LEED-ing Arctic research center in Churchill

By Juliana Dutkay, Strategic Partnerships Manager, WWF-Canada
Not the place you’d expect to find a model of eco-efficient building, yet here it stands: the brand new Churchill Northern Studies Center. From a distance and with its angled windows it looks like a Passivhaus construction you’d expect to see in Scandinavia. The Center’s director Mike Goodyear proudly walks us through the building designed to LEED Gold standard, which has been 5 years and $20M dollars in the making.

Churchill Northern Studies Center (c) Juliana Dutkay/WWF-Canada
Aesthetically designed bars and a surrounding ditch along the sides of the building prevent polar bears from breaking in. Inside, a mix of metal and solid wood makes for a warm, modern atmosphere. The wood comes from a BC sustainable forest management company as the thin trees of Churchill are not suitable for construction purposes. Large windows and transparent ceiling sections make internal lights almost useless during the day.
We walk along the hallways and despite the outside temperature well below zero, inside it’s warm and quiet, and the air feels fresh. No HVAC humming or electric heaters drying off the inside air. An energy-efficient heating and airflow system keeps the temperature at optimal level. Each conference room and classroom has a carbon dioxide measuring device. When there are people in a room CO2 levels rise, and this triggers the system to bring in fresh air from the outside ‘solar wall’, where the trapped air has already been pre-heated, requiring less energy to bring it to room temperature. The building consumes 50% less energy compared to the stats of the national building code.

Low flow toilets and shower timers help keep water consumption significantly lower than national average as well. Waste water management is a priority and much of it is done on site: there are composting toilets and a grey water and sewage treatment system. Not having to transport sewage for treatment in town has saved the facility $16,000 since June, not to mention the forgone emissions from the truck transportation that would have been required to get it to Churchill.
Very exciting for students and researchers, some of them WWF-ers or benefiting of WWF funding, to have access to this leading research facility! Mike has further ambitions. Although most of Manitoba’s energy comes from hydro sources, he is looking to fill the building’s energy needs through wind power generation. Conditions are tricky, as Churchill winds are too strong, which spins the wind turbines out of control. His next project is to have a test turbine on site and fine tune the technology so that wind power can be a viable source of electricity for the center. We end our visit talking about future collaboration and opportunities to help transfer such electricity generation and storage technology to fill the power needs of indigenous communities in MB and Nunavut.