New heaters take shine off green building

Jean Canfield Building electric heater retrofit addresses cold drafts near windows, using rooftop solar power capacity, HVAC adjustments, and energy-efficiency tuning in a Charlottetown federal office to balance occupant comfort on extreme winter days.

One of PEI's most environmentally friendly buildings has had to supplement its green systems with some old-fashioned electric heaters for the comfort of the people who work there.

When the Jean Canfield Building, a five-storey federal office tower in downtown Charlottetown, where a local hotel went geothermal as well, opened two years ago it included a number of new technologies to lessen its ecological impact. On its roof sits the largest single solar power system in Canada. It can generate up to 139 kW of electricity.

But now some of that power will be used to operate about 75 new electric heaters, even as electric heat and peak demand concerns persist across the region. The heaters were installed in the existing floor vents, after employees who work next to windows complained about the cold.

Kerry Taylor, director of Public Works Canada for PEI, where Atlantic Canada's largest wind farm recently opened, said this kind of change in a new building is not unusual.

"This is something that you find when you open a big building like this," said Taylor.

"There are some things you have to add, there are maybe some things you have to take out to make it more efficient, and that's pretty common in any building, even across a province pursuing wind power self-sufficiency today, whether it's government or private sector."

Taylor says the heaters will only be used on the very coldest winter days, when wind storage in homes could also ease grid demand.

There are still some adjustments to be made with the heaters, with some workers complaining it is now too hot near the vents.

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