A fairly new building, Prince George's Courthouse is quite an impressive one for what many would consider a "smallish" city. The largest city in northern British Columbia, it provides all the services and facilities expected of a city of this size, including various levels of law courts, which are all housed in this brick and concrete building. As yet we've been unable to ascertain the age of the building, but it is obviously relatively young.
Blissfully unaware of a law prohibiting photography within British Columbia courthouses, I marched in the front door, entering the impressive two storey entrance hall and began to exercise my camera. I managed to record but two photos before being accosted by an overly alert security guard who informed me of the aforementioned law, thereby curtailing my photo shoot. I did manage to obtain a nice shot of the foyer and another of the courthouse dome, atop the entrance hall.
While relatively unadorned in comparison to other civic building domes we've had the good fortune to visit, it is a dome nonetheless, rising a further two storeys above the entrance hall. Its exterior appears to be clad in copped sheeting, with clerestory style windows around the perimeter, just below the dome.
An interesting, yet completely unnoticeable, feature of this courthouse, is that it is heated by a city owned and operated renewable energy source which supplies heat to several downtown civic buildings. It's just the type of system one would expect to find in a forward thinking Northern Canadian city.
Downtown Renewable Energy System
-44 degrees no problem for City Bioenergy System
Through extremely cold temperatures last week, the City of Prince George's Downtown Renewable Energy System operated at its highest level ever – and may have set a new standard for Canada in the process.
The
Downtown Renewable Energy System distributes heat from Lakeland Mills to nearly a dozen downtown buildings, including City Hall, the Library, Two Rivers Gallery, the Four Seasons Pool, and the RCMP detachment on Victoria Street. Hot water that’s heated with wood chips and shavings at the mill is circulated through more than three kilometres of underground pipes to provide the buildings with heat and hot water.
Even with temperatures dropping below -40 degrees Celsius last week (breaking a 41-year-old record), the system heated all of the connected buildings without needing any assistance from back-up heaters that burn natural gas. As a result, even through an extreme cold spell, the City system continued to provide heat exclusively with a local, renewable, and low-carbon fuel.
“There are only a handful of municipal district heating systems in Canada that primarily use a renewable fuel source and for Prince George to be able to operate at 100% through such a cold period is certainly a positive achievement,” says Raymond Boulter, a national expert on community energy systems with Natural Resources Canada. “It shows that renewable, low-carbon heat is possible even in Canada’s northern communities.”
In addition to providing heat to civic buildings,
the Downtown Renewable Energy System also serves provincial buildings such as the courthouse and the Wood Innovation and Design Centre. Being connected to the City energy system has already saved the Province about $175,000 in carbon offsets and natural gas purchases. In addition, the Wood Innovation and Design Centre is producing 95% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than if it was heated with natural gas.
From the City of Prince George