City of Kamloops looking into partnering with TRU in planned low-carbon energy system

KAMLOOPS — The City of Kamloops says it’s looking to explore the possibility of connecting the city to a new, low-carbon district energy system.

In a news release issued Tuesday (Oct. 18) morning, the City announced it signed a memorandum of understanding with Thompson Rivers University (TRU) and private heating company Creative Energy. TRU partnered with Creative Energy in January 2022 to develop a low-carbon district energy system to heat campus infrastructure in Kamloops.

“We’re pleased to partner with TRU and the City to bring sustainable energy and environmental stewardship to the people of Kamloops,” Diego Mandelbaum, Creative Energy’s vice president, development says. “District energy is an exciting infrastructure strategy for this very reason: it is scalable and can be built upon to bring value to entire communities as well as individual institutions.”

In reaching the memorandum of understanding, the City states it will optimize the planned network and modern, low-carbon technology to bring sustainable energy to Kamloops residents.
The first phase of the low-carbon district energy system is expected to be complete by 2025 and will eliminate over 90 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions from nine TRU-owned buildings in Kamloops.

The second phase will connect the remaining TRU campus and provide the City with a network of renewable infrastructure that can serve additional community buildings, such as the Canada Games Aquatic Centre and Tournament Capital Centre. The City says including these facilities to the district energy system would remove its municipal operations’ largest single source of annual greenhouse gas emissions, saying they omitted around 900 tonnes combined in 2019.