A hot idea

An economic development corporation in western P.E.I. has received government funding to assist with the creation of a district heating project. It’s a small project, starting out with just nine commercial buildings, but, if it is successful, Tignish Initiatives believes the idea could spread to other small communities. Certainly, having the provincial and federal governments each covering one-third of the cost of the project helps make the project affordable, but, to really catch on, Tignish Initiatives will have to prove that the system can pay its own way while reducing customers heating costs. The project has potential. Customers could be heating their properties with locally sourced biomass fuel, likely in the form of woodchips, while helping to create jobs. If successful, the impact could be multiplied by the number of communities that decide to delve into central heating with a renewable energy source.