McMaster University

• As we move toward a cleaner energy future, there is a growing push to electrify everything, from cars to home heating.
• While that sounds ideal, it is also much more than a matter of simply plugging in.

The importance of heating

• To compare the overall energy required for heating and cooling buildings we look at heating degree days (HDD) versus cooling degree days (CDD).
• In Toronto, for example, heating degree days outnumber cooling degree days about 7-1.

Utilize everything

• By storing the heat generated from all sources, including waste heat, and drawing from it through the coldest months of the year, our research shows we can use discarded waste heat.
• A huge amount of heat generated today is simply dissipated into our surroundings and wasted, and when it’s cold outside, we use new energy to make fresh heat.
• There is already technology that can harvest and store such heat for months in underground thermal batteries until it is needed.

Integrated heat harvesting systems

• McMaster leads a wider research co-operative demonstration project called Integrated Community Energy and Harvesting, or ICE-Harvest, with 30 municipalities and 19 industrial partners taking part.
• In a new paper in the journal Applied Energy, we show how such localized systems use the same energy twice.

Heat batteries already exist

• Think of it this way: the Canadian chain Pizza Pizza is piloting a system that uses heat recovered from its ovens to heat its own hot water.
• In the same way an arena can sell its heat to a retirement home across the street; a grocery store to a neighbouring school, and so on.
• Here in the northern hemisphere, heat is a valuable resource that’s already there waiting to be tapped, and we can no longer afford to waste it.