Webinar Recap: One-Year-Pilot from the City of Kitchener

The April 8th webinar featuring the City of Kitchener is now available to watch.

In the webinar, staff from the City of Kitchener walk through a 12-month REALice pilot project at Sportsworld Arena. They discuss the results and what it actually took to implement it across the organization. A big takeaway: getting everyone aligned, especially frontline staff, makes all the difference in a project’s success.

From an operations standpoint, the floodwater temperature dropped from 65.6°C down to 17.5°C (150°F down to 63.5°F)  — and that shift led to:

•a 5% reduction in total building energy

•14 tons of carbon emissions eliminated

•over $6,000 in annual utility savings

The payback period came in at around 3.5 years.

And just as important, ice quality didn’t take a hit. If anything, it improved. The deaeration process created denser ice, which meant skate sharpening intervals increased from 5 to 10 hours.