CEO Mueller says that 350 billion kilowatts of energy flows down the drains every year in the US |
The company also manufactures a smaller version of the SHARC system, called the Piranha, which is used primarily to recover the thermal energy in used domestic hot water - and to heat fresh hot water elsewhere in a building - as part of a continuous loop.
Here, the thermal energy in used hot water that would otherwise have been wasted down the drains is recovered by the Piranha and transferred back into the next domestic hot water system ready for reuse.
Once the energy cycle in a building commences, the same energy is used and re-used every day - and all the building occupants pay for is the energy it takes to move the energy from the waste flow back into the hot water tanks.
Market Opportunity
As Lynn Mueller, president and CEO at IWS, explains, the company was formed six years ago with the chief aim of “recovering the waste heat that is put down drains around the world”.
The potential size of the market, which Mueller estimates as “a $35 billion opportunity for IWS to recover and reuse that energy in the US alone,” also convinced the team at IWS that this was a sector worth entering.
“The US Department of Energy had released a study showing that 350 billion kilowatts of energy flows down the drains every year in the US from household uses like showering, laundry, dishwashing and other household uses.
“The rest of the world also has similar water usage numbers - meaning that 25 to 30% of energy used by buildings ends up being wasted down the drains and eventually ending up in rivers and oceans - so the opportunity is enormous,” says Mueller.
The company officially went public on the Canadian exchange, Symbol IWS, in October 2015. Since its creation, the technology has been installed and operated at several locations in British Columbia and Washington State - including at the Gateway Theatre in Richmond BC and the Sail Apartments at the University of British Columbia, as well as at the Sechelt Wastewater treatment works.
“In all of these cases, the system has been operating consistently for between three and five years and has exceeded the predicted energy production and carbon saving targets,” the CEO adds enthusiastically.
Scottish Installation
The company has also recently completed the installation of a fully functioning system in Scotland. Here, wastewater from a sewer near to a local treatment works operated by utility Scottish Water is intercepted and used to power a heating system at the Borders College Campus in Galashiels under a 20-year purchase agreement.
The installation, which was supported in June 2015 by a £4 million investment from the UK Green Investment Bank (GIB) and Equitix, now generates some 95% of the heat needed by the Galashiels campus without affecting the day to day operation of the local wastewater network.