District Energy System

District Energy System services the Cheakamus Crossing neighbourhood.

The District Energy System extracts heat energy from treated wastewater at the Waste Water Treatment Plant to provide space and domestic hot water heating to the Cheakamus Crossing neighbourhood.

The District Energy System was constructed for Cheakamus Crossing when the neighbourhood was built for the 2010 Winter Games as the Whistler Athlete’s Village. Ninety per cent of the homes in the neighbourhood are restricted to the Whistler workforce through the Whistler Housing Authority. There are just over 500 dwelling units occupied and connected to the District Energy System. The Resort Municipality of Whistler operates and maintains the District Energy System plant located at the Whistler Wastewater Treatment Plant, as well as piping in public areas.

An energy study conducted on the efficiency of the District Energy System concluded it reduced greenhouse gases for the neighbourhood by 95 per cent as opposed to individual homes heated by natural gas. This is the equivalent to taking 350 gasoline-powered passenger cars off the road for a year or avoiding five tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions for a typical townhouse dwelling of 136 square metres.

Council supports amended District Energy System recommendations

Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) Council has supported and amended recommendations for the Cheakamus Crossing District Energy System (DES) following a comprehensive report and presentation by the Whistler 2020 Development Corporation (WDC) and senior RMOW staff.

The amended resolutions supported by Council were to:

Direct WDC to extend Phase 2 of the DES Upgrade and Maintenance Program to a final end date of May 1, 2018;
Request WDC to facilitate a discussion of bulk pricing for annual maintenance of the home heating systems in the 174 townhomes constructed by WDC; and
Direct staff to create a process that would conditionally allow owners of the 174 townhomes constructed by WDC the option to disconnect from the DES, if they are still dissatisfied with the operation of their home heating systems.

All disconnection enquiries can be sent to engineers@whistler.ca

Download the Forensic Audit Report

The Forensic Audit Report was provided by WDC and the Cheakamus Crossing Volunteer Committee.

Guides for Homeowners

Homeowner Quick Reference Guide – A quick reference guide to help residents experiencing technical difficulties.
Technical Service Guide – A detailed handbook identifying components in the residential DES system with a recommended routine maintenance schedule for this equipment.

Energy Efficiency Study

The Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) has conducted a study to look at energy efficiency in the District Energy System. We selected six volunteer homes and collected data for a six month period (from January 1 to June 30, 2016).

This study replaces a cancelled BC Hydro study intended to examine district energy systems across various BC jurisdictions. The purpose of the study was to determine how these systems perform relative to an electric boiler system and to standard electric baseboards.

The study involved the installation of monitoring equipment on the heating systems in six Cheakamus Crossing townhomes to collect information on how energy is consumed for space heating and domestic hot water. Results were reported back to Council on January 24, 2017.

Home information Packages

Whistler Development Corporation (WDC) retained the services of Conasys Home Information Systems to provide homeowners in Cheakamus Crossing with unit-specific guides.

Access the customized home owner information package at homeinformationpackages.com.

Fees and Charges

The RMOW collects annual user fees for the District Energy System on a quarterly basis. Residents of the Cheakamus Crossing neighbourhood can expect to receive their bills shortly after the end of each quarter on April 1, July 1, September 1 and December 31.

User fees are collected in accordance with the Cheakamus Crossing District Energy System Fee Bylaw.