The City of Prince George is turning down the heat on a number of city-owned buildings.
This is because the city is trying to lower its natural gas consumption, in response to the reduced natural gas supply resulting from the recent pipeline explosion near Prince George.
The city will be lowering the heat in two administration buildings at the city’s 18th Avenue yard, the Kin Centre, CN Centre, Elksentre Arena and the Connaught Youth Centre.
FortisBC says in a statement that the Oct. 9 rupture and explosion of the Enbridge natural gas pipeline northeast of Prince George will mean a reduced supply for months.
Although Enbridge says it expects to have the ruptured pipeline in service by mid-November, it also advises that the pressure in that line, and in a smaller natural gas pipeline nearby, will remain below maximum levels until spring.
FortisBC says that means natural gas supplies provincewide will be limited to 50 to 80 per cent of normal levels during the coldest months of the year.
The 18th Avenue administration buildings and the Connaught Youth Centre are reducing their inside temperatures to about 20 degrees Celsius, while the Kin Centre, CN Centre and Elksentre Arena are turning the thermostat down from 16 degrees to 12 degrees. The city owns about 55 buildings, the majority of which are privately operated by tenants.
But, there are not as many natural gas-dependent civic facilities in Prince George as some might expect because many of the city’s largest facilities are heated via bioenergy from the Downtown Renewable Energy System.
These include city hall, Four Seasons Leisure Pool, Two Rivers Gallery, Prince George Conference and Civic Centre, the RCMP detachment and the Prince George Public Library. Non-city buildings such as the Wood Innovation and Design Centre, Plaza 400 and the law courts have also recently been added to the system.
— With files from the Canadian Press
