Urecon / Logstor

URECON / LOGSTOR

PRE-INSULATED PIPING FOR DISTRICT ENERGY SYSTEMS

URECON / LOGSTOR

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URECON / LOGSTOR

“WE SPECIALIZE IN PROVIDING ENGINEERED THERMAL PIPING SOLUTIONS FOR COLD CLIMATES, OFTEN WITH ELECTRIC HEAT TRACING, AS WELL AS PIPING FOR HOT CLIMATES WHERE CHILLED WATER IS USED IN COOLING.”

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HOT WATER

PIPING Sustainable Business Magazine speaks to Carl Vreugde, Senior Director and Managing Partner at Urecon, Tommy Lorenzen, Export Sales Manager at Logstor, and Ron Gawer, Director of Energy Operations at Stanford University, about European standard hot water piping in North America, 40km of piping at Stanford University, and the district energy trends of the future.

Urecon, a Canadian insulated pipe manufacturer, has been in business since 1969, producing factory-insulated pipe systems with a focus on freeze protection. “We make systems for the municipal, industrial, and mining sectors, often in Canada’s far north,” explains Carl Vreugde, Senior Director and Managing Partner at Urecon.

“We specialize in providing engineered thermal piping solutions for cold climates, with or without electric heat tracing, as well as piping for hot climates where chilled water is used in cooling.” The company recently built an ultra modern production facility in Montreal, Quebec which doubles as corporate head office. Urecon also has a manufacturing plant in Edmonton, Alberta.

In the early 1990s, Urecon recognized a need for hot water piping systems in North America. “The North American producers at the time were building steam distribution systems, which is a completely different design,” says Mr. Vreugde. “At that point, we established a partnership with Danish company Logstor, who were, and still are, considered the leaders in pre-insulated pipe systems for low-temperature district heating.

This turned out to be a perfect complement to the Urecon range of products.”

“We’re the market leader in Europe for pre-insulated piping systems,” explains Tommy Lorenzen, Export Sales Manager at Logstor. “Our main markets as a supplier are Denmark, Germany, Sweden, and Finland, and we have production facilities in Denmark, Poland, Finland, and Romania.

Outside Europe, we have distributors like Urecon. They operate as our representative, taking care of the North American market.”

Logstor was, in fact, founded by the inventor of pre-insulated pipes. “The founder of the company was a local coppersmith in a small Danish town,” says Mr. Lorenzen.

“In the sixties, he saw a new material on the market, polyurethane foam, and he thought: ‘Would it be possible to insulate pipes with this?’ So he did some experiments in his kitchen with his wife, and he found it was possible, and he and his wife developed the company like a family business over the years. Constant development of the insulation properties and improving the energy efficiency of the system remains a core value at Logstor.”

MARKETPLACE ACCEPTANCE Initially, the low temperature European-style projects in North America were URECON / LOGSTOR

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URECON / LOGSTOR LOGSTOR TWINPIPE INSTALLATION AT UNBC.

“THERE’S A NEW TREND WHERE, INSTEAD OF TWO SINGLE PIPES, WE BUNDLE THE SUPPLY AND RETURN TOGETHER INTO WHAT WE CALL TWINPIPE”

scarce, but with time more projects began to be built, particularly in Canada. “The first European-style district heating projects in North America were Cornwall, Ontario, Oujé-Bougoumou, Quebec, and Charlottetown, PEI, as well as District Energy St. Paul in Minnesota,” says Mr. Vreugde. “They all continue to operate to the present day.

Since this time, EN253 piping, referring to the European norm for these pipe systems, has largely become the standard for new district energy systems in North America.” Today there are well over 50 individual EN253 pipe systems on the continent, all developed over the last 25 years.

Hot water systems have several advantages over steam systems. “Hot water is a simpler system to design, install, and maintain, plus there’s far less heat loss over longer distances,” says Mr. Vreugde.

“Compared to traditional steam piping, EN 3 | URECON / LOGSTOR

hot water district heating requires no vaults or manholes. No anchors, or very few anchors. No traps. No requirement to lay pipe at angles to feed steam traps. No aggressive condensate return, which is often prone to failure over time. There’s less fuel required to produce hot water relative to steam, which has a direct effect on emissions. There’s a lower overall installation cost, because there are far fewer welds, and then there’s less maintenance required on the system. It’s rather an uncomplicated pipe system, as far as its construction. It’s straight steel, foam and jacket, as opposed to a complicated class-A style arrangement commonly used for high pressure steam supply.”

Then there’s the distinction between European-style and North American-style hot water systems. “With Logstor’s hot water district heating pipe, there’s a predictable behaviour underground largely due to

quality during production and attention to every detail required by the EN standards,” says Mr. Vreugde. “In North America, there are separate standards for all the individual components, but there are no recognized requirements for the compliance of the entire system, and that’s where it differs from EN253. The experience with hot water district energy systems is simply far greater in places like Scandinavia. Logstor products also come with a five-year warranty, whereas traditional North American warranties are only one year, offering some additional peace of mind for decision makers.”

MINIMIZING HEAT LOSS EU-standard pre-insulated pipes are particularly well-suited for use in district energy systems and steam-to-hot water conversion projects. “If you consider the background in Europe, it’s all about the heat losses,” says

Mr. Lorenzen. “How can you minimize the loss of heat when you’re transporting hot water? The energy price in Europe is very different from in North America, and so the incentive to reduce heat loss is much higher.

Polyurethane foam has extremely high insulation properties.”

“British Columbia has been the epicentre for district energy development over the last ten years” says Mr. Vreugde.

“All the new systems that we’ve seen in Canada have been EN253 European hot water systems, including the City of Vancouver, the City of Surrey, the City of Richmond, Lonsdale in North Vancouver, plus numerous university and college campuses in B.C. including UBC, Simon Fraser University, UNBC, and more.

There are other success stories, like Markham District Energy near Toronto, ENMAX in Calgary, Hamilton Community Energy, Regent Park Toronto, Sudbury District Energy, and La Cité Verte in Quebec.

The United States is also beginning to recognize EN systems, and we’ve seen that in a few projects over the last few years, like Montpelier in Vermont, and of course Stanford University. So there’s this movement or trend with campuses all around North America and they’re looking at converting aging steam distribution systems to modern hot water piping networks.”

Urecon has supported steam-to-hot-water projects for over a decade. “We worked on the University of Rochester project in upstate New York beginning back in 2006, where we converted 25 km of distribution piping to hot water, including 95 building

connections,” says Mr. Vreugde. “Then we did UBC Vancouver from 2011-15, which was about 15km of piping, and 131 building connections. We’ve done similar systems at MIT, at UNBC, at Simon Fraser, and at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia. We provide guidance and training through the entire process, from feasibility to detailed design to logistics right to training of the contractor and field assistance. We also support the Logstor system with an entire team in North America, and we carry a healthy inventory of EN253 stock in our Canadian stockyards, for materials that are required quickly.”

STANFORD ENERGY SYSTEMS INNOVATIONS The most ambitious project Urecon has been involved with took place at Stanford University, where they converted a 40 km steam system to Logstor hot water piping as part of the larger Stanford Energy Systems Innovations (SESI) project. “Stanford actually invited four different companies to install a small project,” explains Mr. Lorenzen. “They evaluated the individual products, and determined which were the most economical, the easiest to install, and the safest.

Stanford has a commitment to reduce CO2 emissions, and they wanted to save on their energy any way they could. They were also looking for a stable, safe system to operate – one that offered more resiliency. One of the reasons they chose Logstor is because, compared to other systems, when you’re putting the pipe in the ground you don’t have to go very deep.” With this European URECON FIELD TRAINING SESSION TO ENSURE PROPER INSTALLATION OF LOGSTOR PIPING AND LEAK DETECTION.

MONTPELIER, VERMONT.

URECON / LOGSTOR

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URECON / LOGSTOR PRE INSULATED PIPES AT STANFORD UNIVERSITY.

style shallow bury approach, Stanford was able to avoid existing legacy sewer pipe, duct backs, telecommunications cable, and other necessary services.

“There were several factors which were considered by Stanford Engineers when they chose Logstor piping,” says Mr. Vreugde. “The strict EN standards were important to them, and the long history of successful hot water district heating in Europe. Thinner-walled steel pipe, which results in reduced overall stress, allows

unique laying methods which save on expansion loops and welds. Shallow-buried piping allowed for extremely fast installation on relatively long runs – we installed 10 miles of pipe from June 2012 to June 2013. Direct-buried valves, so no need for vaults or manholes. Reliable joints and contractor-friendly installation.

Simple, effective central surveillance (leak detection) which constantly monitors the pipe network for faults or leaks in precise locations. And a 30-year service life.”

POST-INSTALLATION Since the system’s installation three years ago, it has run faultlessly. “Once an EN253 district heating system is properly installed, it can run almost maintenance-free,” says Mr. Lorenzen. “With proper water treatment, it can operate for the next thirty plus years.

We have been in contact with Stanford, and they’re very happy with it. They have had a lot of visits from all over the U.S. from people who have come to see the system, and a lot of universities right now are considering

Spectacular energy savings with Alfa Laval Maxi ETS Plenty USA universities have chosen to install the Alfa Laval Maxi Energy Transfer Stations (ETS) on their campus. These high-quality standardized district heating substations offer preconfigured solutions for all heating and domestic hot water requirements, saving a lot of energy costs.

Each Maxi ETS unit is built according to customer’s need, whether it’s a residence hall or research facility we have a solution.

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Please contact : Joe Garcia, District Energy Manager Mobile: 215-760-5459 | joe.garcia@alfalaval.com

similar systems modelled after the Stanford experience. Institutions like Dartmouth and Harvard have been over to see the project in California, and we’re talking to them about the possibility of converting their legacy steam networks to EN hot water.”

“We have experienced a substantial reduction in operations and maintenance related to heat distribution following conversion from steam to hot water,” says Ron Gawer, Director of Energy Operations at Stanford University. “We have reduced maintenance costs, as there are no steam traps or associated check valves, strainers, and threaded fittings to PM and repair, and no manholes to pump during rainy weather. We have also reduced heat loss in the underground piping, reduced heat loss and the associated cooling load in building mechanical spaces, cooler and less humid mechanical spaces which reduces the corrosion of other mechanical equipment, reduced maintenance in mechanical rooms due to no pressure reducing stations or condensate pumps to maintain, and zero complaints that I know about from buildings about inadequate heating.”

Recently, the overall SESI project received an award for 2016 Global Best Green Project from Engineering News-Record, an award Stanford shared with Affiliated Engineers, Inc., the prime consultant and lead engineer. “We as a team got together in New York City at the end of last year for the award,” says Mr. Vreugde. “It’s very gratifying to see the project receive all these accolades.”

LATEST TRENDS As the state-of-the-art moves forward, Mr. Lorenzen expects the new trends which are appearing in pre-insulated hot water piping in Europe to transfer to North America shortly. “There’s a new trend where, instead of two single pipes, we bundle the supply and return together into what we call TwinPipe,” says Mr. Lorenzen. “That allows you to reduce heat losses up to 50%. Today in Denmark, more than 70% of the new pipe that’s being installed is TwinPipe. We’re also now seeing district heating companies trying to reduce the supply temperature. Previously, you sent out heat from district heating production at maybe 90 to100 degrees, and it came back at 60 or 70. What people are trying to do in Europe is to lower that forward temperature to reduce heat losses.

Another exciting development is what we call fourth-generation district heating networks.

Those are networks where they’re trying to combine the way the district heating is used with an overall system. So you think about how you’re integrating the district heating with the electricity you’re getting, and when you’re using the heat, and so on. It’s a wider picture, where you consider how to operate a municipality in the best way.”

“Globally, we see lots of wasted surplus heat in cities.” says Mr. Lorenzen. “So instead of throwing all that heat up in the air, why not capture it, and distribute to local buildings in the form of hot water? So the big picture is saying: Why don’t we use the surplus heat we have in the world? It’s there anyway; we have it for free. We just have to convert it to hot water.” c

NEW URECON PRODUCTION FACILITY AND HEAD OFFICE, COTEAU-DU–LAC, QC.

URECON / LOGSTOR

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URECON (Ontario) 115 George Street, Suite 625 Oakville, Ontario L6J 0A2 T: +1 905 257 3797 www.urecon.com

LOGSTOR A/S Danmarksvej 11 DK-9670 Løgstør, Denmark T: +45 9966 10 00 E: logstor@logstor.com www.logstor.com

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