IDEA in the News

Business Insider Summary Tucked beneath a 48-story San Francisco skyscraper, at the far end of the parking lot on the first subbasement level, is a door with a keypad lock. An unimposing sign reads "Utility Meter Room." Behind the door is a tangled clot of pipes: yellow, blue, and orange, each one as wide as a 100-pound barbell plate. The pipes — along with thousands more just like them, winding their way under more than 600 American cities, campuses, hospitals, and airports — are more than ...

WBCSD’s net-zero operational carbon buildings report, released November, calls for a clear and globally consistent definition of net-zero buildings. Businesses, portfolio owners and investors who have made corporate net-zero commitments lack “a single robust certifiable definition” for what constitutes a net-zero building, the global organization said. Once the market can consistently distinguish between buildings that achieve net-zero status and those that do not, assigning a higher value to ...

With water and wastewater systems accounting for at least 30% of public water consumption, and with about a quarter of all water in the built environment wasted, the role of water in the energy transition needs more attention. But while the need to move away from fossil fuels is widely recognized, local infrastructure and grid planners are still figuring out how decarbonization and water conservation can work hand in hand to build a faster path to net-zero. This energy-water nexus is one ...

Hot air! As we get towards autumn we need lots of it to keep our homes and workplaces warm. But could the real gamechanger be under our feet? District Heating is a concept that goes back to the Romans and ancient Chinese, yet its main use has been the last century or so in America. We’ve all seen movies with steam coming out of street vents, in fact most apartments in US cities use communal heating. But it’s never really caught on here and even in Europe, it’s confined to the nordics in the main. ...

In conjunction with the COP28, the region’s District Cooling Operators Association held its ninth meeting in the presence and participation of the President and CEO of the International District Energy Association (IDEA), along with an elite of regional decision-makers in the district cooling industry from Qatar, most notably ‘Qatar Cool’ and ‘Marafeq Qatar’. The meeting was chaired by His Excellency Ahmad bin Shafar, Chairman of the District Cooling Operators Association and CEO of the Emirates ...

University and college campuses are places where young minds are shaped, and groundbreaking research is conducted. Cities are often the places where recent graduates gather to put those ideas learned in the classroom into action. Both are also sources of innovation for the technology that is literally powering the work being done on campus and in office buildings. Business districts and campuses often rely on combined heat and power (CHP) district energy systems, also referred to as cogeneration, ...

As the world continues to warm, sustainable cooling is one of the world’s top energy concerns, and a central theme of the COP28 meeting in Dubai. The COP28 Presidency is spearheading the Global Cooling Pledge at the annual international climate event. The pledge is voluntary, and its aim is to “raise ambition and international cooperation through collective targets on improving efficiency and climate friendly approaches, while increasing access to sustainable cooling for the most vulnerable.” ...

Utility Dive Summary Climate change, rising energy demand and natural gas dependence mean “a massive grid disruption is inevitable,” said Mark Spurr, legislative director at the International District Energy Association. Most of the North American electric grid can manage through normal peak winter conditions, but in extreme weather NERC said there are heightened risks extending across much of the eastern two-thirds of the continent. “As observed in recent winter reliability events, over ...

Rob Thornton. President & CEO of the International District Energy Association recently participated in a Volts podcast with host David Roberts. They discussed the clever new sources district energy systems are drawing on (everything from sewage to deepwater lakes), the infrastructure they can integrate with, and the other services they can provide. A must listen event - listen to it by clicking the link below. Listen to the Volts Podcast #MemberNewsIDEA #News #Content #DistrictEnergy ...

Some have said it’s “the third wave of urban energy.” Others say this novel energy innovation is how many visionary cities and countries have so rapidly decarbonized heating and cooling systems to meet more stringent efficiency, renewable energy, and CO2 targets. By Rob Thornton, President & CEO of International District Energy Association Surprisingly, what Fernando Carou, manager of renewable energy and net zero development for the city of Toronto, calls the “third wave” of urban ...