Earth Day – celebrating “green” across the system
Earth Day – celebrating “green” across the system
Photo courtesy of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center
Earth Day has always been something near and dear to my heart.
Ever since I saw FernGully: The Last Rainforest when I was nine years old. Remember FernGully??
From that moment, I believed that even the smallest change in our individual lives can make a larger difference. So, I try to reduce, reuse, recycle, cut down on energy usage and choose “green” options in my life wherever I can.
At TransLink, we care about how our operations impact the environment!
The latest green initiative and commitment to environmental sustainability comes from BCRTC – the operating company in charge of SkyTrain.
In an effort to further reduce its energy consumption, BCRTC implemented a project to replace 10 manual heater controls at the Operations & Maintenance Centre (OMC) yard.
In the OMC Yard, 10 of the track switch heaters were manually controlled. Meaning, during the winter months (November 1 – February 28), these heaters were switched on regardless of the conditions, resulting in an inefficient energy use.
Enter Wayside Technical Analyst, Jan Kruger. Jan designed a new system for the Automated Track Switch Heater Controller (ATSHC).
They introduced a single controller that replaced the mechanical thermostats for 37 additional track switch heaters in the OMC yard.
Over the past three years, this project has produced an energy reduction of 2,176,806 kWh, saving $141,493 in energy related costs.
In total, the project allowed 47 yard switches to work more efficiently in terms of both cost and energy consumption, saving about $60,000 per year.
I think Batty, Crysta and everyone from FernGully would be very proud!
Author: Adrienne Coling
