The Oval Village District Energy Utility (OVDEU) serves new mixed-use communities adjacent to the Richmond Olympic Oval with heat and domestic hot water. The project commenced in December 2014 and is currently served with 11MW of plant capacity. The first phase of the OVDEU uses natural gas boilers to provide heat; these facilities will be the main source of energy until there are enough buildings connected to the system to justify the costs for constructing a major energy plant that will extract heat from the Gilbert Trunk sanitary force main sewer. The expectation is that low carbon energy from sewer heat will provide the majority of heat needs in any given year, serving to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80%.
