Efficiency in the news

Montreal, December 14, 2007

Bouthillette Parizeau, winner of the Prize of Excellence from the geoexchange industry

The Canadian Geoexchange Coalition awarded Bouthillette Parizeau its Prize of Excellence in the GeoExchange Excellence and Leadership competition. The company earned this distinction for its study and installation of a geoexchange system during the expansion of the Edith-Temple Pavilion at the Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue Hospital. This project once again demonstrated the innovative capacities of the company.

In total, 18 projects were submitted and screened though a number of technical criteria ranging from:

• innovation, originality and complexity of the work in relation to the building use
• technical difficulties encountered / solved in the project
• demonstrated energy savings
• to what extent the project influences building design in Canada and a more extensive use of geothermal energy
• whether the project is part of a global energy efficiency plan and,
• comfort for occupants and users.

This pavilion, located in Sainte-Anne-de Bellevue on the outskirts of Montreal, is home to elderly veterans or those with impaired mobility. The building had to integrate the concept of a “green building” for the architectural elements as well as the electromechanical system. The client wanted the equivalent of a basic LEED^® certification for the architecture and the electromechanical system. The use of renewable energy for heating was therefore a goal and geothermal ground source heat pump technology was selected to play a key role in the project.

Very elderly clients use the pavilion, many of whom are extremely sensitive to temperature variations. The comfort of occupants was a priority. Furthermore, many of these people have weakened immune systems. Therefore the mechanical heating systems could not be a source of nosocomial infection, Legionnaire’s disease, or cause any other deleterious effects.