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Accelerating Community Energy Transformation (ACET)

Cumberland District Energy Project

Cumberland visual
Image: Sara Kempner

The Cumberland District Energy Project explores the potential for using warm water from abandoned, flooded coal mines to heat and cool buildings in the Village of Cumberland, B.C. It investigates options for regenerative development in communities that increases affordability by integrating solutions for housing, food and energy resilience.

By tapping into this natural energy source, the 4,500-person Vancouver Island community could reduce emissions, lower energy costs and support future developments like affordable housing and public facilities. Just connecting current municipal  buildings to this type of system could cut their heating emissions by 90% — equivalent to keeping 30,000 pounds of coal from being burned each year. 

This early-stage project will create a strategic plan for financing and operating a pilot with the community that transforms the Village's historical connection to coal into a model for cleaner, more resilient, affordable development.

The proposed pilot project includes a minewater geoexchange system that exchanges energy with water in the abondoned coal mines beneath the village and the uses that energy to signficantly reduce the heating and cooling costs of buildings in the municipal downtown precinct and nearby eco-industrial park. 

The goal of the pilot is to assemble and test the components of a cooperative development model that can then be scaled to other larger commercial and industrial zones above the Cumberland mines, and eventually to other municipalities throughout Canada and internationally.

Technology

The minewater geoexchange system uses the steady water temperatures found in abandoned mines to provide efficient, low-carbon heating and cooling. Underground mine pools stay naturally warmer in winter and cooler in summer compared to surface temperatures. 

By circulating water through a closed-loop system and using heat pumps, this temperature difference can be harnessed to deliver reliable, year-round energy to buildings with near-zero carbon emissions.

Thanks to the already existing network of mine shafts below the community, the entire town could draw on this clean, renewable energy resource.

Minewater Geoexhange System   Illustration: Steven Hession

Major Milestones

  • The Village contacts ACET to spearhead the reimagination of their abandoned mines as an energy source for future growth and resilience (Winter 2024)
  • Initial ACET visit to Cumberland over Miner's Memorial Weekend to engage Village leadership, staff, community leaders, and other stakeholders connected to the history of mining in the area (Summer 2024)
  • Initial aerial and subsurface mapping of the mine network in collaboration with local geologists and the Cascade Institute - detailing the extent and depth of the major coal seams mined underneath the Village (Fall 2024)
Cumberland visual
Geologists have mapped the extensive mine system running beneath Cumberland to better understand its energy potential for the community above.
  • Presentations and discussions with Cumberland Council, community leaders, engineers and other stakeholders about possible project pathways and different system configurations, such as the open-loop mine water geo-exchange outlined above (Fall 2024 - Spring 2025)
  • Initial business case development including governance, financing, and regulatory pathways toward pilot scale and capital scale projects (Summer 2025, ongoing)

People

Project Leads:

  • Zachary Gould, ACET Community Planning Lead
  • Vickey Brown, Mayor, Village of Cumberland
  • Jeff Quibell, P.Eng., Principal of Energy Systems and Planning at Falcon Engineering

Other key contributors:

  • Emily Smejkal, Research Fellow and Policy Lead at the Cascade Institute
  • Genevieve Burdett, Executive Director, Lake Park Society
  • Mackenzie Judson, UVic PhD Candidate

  • Elvia Willyono, UVic PhD Candidate 

  • Md Islam, UVic MBA Co-op
  • Nicu, Zaharia, UVic MBA Co-op
  • Piotr Lutynski, Mining Geologist and Local Cumberland Resident
  • Pascal Gürber, Visiting Masters student from Lucerne University in Switzerland

Partners and Collaborators

Stories and Media

Land Acknowledgement

The Village of Cumberland respectfully acknowledges the land on which they operate is on the unceded traditional territory of the K'ómoks First Nation, the traditional keepers of this land.