SolarWall Technology Takes Ontario by Storm

This week, Owens Corning announced that it has installed what Conserval Engineering says is North America's largest SolarWall system of 2008 at Owens Corning’s Toronto-area insulation manufacturing facility.

The SolarWall system at Owens Corning’s Toronto facility is 11,000 ft2 and is estimated to produce over 8,000 million BTUs (2350 MWh) of thermal energy per year. Conserval Engineering designed the turnkey energy solution for Owens Corning that targets one of the most problematic energy requirements in the facility — ventilation heating.

This announcement came at the heels of last week’s news from Conserval Engineering that the largest hospital SolarWall system in the world was formally unveiled at Cambridge Memorial Hospital (CMH) in Cambridge, Ontario Canada.

Totaling over 10,000ft2 in size — spread out over three sections — the CHM SolarWall systems will reduce the traditional heating load at the facility by using the sun’s energy to preheat the incoming ventilation air.  This will result in annual CO2 displacement of approximately 200 tons.

The SolarWall project at CMH was part of an overall energy savings and facility renewal program in partnership with Honeywell, which also included control upgrades by Honeywell.  Conserval Engineering designed and supplied the SolarWall system.

SolarWall technology is a solar air heating system that uses solar energy to heat ventilation air for commercial and industrial buildings. The company says it substantially reduces traditional heating fuel expenses and CO2 emissions, requires no maintenance and lasts more than 30 years.