CO2 savings with REALice

Create a “green rink” – Cut Your Carbon Footprint by 18t – 50t of CO2 per Year 

Ice rinks consume vast amounts of energy and therefore contribute to global warming. The REALice® System will enable you to easily create a “Green Ice Rink” and reduce your emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) by 18-50 tonnes per rink per year depending on the source of electricity and therefore quickly reducing your arena’s carbon footprint and the pathway to net zero.

Based on the FortisBC large scale pilot using the REALice system reduces the requirement for natural gas by 79% or on average 330GJ and help you reduce cost to operate your ice rink.

 

Because of the changed properties of the water, which becomes denser and freezes faster, using less energy to freeze and to stay frozen too, operators are required to reset their brine/glycol settings 3-5°F warmer. This reduces chiller loads tremendously (approx. 20%)  by having to shave off less heat from the ice and by the reset of the brine temperature of anywhere between  3F – 5F. Savings are approx. 10% – 12% on electricity.

With that in mind, each sheet of ice that is no longer flooded with hot water can save around 18t – 50t of CO2 per year/season depending on the Province and the respective energy source for electricity.

  • Cold water = hard ice! ❄️🧊 Thanks to the generous support from the Municipal Climate Change Action Centre REC Program and the FortisAlberta Save Energy grant the Town of Raymond was able to install the REALice system at the Raymond Arena! This small system will result in BIG savings both in costs and energy use.

    Town of Raymond, Alberta

  • "With the technology we have today, and other people are using it and it's working, why wouldn't we try it?"

    Mayor Lorne Buis, Town of Foremost, AB

  • “We’re excited! The REALice system is going to save us the community money and greenhouse gasses,” he says. “With the energy savings we’re projecting, we’ll be able to reach our greenhouse gas reduction target of 33%, several years ahead of our 2020 target.”

    Ken Olson from Olson Energy Management, Energy Consultant for the Oak Bay District

  • While we normally prefer to see a full year of data first, to account for temperature changes and operational variables, we have seen results that align with estimated savings by REALice. The last three months of data show that we are on track for an annual savings of 90,000 kWh and that we are currently exceeding the anticipated natural gas savings of 900GJ per year. This translates into $18,000 in annual savings and a 2-year payback.

    Mark Boysen, Sustainability Manager, Saanich BC

  • We have been using REALice for 5 years. The quality of the ice has been tremendous. The ice set point was raised from 19 degrees to 22/23 degrees. Our compressors dropped from running a total of 22-24 hours down to 11-13 hours a day. The best part was that our ice greatly improved. We estimate that we are saving about $12,000 to $15,000 per year on our ice package.

    Steven Wolf, Spartan Arena, Castleton VT

Check out: 5 Strategies to Reduce CO2 emissions in the ice rink

CONNECT WITH OPERATORS