Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

Recent studies have revealed that Canada and British Columbia will miss achieving the climate action targets for 2020. BC`s energy step code requires buildings to be net-zero ready by 2032. Innovative and practical approaches are needed to achieve the envisioned climate action targets on net-zero buildings. Carbon capture systems could play a crucial role in achieving sustainable energy production in buildings. Furthermore, micro carbon sequestration has a great commercialization potential, especially for existing natural gas systems. However, carbon capture and utilization technologies are yet to be widely deployed in Canada. Even though carbon capture and utilization has been used at an industrial scale, micro level application of the technology is yet to be researched in actual building settings. The premise for this study was developed based on the aforementioned knowledge gap. *The University of British Columbia will collaborate with CleanO2, Pacific Northern Gas Ltd. (an AltaGas subsidiary), FortisBC, Northern Lights College and the City of Dawson Creek to analyze the system performance, environmental performance, and market feasibility of micro carbon capture systems in institutional and large residential buildings. This research will seek to understand the feasibility of adopting micro level carbon capture in the Canadian building sector, and to generate a much needed knowledge base on the subject. The proposed research aims for breakthroughs in zero emission building heating with natural gas, and will provide a foundation for investigating micro level carbon capture and utilization. *