The Humaniti project in Montréal: Pooling energy to consume less and better

A living environment connected to the future

Launched and operated by COGIR Real Estate since 2020, Humaniti stands out as Montréal’s first “Smart Vertical Community” offering a fully connected smart environment. The complex is a bold architectural concept by Lemay. It boasts 3 buildings with 151 condominiums, 314 rental apartments, a prestigious Autograph Marriott Collection hotel (the first in Québec), 2 restaurants, a state-of-the-art training room, 2 rooftop pools, 2 Sky Lounges, an office building and retail spaces.

Efficiency on every floor

Determined to “push the boundaries of sustainability,” the project’s designers set very high environmental targets for the project, with LEED certification at the centre. To make this happen, they invested in a high-performance curtain-wall envelope and sound water management via efficient appliances and rainwater recovery. But perhaps most importantly, they also installed a mixed water loop system connected to heat pumps to optimize energy efficiency throughout the complex.

The benefits of mixed-use projects

The advantage of this project is that not all spaces have the same purpose, so peak energy demand isn’t simultaneous. This allows the system to maximize energy exchange between the various uses to reduce the complex’s total energy consumption. Another advantage of mixed use is that the total capacity of thermal power generation doesn’t have to match the total max. demand of all users.

“If we had needed to deploy four stations (one for each use), the consumption of each plant wouldn’t have been one quarter of the total consumption; it probably would have been much more,” explains Martin Brière-Provencher.

In addition, the heat pumps are highly efficient, in the range of 200% to 300%, which boosts the projects total energy efficiency.

Finally, notes Martin Brière-Provencher,

“An energy loop provides significant flexibility. For example, we could switch to dual energy by simply adding one piece of equipment, rather than having to rethink the entire system.”

Knowing that a dual-energy solution could reduce the natural gas consumption of the mixed water loop by about 70%, this potential holds promise for further greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions from the Humaniti project.