Lake Water Cooling Delivers Sustainability & Resilience to Major Hospital: Enwave Energy, University Health Network

Enwave’s Deep Lake Water Cooling is providing Toronto General Hospital with a cost effective and reliable cooling system that will bring comfort to patients and staff alike while at the same time, aligning with every hospital’s values: It’s sustainable, and doing no harm.

Faced with aging infrastructure and possessed of an industry leading sustainability mindset, Toronto General Hospital went in search of a sustainable, cost-effective, and reliable cooling solution.

The hospital’s old central chilled water plant consisted of three electric chillers that produced “chilled water” for cooling throughout the campus. The chillers were old, inefficient, and operating at their maximum capacity. To add to this, the chillers were without redundancy and not connected to emergency power systems, meaning that if one of the chillers failed or if there was a blackout, the chilled water plant could not provide cooling for the hospital. It was clear to the Toronto General Hospital team that a significant replacement investment was needed but with that demand came an opportunity to further their sustainability agenda, and make a significant impact on the hospital’s electricity and water use.

Enter the University Health Network and Enwave, who worked closely together to develop a joint business case for the project. This collaborative approach was essential to ensuring both parties were equally invested in the success of the project. Once the business case was established, Enwave and the University Health Network entered into an energy services agreement.

The best practices for healthcare cooling systems, as well as current chiller technologies were reviewed. The result was a unique approach that not only ensured the resiliency requirements of the hospital were met, but also ensured that it was able to take full advantage of Enwave’s Deep Lake Water Cooling through an integrated chiller concept.

Enwave operated as the project manager and was responsible for delivering the project. The University Health Network was also heavily involved in coordinating with the hospital which continued to operate through construction. The University Health Network and Enwave collaborated closely to commission the system and bring everything online.

The Deep Lake Water Cooling project was the perfect solution, demonstrating how great projects can address the triple bottom line of sustainability — that is environmental, economic, and social.

 

By choosing to connect to Enwave’s Deep Lake Water Cooling, the Toronto General Hospital team received the reliability and redundancy that they needed to ensure uninterrupted operations within their facility. Being a hospital, this was of the utmost importance. The renewed chiller plant also brought the facility in line with the most stringent healthcare standards, while delivering 65M liters/year of water savings, 7M kWh/year of electricity savings, and over $22M of utility cost savings over 20 years

Enwave’s Deep Lake Water Cooling is providing Toronto General Hospital with a cost effective and reliable cooling system that will bring comfort to patients and staff alike and at the same time, aligning with the hospital’s values – every hospital’s values: It’s sustainable and doing no harm…