Valeco Energie Québec Inc. is a renewable energy development company found on the edge of Frédérick-Back Park in Montreal. Valeco acts as the operators of the Biomont Energy cogeneration plant in the Saint-Michel environmental complex, which recovers biogas from the former landfill site and transforms it into green energy.
In the 1990’s, the City of Montreal converted the whole site. All the domestic waste was buried and sealed, wells were installed to gather the biogas released from decomposition, and the area was slowly modified into a large recreation park.
The power generated from the combustion of biogas is converted to electricity and supplies 2,000 homes in the area. This heat is used to supply hot water to neighbors, including the Cirque Du Soleil headquarters and TOHU.
Recently, the area has seen significant aesthetic investment from the City of Montreal to make it more appealing for residents both by day and night. As part of the City’s rejuvenation efforts, Biomont was approached with an architectural façade lighting design. The proposed design featured lighting from above of the building’s vertical blue channels with white light, partnered with a wash of blue light for the north-face (park-side) of the facility’s flare.
Architectural lighting on this type of building is uncommon. The City had already supplied the lighting concept, but executing the design required creative analysis.
With fixtures selected, Concept Illumination returned to the site multiple times to take measurements and to perform nighttime mockups with samples.
New wiring was installed to power 15 compact architectural LED flood lights on the building’s north, south, and west sides. A 5000K color temperature was chosen to accentuate the blue channels and a very narrow, five-degree lens was used to reduce the light spill from inside the channel onto the building’s corrugated siding.
15 existing fixtures installed above the architectural flood lights were removed so that their light would not overpower that of the new fixtures, and color matched plates were installed to cover the holes left behind by the previous installations.
Underground wiring and two new concrete bases were installed and fitted with blue architectural LED flood lights to light up the flare. The 13 remaining functional fixtures on the façade were replaced with LED wall packs, also in 5000K, to maintain color consistency throughout.
During the project, wiring which was thought to be in place was found to no longer be there, or had been cut and required repair.
The window to order, deliver and install materials before the construction holiday was tight. Completed on July 21, 2023, the project took approximately two weeks despite delays caused by some bad weather.
