PRINCE GEORGE – The Ramada Hotel will be the first private facility to do on the City’s District Energy system.
The backside of the building, which houses provincial government offices is already connected but not activated. Now the common areas in the hotel portion of the building will be added.
Currently, all civic facilities in the downtown are on the system, including the new pool downtown. They are all heated with wood waste burned at Lakeland Mills and piped underground to a peaking station at a facility on the corner of Second Avenue and George Street. But with the Ramada joining all those civic facilities, is it straining the system?
“There isn’t at this point,” explains Wil Wedel, the Manager of Utilities.
“We’re at about half the capacity of what the system can handle. And then there’s also some limitations as far as how much energy Lakeland can provide for us as well.”
He says the piping goes up Fifth Avenue as far as the RCMP detachment could be an addition loop repeated in the other direction “but we need to determine exactly where those needs are first.”
