Hydro-Québec electrical substation | How five cities avoided urban warts

The project to build an electrical substation on one of the few green spaces in the Latin Quarter is criticized by several personalities from the cultural and academic world, who fear the appearance of a “plague” in Montreal. But elsewhere in the world, the development of similar technical buildings has sometimes been successful. Here are five examples.

Toronto buries the problem

Toronto was faced with the same electrical substation problem at the turn of the 2000s. Faced with fears of seeing a cold building growing in the city center, at the foot of the CN Tower and the Rogers Centre, the project was finally carried out underground. , an idea that Hydro-Québec is also considering. Today, the transformer station which supplies a large part of the heart of the Queen City has three levels underground. Above, a park was created and a railway museum made it possible to preserve the historic buildings located there, which was a demand from several citizen groups. In several ways, Hydro-Québec could draw inspiration from this example, which has similarities with the station that the state corporation wants to build in Montreal.

Vancouver hides a power plant under a road

Built in the wake of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, the False Creek Neighborhood Energy Utility plant, which is both an energy production site and a sewer pumping station, provides many households with heating by geothermal energy, a renewable energy. The power station is located under the Cambie Bridge in False Creek, not far from downtown. It does not emit an odor, is relatively silent and, above all, very glazed and fairly well integrated into the neighborhood. An idea from the managers is also very popular with citizens: light panels change color depending on the level of energy consumption in the neighborhood, which makes people aware of the importance of reducing their carbon footprint to combat changes. climatic.

Vienna relies on art as a facade

In Vienna, Austria, the Spittelau incineration site, a rather industrial building that was largely destroyed by fire in 1987, has been reconstructed in an artistic, but also very ecological, way. Since that time, it has become one of the emblematic monuments of Vienna, with its colorful facade, its golden ball on the chimney, its terraces and its many green elements. In terms of energy, modernization work carried out in the early 2010s enabled the site to supply more than 50,000 Viennese households with electricity and heating, three times more than before. Every year, some 250,000 tonnes of waste are incinerated there, and cold water is discharged into a parallel network, which makes it possible to air-condition a nearby university.

Copenhagen goes skiing

Renowned for its model of social and sustainable development, the City of Copenhagen has innovated by building a huge incinerator, where more than 400,000 tonnes of waste are processed each year. On the roof of the building, the municipality has built a ski slope with a height difference of approximately 90 meters, which can be used in both winter and summer. And that’s not all: a 70 meter high climbing wall has been built on one side of the building, making it one of the highest climbing infrastructures in the world. Today, thousands of people use the place each year, both residents and tourists, who come from all over to take a look.

A fake house in Montreal

Closer to home, the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) can also be cited as an example, although on a smaller scale. On Towers Street in the city centre, a ventilation station was built in an original Victorian house, the exterior façade of which has been entirely preserved. The project earned the carrier an award from the Canadian Urban Transportation Association. That said, the STM is not a model in all its projects; A recent ventilation station project in Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie has residents fearing an ordeal in terms of dust, noise and traffic obstructions. But above all, the affair threatens a family with expropriation, in the midst of an affordable housing crisis.