With wastewater being prevalent in every city across North America, the market for WET systems exceeds $24 billion. WET systems provide meaningful carbon reduction for dense urban centres where other technologies like Geoexchange are not viable or practical.
Wastewater Energy Transfer (WET) Systems
Q&A with Dennis Fotinos, CEO & Founder | Noventa Energy Partners
Tell us about yourself and your role with Noventa Energy.
I founded Noventa Energy Partners in February 2018 with a mission to decarbonize our world through disruptive innovation. I quickly identified wastewater energy as an untapped source of renewable energy and forged a business arrangement with Huber Technology of Germany to be their exclusive distributor of the Huber ThermWin® technology. With the support of our major shareholder, Ancala Partners LLC, we have expanded our operations across Canada, the US and UK where we are operating WET systems and pursuing other WET System opportunities which will be announced in the coming months.
Noventa is my second venture in the renewable energy sector. In 1999, with the financial support of OMERS, I founded Enwave Energy Corporation through the privatization of a faltering non-profit district energy business. As CEO of Enwave, I led the growth of the business achieving a CAGR over ten years of 36%. Notably, I initiated and led the development of the renowned Deep Lake Water Cooling system which provided cooling to over 25 million square feet of built space by 2013 when we sold the business to Brookfield. For my work at Enwave, I was a finalist for the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award.
At Noventa, I lead a talented group of industry leaders and professionals who are reshaping the energy sector by executing on our mission of disruptive innovation.
What are Wastewater Energy Transfer (WET) systems and how are they playing an increasingly important role in our society?
Sewer heat recovery is not new. Our technology partner, HUBER Technology of Germany, has been using their proprietary ThermWin technology to harvest the thermal energy in wastewater since 2008 in Europe and since 2017 in North America. With our wastewater energy project at Toronto Western Hospital (“TWH”),the largest raw wastewater energy project in the world, Noventa has taken this proven technology to a different scale. Rebranding it as “Wastewater Energy Transfer” or “WET” to reflect our projects’ ability to provide both heating and cooling, Noventa is delivering thermal energy without Scope 1 GHG emissions.
With wastewater being prevalent in every city across North America, the market for WET systems exceeds $24 billion. WET systems provide meaningful carbon reduction for dense urban centres where other technologies like Geoexchange are not viable or practical.
WET systems can recover waste heat to prevent it from entering our atmosphere. What other benefits do they offer building owners?
WET systems can provide meaningful carbon reduction at cost competitive prices.
Noventa’s WET systems are delivered through an Energy-as-a-Service (EaaS) delivery model with no up-front capital contribution required by the customer and with a contractually guaranteed efficiency that provides greater budget certainty and peace of mind.
WET systems and projects typically work behind the scenes. What is something readers should understand about these systems and how they are advancing sustainability goals and efforts?
Noventa’s WET Systems are consistently monitored to ensure that any fluctuations in sewer flows or temperatures do not affect the energy supplied to the end user. The patented, self-cleaning, Huber RoWin® heat exchangers ensure that any odours are contained in the vessels and that handling of wastewater is avoided.
Wetwell at Noventa's Toronto Western Hospital Project - photo credit Noventa Energy
Can you describe some of Noventa’s most recent projects?
Our WET System at Toronto Western Hospital is the largest raw wastewater energy project in the world. It will provide over 19MW of heating and cooling to the hospital and displace 8400 tCO2e annually. The Wetwell and the connection to one Toronto’s large interceptor sewers is an impressive engineering accomplishment which has set the standard for other such projects.
We are also developing WET Systems for other sites in Canada, the US and UK - including WET systems for the heat networks we recently acquired in Glasgow, Stirling and Campbeltown Scotland.
What’s ahead for WET systems and district energy technology in general in 2025?
Our successful delivery of our WET System at Toronto Western Hospital, has garnered the attention of district energy companies across North America and the UK. We are technology partners for Markham District Energy who is building a WET System to rival the size of our TWH System. We expect other DE companies to follow suit.
We are also pursuing opportunities which will combine several sources of waste heat in addition to wastewater.
The content & opinions in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily represent the views of AltEnergyMag
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