Going green comes with a hefty price tag for Nanaimo’s public education and health facilities.
For Nanaimo school district, the cost is $100,257.44.
The district – along with other public sector organizations – is now financially accountable for its greenhouse gas emissions.
The money buys carbon offsets from the Pacific Carbon Trust, a Crown corporation established in 2008 to deliver B.C.-based greenhouse gas offsets, which then uses the money to support energy-efficiency initiatives.
For 2010, the district’s emissions totalled almost 4,000 tonnes. This includes district vehicles – minus bus fuel, as districts are exempt from paying offsets on those emissions – natural gas, electricity and paper consumption, said Pete Sabo, the district’s director of planning and operations.
To save money, the district has been upgrading lighting, as well as heating and cooling systems in recent years as money becomes available or budgets allow.
The district received provincial grants to install solar hot water systems at three schools last year and the Dover Bay Eco Club won a solar photo-voltaic system in a contest, which was tied to the grid in 2009.
Since the district received the funding from B.C. Hydro to hire an energy manager last year, conservation attempts have become more organized, Sabo added.
“We’re really starting to tie all the programs together,” he said. “The picture is so large, it’s difficult to wrap your head around. We call it the ‘energy management octopus’ because it’s got tentacles in everything you do.”
Costs are a little less – but not much – for Vancouver Island University, which paid $76,113.50 plus HST for last year’s 3,045 tonnes in greenhouse gas emissions.
Ric Kelm, VIU’s executive director of infrastructure and ancillary services, said the university has helped reduce the cost in several ways: assessing the energy efficiency of all buildings, lighting and heating and cooling system upgrades; building a new transit exchange and installing meters in some buildings to measure energy output.
One initiative the university hopes will have a big impact once implemented is using geothermal energy to heat and cool buildings, he said.
Last year, consultants drilled a 53-metre hole down into a flooded mine shaft below the university and found the water stays at a constant temperature year-round, which means it can be used to heat buildings in winter and cool them in summer, with the help of a heat exchanger.
The university is developing an action plan and looking for funding sources to pilot the renewable energy system in a couple of buildings.
“It would have a large impact in regards to sustainability and reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” said Kelm. “We hope to have the draft action plan complete by the end of summer.”
As for the Vancouver Island Health Authority, its Nanaimo buildings produced 4,263 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions for a total bill of $119,365.96.
Central and north Island fleet vehicles and paper consumption ran the health authority another $22,088, although that cost is for the entire region, not just Nanaimo, said spokeswoman Anya Nimmon.
The City of Nanaimo and Regional District of Nanaimo will soon be bucking up as well – the two local governments have signed on to become carbon neutral in 2012.
Brian Clemens, the city’s director of finance, said the city set aside $350,000 over the past two budget years to fund energy management projects such as lighting upgrades, creating an anti-idling policy for public works trucks and replacing old boilers with more energy-efficient systems.
“We’ve actually reduced our costs by starting to do these projects,” he said.
Clemens said the city has a five-year plan to improve the energy efficiency of its operations, estimating that the cost of becoming carbon neutral will be about $150,000.
