Detailed Design and Implementation of a Smart Blue Roof
Credit Valley Conservation’s (CVC) main office has a large, flat roof, making it an ideal place to implement a smart blue roof system for stormwater management. Blue roofs detain stormwater, releasing it slowly after rainfall events, allowing it to pond and evaporate, or in some cases storing it for non-potable reuse.
In July 2020, the Credit Valley Conservation (CVC) received over $280,000 in funding through an Intact Adaptation Action Grant from Intact Financial Corporation. This funding will go towards the detailed design and implementation of a Smart Blue Roof at CVC’s head office in Mississauga. The funding will also help CVC assess the real-world performance of the system and understand how to scale this technology in our local communities and across the GTA.
Some of the key performance indicators that will be monitored are as follow:
- Total volume (m3) of stormwater removed from the storm sewer system
- Total peak flow reduction (m3/s) to storm sewer system
- Estimate savings on the annual stormwater charge
- Estimate annual water savings from rainwater reuse
- Estimate annual energy savings from rooftop evaporative cooling
Other questions of interest that will be explored using the results of this project are:
- How does shifting capital and O&M costs from public lands onto private lands benefit the municipality?
- What is the cost to operate a network of blue roof systems that provide the equivalent stormwater control as a stormwater pond retrofit?
This project will build off a feasibility study, completed in 2019. The feasibility study investigated the feasibility of designing and constructing a blue roof integrated with “Internet of Things” technology – a system of sensors and real-time controls – for managing the flow of water from the roof to CVC’s existing rainwater harvesting tank for indoor and outdoor non-potable use. The system’s conceptual design is intended to maximize the potential benefits of blue roofs, including water and energy savings associated with rainwater reuse, reduced peak flows to storm sewer systems, and potential mitigation of the urban heat island effect.
For more information regarding this study contact:
James Cowan
Coordinator, Integrated Water Management
james.cowan@cvc.ca
Bernadeta Surowiec
Specialist, Integrated Water Management
Bernadeta.surowiec@cvc.ca
