GM Canada’s First Renewable Energy Project Uses Canal Water to Keep Cool

General Motors’ St. Catharines Powertrain plant is harnessing the pure energy of water to cool processes in its operations. Its new micro-hydro system marks GM Canada’s first use of renewable energy.

The plant is located near the St. Lawrence Seaway and Niagara Escarpment, making raw canal water a natural choice to help cool the engine facility’s component machining, and to lower building temperatures in the summer.     

Here’s how it works: St. Catharines taps into a penstock – similar to a large pipe – that runs parallel to the Welland Canal, which was built to enable the passage of ships between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. The penstock delivers water from a higher elevation to a lower elevation, about a 140 foot drop, using the force of gravity to feed water to the plant at approximately 40 pounds per square inch of pressure.

This micro-hydro system delivers the canal water that cools the plant’s refrigerated chilled water system. This in turn provides cooling water to maintain the appropriate temperature of process equipment in the plant.  Prior to the installation of this renewable energy project, the plant used refrigerated city water to cool building processes, then returned the warm water to a cooling tower to be cooled and used again.

Now less electricity is required to run pumps and fans because large volumes of canal water is cooling the refrigeration system. In the winter, no refrigeration is needed at all, with desired cooling water temperatures achieved simply by using a heat exchanger. After the water has been used, it goes back to the Welland Canal at the appropriate temperature.

As a result, St. Catharines is realizing electricity and water savings year-round. The facility also eliminated use of cooling towers and the chemicals needed to maintain them. Although St. Catharines’ version of the micro-hydro system does not generate electricity, it replaces processes that require electricity, giving it the distinction of a renewable energy project.

During peak periods, gravity-fed, cool water can save 2,000 kW of electricity. This amounts to 8,600 MW of electricity savings annually, and avoids 800 tons of CO₂ emissions.

St. Catharines manufactures V6 and V8 engines and six-speed automatic transmissions for a variety of Buick, Chevrolet, Cadillac and GMC vehicles. The plant recently received a $13 million investment to build more variants of the V6 engine.

GM is committed to using renewable energy throughout its global operations. We use 105 MW of solar, landfill gas, hydro, and waste to energy at our facilities today, moving us closer to our 125 MW renewable energy goal by 2020.

Since it’s World Water Week, stories abound on the many ways the world is using water efficiently to sustain a productive economy, live healthy lives or produce food, energy and other basic necessities and commodities. Participate in the conversation at #WWWeek.