Canmore Looks to Cut $2M Energy Bill as Upgrade Costs Climb

Canmore is spending nearly $2 million a year on energy and has identified major opportunities to reduce costs and emissions, but upgrades needed to achieve those savings are coming in higher than expected, a new report to council shows.

An annual progress report on the town’s municipal energy coordinator program identifies Elevation Place, the Canmore Recreation Centre and the wastewater treatment plant as the primary drivers of energy use, accounting for almost three quarters of the town’s total consumption.

Those facilities are among the most energy-intensive buildings and services the town operates, including pools, ice systems and water treatment processes that run continuously.

Assessments of those sites suggest potential reductions of roughly 29% at Elevation Place, about 11% at the recreation centre and approximately 25% at the wastewater treatment plant.

To achieve those savings, the town is exploring a range of measures, including switching heating systems from natural gas to electricity using heat pumps, an energy-efficient technology that moves heat rather than generating it. Officials are also looking at improving system controls so equipment such as pumps, fans and heating units run only when needed and at optimal levels.

Another option under consideration is capturing and reusing waste heat, which is excess heat produced during processes like wastewater treatment that would otherwise be released into the environment. At the wastewater facility, that could involve recovering heat from treated water before it is discharged and redirecting it back into operations to reduce overall heating demand.

Municipal energy coordinator Chris Sinclair said heating represents one of the most significant opportunities for improvement.

“Technology upgrades, replacing old with new, recovering heat. There are lots of places where heat can be reclaimed and reused,” he said. “It’s about three times more efficient to heat with a heat pump than it is to heat with a gas boiler or furnace. So that’s a great place to look.”

Early work under the program has already produced about $42,000 in annual savings for the town by changing how facilities are operated and making smaller upgrades, including improving the efficiency of the recreation centre’s refrigeration system and other municipal buildings.

However, larger upgrades needed to unlock deeper savings are proving more difficult to advance.

A recent procurement process for upgrades at Elevation Place and the recreation centre, which are expected to significantly reduce emissions, returned bids that exceeded initial budget expectations. The town is now preparing to revisit the scope of those projects and how they will be funded, including seeking additional grant funding, before bringing recommendations back to council.

Sinclair said balancing energy use, costs and emissions is not always straightforward.

“I would describe energy consumption, energy cost, and greenhouse gas intensities as a bit like those Venn diagrams you drew in school, with three circles, with the unfortunate fact that the three circles don’t all intersect at the center,” he said.

The findings come as the town works toward its broader climate commitments, including a target to reduce emissions from its own operations to net-zero by 2050 under its Climate Emergency Action Plan.

To support that goal, the municipality has introduced a new internal policy requiring staff to consider not only upfront construction costs, but also long-term energy use, water consumption and emissions when making major infrastructure and building decisions. Known as lifecycle costing, this approach looks at how much a project will cost to operate and maintain over time, not just what it costs to build.

The report also highlights how energy use is distributed across town operations. About 60% of consumption comes from buildings, while water and wastewater infrastructure accounts for roughly 37%, reflecting the high energy demands of essential services.

Canmore’s overall energy use is estimated to be about 5% below the Canadian municipal average, although officials note that local factors such as climate, geography and tourism demand can significantly influence consumption.

With the largest opportunities now identified, the next phase of the program will focus on refining project plans, securing funding and developing a three-year strategy to guide how the town reduces energy use and costs going forward.