VANCOUVER – Vancouver’s Greenest City Action Plan has put it on track to potentially become a world leader in green building design and construction.
“The city is working to reduce the amount of energy consumed by the city’s new homes by 33 per cent by 2020, with the goal of making all new buildings ‘carbon neutral’ by 2030,” a recent media release explained.
As part of this initiative, City Hall is now using a zero-emissions air source heat pump to provide year-round climate control, improve energy efficiency and building air quality for occupants.
The heat pump works by using the same principle as a refrigerator; extracting heat from the outside air and transferring it to the inside to warm the building. It can also cool the inside environment by reversing this process, the release reads.
“We are committed to maintaining and upgrading all city-run facilities — especially older buildings like City Hall — so they’re clean, green, and energy-efficient,” said Mayor Gregor Robertson in the release. “Buildings produce over half of Vancouver’s total emissions and we need leadership at both the public and private level to reach our target of being a 100 per cent renewably powered city by 2050.”
By the end of 2019, the heat pump is expected to reduce greenhouse gases by 34 per cent annually and is projected to save $20,000 each year through energy cost savings.
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