The new company's aim is to develop and operate heating and cooling networks, with a primary focus on the metropolitan centres of Quebec, Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. Through its CCUM subsidiary, Gaz Métro Plus has given CDH responsibility for Montreal's heating and cooling network, one of the largest in North America. The network serves the city's central business district, encompassing over 1.5 million square metres of office space, hotels, shopping centres, and university campuses.
An alliance to develop heating networks in Canada
In Canada, Dalkia and Gaz Métro Plus, a subsidiary of the major natural gas distributor Gaz Métro, joined forces in February 2006 as part of a strategic alliance, founding a joint venture under the name CDH Solutions & Operations.
Robert Tessier, President of Gaz Métro
"Like Dalkia, we were looking to expand", says Robert Tessier, President and CEO of Gaz Métro, "and given our respective assets, this joint venture seemed to offer the greatest benefit.
"Dalkia's solutions provide us with access to high-potential markets."
It's a win-win partnership: we bring our client base and a brand name with exceptionally wide recognition, and Dalkia provides its highly advanced technology for cost-effective and environmentally conscious energy management. That expertise is essential to our efforts to cope with skyrocketing energy prices - the price of gas in particular has nearly tripled in five years. Unlike Europe, it's only very recently that we've begun to think seriously about energy efficiency here. We've always had abundant energy resources at a very low cost, with hydroelectricity accounting for a considerable share of our energy supply, and as a result we were always very heavy energy consumers.
Canada. More effi cient operation for Montreal's heating and cooling networks.
Now all that's changed, and both manufacturers and the major district networks are looking for solutions that provide energy and environmental efficiency. That's where Dalkia comes in.
"Another serious concern on the part of both government authorities and the public at large, especially in Quebec, is protecting the environment, and limiting greenhouse gas emissions in particular. There too, Dalkia is a standard-bearer in the industry, enabling us to enjoy greater credibility in the market. As a result, our outlook for the future is extremely promising. We naturally have plans to develop networks for shopping centres and major universities, but we also hope to capitalise on emerging opportunities to provide heating and air conditioning for residential developments, which mostly rely on electrical heating. From an economic standpoint it would be wiser to export that electricity rather than use it for heating. We have another stake in this alliance as well, since Gaz Métro is a major distributor of natural gas. Aside from its experience with networks, Dalkia's solutions for energy and environmental efficiency, its facilities management offering - still fairly novel in Canada - and its wide array of services, such as clean room management on behalf of hospitals, all provide us with access to high-potential markets and have elicited a very positive response."
Extract from the annual report 2006.