How we are improving our building efficiencies
Dalhousie is improving the energy and water efficiency of our existing buildings through annual facility renewal projects, specific sustainability projects, and deep whole building retrofits. In the last decade, many projects have been completed including:
campus-wide lighting and water fixture upgrades
solar installations
house energy retrofits
HVAC upgrades
commercial kitchen upgrades
compressed air leakage audits and remediation
high efficiency pumping
building controls setbacks
recommissioning
urinal tank sensor retrofits
active transportation infrastructure upgrades
full building deep retrofits
storm water retention such as permeable pavement
Low-carbon energy
Dalhousie has two district energy systems (DE), also called low-carbon thermal energy networks, that connect over 95% of our built environment.
Upgrades have included:
converting the DE system from steam to hot water at two campuses
upgrading the biomass boiler at the Agricultural campus to a biomass co-generation system with a biomass thermal oil heater and Organic Rankine Cycle turbine
Future sustainability projects
A number of projects are in the planning and implementation phase including upgrading more of the steam systems to hot water, implementing more whole building deep retrofits, adding more solar pv, reducing once through water cooling, optimizing building controls and DE systems, making major Halifax Central heating plant upgrades, equipment upgrades and more.
Dalhousie University Tupper Building Efficiency Upgrades
Watch a video about the Tupper Building, an example of a deep building retrofit on the Dal campus