Markham District Energy (MDE), Canada’s fastest-growing district energy utility, has selected Copeland’s Vilter industrial heat pump to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels and lower greenhouse gas emissions.
The Vilter VQ95 single-screw ammonia industrial heat pumps will power the world’s largest wastewater energy transfer (WET) facility located at the Low Carbon Energy Centre in downtown Markham, Ontario.
MDE’s WET facility extracts and converts energy from wastewater for sustainable heating and cooling.
The landmark project will reduce carbon emissions from the production of thermal energy by more than 30,000 tonnes per year at the plant’s full capacity.
The vice president of Copeland Canada, Ryan Garrah, said this initiative is set to revolutionise the use of wastewater as a renewable energy source.
“Markham District Energy’s selection of our heat pumps demonstrates their trust in our differentiated technology to deliver efficient and reliable energy transfer from wastewater sources,” Garrah said.
“The MDE WET facility differs from standard applications because it uses sewage wastewater as the primary heat source, which is typically an untapped energy stream.”
Instead of relying on conventional energy sources, it captures waste heat from sewage, which enters at about 5 C, and efficiently converts it into usable heat at 95 C. Additionally, the facility’s integration into an 8-foot diameter underground sewage pipeline near the district energy building is unique.
It allows for large-scale, sustainable water heating while simultaneously providing cooling capacity, significantly reducing carbon emissions and showcasing innovative energy recovery from waste streams — unlike traditional systems that might draw energy from more conventional sources like ambient air or ground heat.
Copeland’s industrial heat pumps are slated for delivery mid-2025 and will be fully operational by January 2026.