Environment and Sustainability

Sustainability and environmental stewardship are key values of Waterloo North Hydro and its employees. We promote energy efficiency within the communities we serve and have taken steps in our everyday operations to become leaders in sustainability.

Our Partnerships

Waterloo North Hydro was a founding partner of Sustainable Waterloo Region and is a pledging partner in the Regional Sustainability Initiative (RSI), a member-based program that helps organizations in Waterloo Region assess their environmental impact and set carbon, waste, and water targets.

The Sustainability Initiative is divided into four milestones:

1. Observing

• Learn about our tools and framework
• Complete a materiality assessment
• Meet the Community
  
  

2.  Building

• Start a Green Team
• Create a baseline of your existing impact
• Map out an action plan
  
  

3. Reporting

• Refine your action plan
• Share your E-score (improve your score)
  
  

4. Pledging

• Reduce your impact
• Set a target in carbon, waste, and/or water

As part of the RSI commitment, we have pledged to reduce our GHGs by 20 per cent over 2010 levels by 2020. Find out more about how we are working to reach this target.

Our Service Centre 

Our Waterloo Service Centre is a LEED Silver Certified building. Since its construction in 2011, we have made continuous improvements to the building’s energy efficiency. 

Some of the service centre’s most important energy and water efficiency features include:

• Drainage designed to reduce runoff and prevent contaminants from flowing into the Conestogo River
• Rain Water Recovery:  A 40,000 litre tank that collects rain water for toilet flushing, truck washing and irrigation
• Ground source heat pumps used to heat and cool office spaces. 100 per cent of cooling and 70 per cent of heating comes from geothermal sources
• Recycling stations throughout the facility
• Interior and exterior LED lighting in the office, parking lot and yard
• Air Handling: To maximize energy savings 75% of air is re-circulated in the office areas.  Garage has separate system to exhaust 100% of the air due to carbon monoxide emissions
   

For more information on Waterloo North Hydro’s Service Centre, see the below posters

• Sustainable Sites
• Water Efficiency
• Energy Efficiency
• Sustainable Construction
• Indoor Air Quality

In recent years, we have improved our energy efficiency efforts through retrofitting our lighting to LEDs. The exterior of the building was retrofit with LED lighting in 2015 while a retrofit of interior lighting was completed in 2017.

The LED fixtures use up to 80% less energy and the bulbs last up to 25 times longer. The LEDs provide significant energy savings. The  exterior LED conversion will save 248,000 kWhs a year. That's enough energy to power 27 homes for one year. The interior conversion will save 138,000 kWhs a year or enough energy to power 15 homes.

Thanks to our continued efficiency efforts, we lowered our energy consumption by 12.5 per cent in 2017 over the previous year.

Our service centre was built with sustainability in mind. Our design allows us to repurpose storm water to offset the use of domestic water. This has led directly to a decrease of more than 20 per cent in domestic water consumption.

Our sustainability efforts help lower our organizational footprint while also reducing operational costs which assist in keeping our rates lower for the customers we serve.

LED Transition

To learn more about our transition to LED fixtures, which began in 2015, please watch the video below: