Deep water source cooling

The Deep Lake Water Cooling, short DLWC, system is a project that used to cold water of Lake Ontario, to supply various buildings in Toronto with environmentally friendly refrigerant generated for cooling. This Lake Ontario at a depth of about 83 meters of water is withdrawn at a temperature of 4 ° C and pumped through a pipeline system in the district cooling plant in the city. In the district cooling plant, the cold water is collected, processed and then passed as district cooling through an underground pipeline network to the individual refrigeration consumers. In the buildings connected to the mains cold water is transferred each excess heat to be cooled in the building and thus accomplished a cooling of the air in a heat exchanger. The thus-heated water is used for part of the drinking water supply of the building. The rest is not needed is returned via the pipeline network back to Lake Ontario.

Through this project, the current requirement for cooling the building is reduced by 75%. The system was put into operation in spring 2004 and provides, for example, the Steam Whistle Brewery, the Air Canada Centre and several office buildings.

The plant is operated by the City of Toronto Water Supply Division, together with the local utility Enwave.