Quality, availability, and sustainability of power a key economic development issue for attracting knowledge-based businesses
Innovative solutions designed to reduce energy usage and costs – and establish a Green Energy Resilience District – are underway in Kanata North.
Led by the Kanata North Business Association (KNBA) in partnership with Hydro Ottawa and the Ottawa Climate Action Fund (OCAF), the area recognized as “Silicon Valley North” is now undergoing yet another transformation: Turning the Kanata North Technology Park into a special economic district fueled by integrated, low-carbon energy.
The Kanata North Technology Park is a 550-hectare area with nearly 600 companies employing about 33,000 people.
“We need 100% uptime in this park.”
Aaron Thornell is manager of programs and operations for the OCAF, part of the Low Carbon Cities Canada (LC3) network, which is devoted to supporting carbon emissions reduction efforts in large cities across the country.
The Green Energy Resilience District “is a really exciting project and one that OCAF has been involved in for quite some time. We started conversations with Hydro Ottawa and the Kanata North Business Association in 2023,” says Thornell.
“Kanata North is a huge economic driver in the City of Ottawa – but with that economic growth comes energy demand. And there was an increasing demand for energy services in the park, both from existing businesses and from organizations looking to potentially locate there.”
Although the KNBA, Hydro Ottawa, and OCAF are the main drivers behind this initiative, “we’ve also had tremendous participation and support from many of the businesses in the park,” Thornell stresses.
Major local real estate holder on board
One of those entities is KRP Properties Inc., a division of Wesley Clover and major real-estate holder in Kanata North, with 31 properties to its name covering some 3.2 million square feet of real estate within about a five kilometre radius. Those properties include several buildings housing leading technology companies, along with the Brookstreet Hotel and The Marshes Golf Club.
“We’re very technology oriented,” says KRP President Terry Young. “We took an inventory of what we had in terms of building operating systems, and then looked at ‘how can we run them better?’”
For example, KRP has made use of building automation systems that examine the actions of tenants and crunch data for insights such as when to shut down lights, or turn down the air conditioning.
Hydro Ottawa has been an important partner in helping KRP reduce and streamline the use of energy in its buildings to achieve the company’s carbon neutrality goals, including providing initiatives to install faster, stronger, and more efficient heating, venting, and air conditioning (HVAC) units, says Young.
Energy ‘the next gold’
Energy as a commodity is “the next gold,” says Young, who notes that the quality, quantity, resiliency, and consistency of energy available is very valuable in terms of where a company positions itself geographically. As is the ability to save energy when that organization is growing.
“We’re Silicon Valley North, the biggest hub of technology companies in Canada, and we’re very proud of that,” adds Young. “As a district and as a community, we work to be an energy powerhouse in terms of how we deliver this energy.”
Thornell notes that the OCAF is currently involved in two major studies:
- To assess what the energy demand in Kanata North is expected to look like in the coming decades.
- The second, which OCAF is co-funding with Hydro Ottawa, is examining a range of integrated energy solutions, and the benefits those could provide in terms of cost savings, resiliency, and additional uptime for those businesses.
“We’ve heard about folks spending close to 30 per cent of their operating costs towards energy services,” says Thornell. “When that’s the case, there’s a motivation to look towards solutions. Many of these organizations are already implementing solutions. There’s a dedicated effort and mandate, even in many organizations’ operations, for decarbonization of their businesses.”
KNBA Executive Director Kelly Daize says power has become a key economic development issue in attracting new knowledge-based businesses and jobs to high energy usage areas such as the Kanata North Technology Park.
“We need 100 per cent uptime in this park,” Daize stresses, noting how if the power goes down for any length of time, and businesses have to restart new tests they may have been running for months, they could lose both a lot of money – and customers.
“Resilient power is important to compensate for that,” she adds.
The quality of the power, including backup solutions, is also important. “Think about generators. Diesel creates a problem with companies’ net zero aspirations. Something that’s becoming more and more prevalent is we’ve got companies that need to meet their own internal net zero requirements. They also have aspirations for their entire supply chain to be green,” explains Daize.
Daize praises the willingness of KNBA’s partners to seek out innovative solutions for such problems. “Immediately, the Ottawa Climate Action Fund and Hydro Ottawa were on board to explore this with us, and I’m so grateful to them for that.
“It’s a testament to this amazing city that we live in,” she says.
By Jeff Buckstein, Ottawa Business Journal.
