The Canadian GeoExchange Coalition is the only Canadian association that represents all the organizations involved in geothermal energy.
Here is a sample of the organizations that are part of the coalition. The coalition presently has about a hundred members in good standing: manufacturers, designers, engineers, architects, financial firms and institutions, governments and municipalities, in fact, the kind of membership that a fully representative association should have.
Now a word on the historical perspective. The coalition was created in 2001 thanks to significant financial support from Natural Resources Canada, and contributions from electricity utilities in Canada such as Hydro-Québec, Manitoba Hydro, BC Hydro and others. After having tried for a number of years to organize the geoexchange industry in Canada, and having failed three times in a row, the government and the electricity utilities decided to go all out in one last major effort in the hope that it would succeed. It worked.
From 2002 to 2005, we managed pilot projects more or less all over Canada, working with electricity utilities to prepare the market for more growth. From 2005 to 2007, we changed course a little and focused more on the development and deployment of the market transformation strategy, specifically on a program of workforce training and on the quality of technical installations. This training program is very comprehensive, and includes professions such as drilling, installation and design, both residential and commercial.
We recently entered into a partnership with the Association of Canadian Community Colleges. The five-year objective is to transfer to the colleges all the industry material that has been gathered in our training program. In five years, we see students leaving college as geoexchange professionals, or at least with the technical knowledge of one. We are very happy with this partnership. Parallel with it, we have developed a comprehensive program of accreditation of individuals and of certification of systems. Our people are therefore going to be qualified, and our systems are going to be installed according to trade practices.
I had a brief discussion with Mr. Ouellet about what geoexchange is. Here is a very quick definition for you. Four types of geoexchange are generally recognized, and it is important to distinguish between them. High energy involves temperatures greater than 150oC. Dry or humid vapours are extracted from the ground at a depth of 1.5 km and 3 km and used for electricity production. This is similar to average energy, where the temperatures are between 90oand 150oat a depth of 2000 metres to 4000 metres. At that temperature, we are often dealing with hot water or dry vapours that are used for electricity production. In Canada, these two forms of energy are mainly found in British Columbia.
In low energy, we are dealing with water extraction. The water is used for district heating. Canada has very few examples, but in Iceland, the technology is used to heat cities. Very low energy, which is traditional geothermal energy as generally understood, is often called a ground source heat pump.
The coalition represents mainly the last of these four areas, although we are presently in discussion with other industry representatives to see if we can work with them to bring all forms of geoexchange together into one association or area of interest.
Basically, a ground source heat pump takes one kilowatt-hour of energy to extract from the ground, or exchange with the ground, three, four or five kilowatt-hours of energy. This is not an energy-production technology, it is a technology that moves fuel or electricity for heating and cooling.
This is where interest in geoexchange finds its place in the overall Canadian energy picture. The performance and efficiency of the technology is around 300 to 500 per cent. One unit is used to produce three, four or five units. A great advantage of course is that, in buildings, just one device takes care of both heating and cooling.
What is a geoexchange system? It has three components: the underground loop, a heat pump that works on the same principle as a refrigerator, and an air or water distribution system inside the house.
In this technology, it is important to remember that even the most efficient pump on the market does not determine the efficiency of the system. What is important is the way in which everything is installed and designed. This is why we are so interested in workforce training, so that we have an efficient system and not just one of the three components, an efficient pump. An efficient, but badly installed pump and a badly designed system will not provide the desired results.
The next slide is a world map showing where geothermal energy can be found in the world. The circles show equivalent megawatts of energy. Canada is a little behind the United States and some way behind Europe. Our development is gradual. So this gives you a picture of Canada's place compared to the rest of the world.
I find the next slide interesting. This is Canada's energy flow. I draw your attention to the dotted box on the right where you see the terms useful energy and lost energy. You can see that in Canada we lose as much energy as we consume.
In the next slide, I have provided you with a summary. Once we remove from the previous slide all exports and other things, we are left with about 12 exajoules of energy that are available for use in Canada. If we subtract from that number all the energy losses that can be found in the system, whether it be in pipelines, non-energy uses or energy lost from electrical systems, as well as the energy that is lost in residential, commercial and transportation sectors, 4.87 exajoules remain. So 40% of Canada's available energy takes the form of useful energy.
This is where geoexchange can play an important role, specifically with regard to residential and commercial buildings. Given the losses, whether in the burning of fossil fuels for heating, or the use of electricity for heating, and all the losses in the system as it moves from the source to where it is consumed, if we install geoexchange technology at the place where the energy will be consumed, we will avoid all those large-scale losses.
The next slide quickly shows how we in the coalition are trying to introduce geoexchange into the overall Canadian energy picture. We do not want to say that geoexchange is going to solve all the problems by itself. We are looking at how all technological solutions fit into the overall energy picture to see how we can optimize geoexchange use by introducing this form of energy into buildings.
I will not discuss the four next slides. Essentially, they show the four stages of the quality program we have put in place. They describe our programs of training, of accreditation, of the qualification of firms, and finally, of the certification of systems. You can see that it covers the industry in a very comprehensive way.
We are making all these efforts for a number of reasons.
First, we are doing so to put in place a market transformation infrastructure in order to support expected growth. So to make an impact throughout the industry, we had to put our quality mechanism in place.
Second, we want to create a professional industry by an appropriate program of training and to have a qualified workforce.
Third, we are doing so to keep Canadian financial resources in Canada and to reinvest them into the needs of the industry in Canada. Up until now, geoexchange training came from the United States, and half the expenses went to the United States. None of this money came back to Canada to support the industry. So we have put a stop to this drain of our finances to the United States.
Fourth, we are doing it so that geoexchange can play a major role as a source of renewable and reliable energy in Canada. Low energy geoexchange is available everywhere in Canada. In a moment, I will talk about projects in the Northwest Territories and Yukon.
Last, we are doing it to enhance the role of the industry, and of its contribution to energy systems in Canada.
Are we there yet? No, but we are well on our way. We will not reject any partnership opportunity that arises if it can move our industry forward.
I tried to make my presentation as quickly as possible out of consideration for the interpreter.