A new energy upgrade at Jarome Iginla and Kinex Arenas is now complete.
The city recently completed the installation of the REALice water treatment system in Jarome Iginla and Kinex Arenas, the city announced in a news release. The system was previously installed at the Go Auto Arena in 2023, and the Mark Messier and Troy Murray arenas in Servus Place in 2021.
REALice eliminates the need for hot water when building and resurfacing the ice.
A Municipal Energy Specialist with the city, Gage Tweedy said the main benefit and why more and more facilities are shifting to the system is the energy and cost savings.
"One of the main reasons why lots of communities are starting to use a REALice system is it eliminates the hot water usage. So this saves the building a lot of energy as far as heating the water and then also electricity that would be needed to cool the ice surface as much," Tweedy said.
Installing the system cost around $43,000. Tweedy said the city received a grant from the Municipal Climate Change Action Centre's Community Energy Conservation program for just under $22,000, and $7500 from Fortis Alberta's Fortis Save Energy program. The city said the return on investment for a REALice system is typically between two and three years.
He also said the ice made with the system is of a little bit higher quality than the typical ice they use.
"It's not as rough or easy to scrape and scratch and stuff like that," he said.
The ice surfaces at the Jarome Iginla and Kinex Arenas see thousands of hours of use per year, the city said. Tweedy said that the REALice system will reduce the facilities' natural gas and annual electricity consumption by over eight per cent.
"If you look at that on a more environmental side, that would be a greenhouse gas reduction of about 136 tons of CO2, which would be the equivalent of taking like 41 cars off the road," he said.
The system has now been installed in all of the city-managed rinks. Tweedy said the only remaining rink in the city where it is left to install is the St. Albert Curling Club, but the city would need to partner with the curling club before bringing it there.
"We'll need to talk with them about it in the future. And then once we construct the community amenities site in a few years, we are likely going to add a REALice system there as well for the ice surface," he said.
Tweedy said continuing to find ways for the city to be as sustainable as possible is an important environmental initiative.
"I'd say it would be somewhat of a priority to look for these innovative measures that help reduce our energy, our costs and then also our greenhouse gas emissions," he said.
