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Canal Marine and Polar Engineering recognized among 2023 EnVisioneers

November 1, 2023 – Congratulations to Canadian firms Polar Engineering (Victoria, B.C.) and Canal Marine and Industrial (St. Catharines, Ont.), both recipients of Danfoss EnVisioneer recognition for 2023.

“We are thrilled to recognize our EnVisioneers of the Year for their innovative work,” said Rick Sporrer, president of Danfoss North America. “We applaud them for their ingenuity and their commitment to lowering carbon emissions and increasing energy efficiency.”

EnVisioneer recognizes North American building owners, municipalities, contractors, OEMs, etc., who have introduced a new product, opened a new facility or invested in a building or system upgrade in the past 18 months using Danfoss products or solutions “to realize significant energy and environmental savings”. In 2023, Danfoss expanded the categories to facilitate multiple winners.

POLAR ENGINEERING took top honours in the Engineering Consultant category. Its low-GWP, high-temperature heat pump has helped reduce natural gas use at the Juan de Fuca Recreation Centre by 90%.

As part of an energy recovery system, the heat pump recaptures waste heat from the ammonia refrigeration system onsite and uses it to offset the boiler loop load of the facility, resulting in an annual savings 284 tons of carbon emissions and $22,000 in fuel costs.

CANAL MARINE AND INDUSTRIAL swept the System Integrator category. The company built an electric power system for PortsToronto’s Marilyn Bell I—Canada’s first 100% electric, lithium-ion powered ferry. This transition to electric power is saving 530 tons of carbon emissions, reducing estimated energy and operating costs by $150,000 on a yearly basis, as well as eliminating the use of about 196,000 litres of diesel per year.

Other recipients included…

THERMALWORKS (Bloomingburg, N.Y.) was recognized in the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) category for its advanced waterless cooling system.

The winner in the End User category is Pennsylvania-based WEIS MARKETS, which installed a CO2 refrigeration system at its new store in Warminster. In the first four months of operation, refrigeration energy consumption was over 100,000 kWh less than at a comparable store with traditional refrigeration, saving an estimated $11,000. By using CO2 (GWP of 1) as the refrigerant, the store’s impact on air pollution is estimated to be 1500-4000 times less per pound of refrigerant compared to HFC/HFO refrigerants.

* Polar Engineering’s in-person award presentation was still pending at time of publication.