The City of Charlottetown is trying out a new energy-saving system to heat one of its largest buildings, the city garage. The garage is one of the biggest energy-users for the city, and last winter the oil truck came almost daily.

"There's a lot of heat loss through the ceilings, through the walls and garage doors opening," said Nic Cahill, energy efficiency coordinator for the city. "Obviously every time a garage door opens, we're losing all that heat."

The city has a program to become more energy efficient, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save money, and that's where Scott MacLean comes in.

He's a technician for automation systems for Memco Controls, which has just installed the new system in the city garage.

The oil tank at the city garage had to be filled almost daily last winter. 

"People have to understand that heating costs and energies are always going to go up, so you've got to look at ways of cost saving and that and being more efficient with it," said MacLean.

A new control panel now runs the heating in the garage, with lots of new, money-saving technology.

The boilers used to run all the time, eating up the oil, but now the system figures out when they may not have to work as hard.

"We can just see everything and control it based on outdoor air temperatures as opposed to the boilers just running wild all the time," explained MacLean.

The city spent $13,000 on the new system, but officials expect to get at least that back in savings soon. 

"Energy in any municipality is always huge and I think municipalities are really leading the front in energy conservation," said Cahill.

It's win-win when it comes to city buildings; saving energy is good for the environment, and it saves money for tax payers as well.

CBC News