The vending area between A and C buildings was permanently closed April 4, and the machines were moved to other locations on campus in order to make room for the space to be renovated and re-purposed.
As part of ESCO2, the second of two energy performance savings projects in partnership with engineering company Siemens, Algonquin is creating an energy interpretive centre in the area where the vending machines once stood.
As part of the college’s infrastructure, a two megawatt co-generation facility has recently been installed to generate both energy and heat. This facility will generate approximately half of the energy needed for the campus.
“This was phase three of the ESCO2 project. Phase two of the ESCO2 project was what re-did all of the heating, ventilation and controls in the B-building as well as some other things,” said Christopher Janzen, dean of the faculty of Technology and Trades.
“It’s really an ongoing project that helps to use energy sustainably,” said Janzen of the project. The college is striving to be good stewards of energy on campus, he added, and to try to offset some of the deferred maintenance issues there is on campus.
Janzen said Algonquin has also just received final approval from the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities to begin a new Ontario Graduate Certificate program that will be starting up sometime in 2017.
The new energy interpretive centre is going to tie all of the current renovations being installed together in one space. The new centre will serve many different purposes, including acting in part as an interactive museum and a living laboratory for students in a wide variety of programs including the upcoming energy management program.
The reason why the vending machine area between A and C buildings was chosen as the space for the energy interpretive centre is because behind the vending machine wall is where all of the current energy facilities and energy infrastructure reside on campus. Immediately behind that, and along the service street is where the new Co-Generation facility has been built. The corridor between A and C buildings is one of the most significant major thoroughfares on campus.
By placing the energy interpretive centre in the vending machine area, the college will be able to showcase it to any visitor that comes to the college, to prospective students, to current students and to any students who need to use that space for their program.
“We have an amazing story to tell,” said Janzen. “Our partnership with Siemens has garnered not just local attention, not just national attention but international attention as to the creative and innovative approaches that we’ve taken to some very challenging problems financially but also in terms of the technical solutions that we’ve developed and we want to tell that story, we want to wave that part of the Algonquin flag loudly and proudly.”
The official event launching the energy interpretive centre as well as the official kick-off of the ESCO2 Co-Generation plant will take place at Algonquin College on April 22 in the C-building foyer.