Saving Energy
Areclamation project will take place later this year at the Lawrencetown Exhibition Youth Arena to recover heat to reduce electrical costs and keep prices down for users.
Lynn Roscoe, chair of the arena’s volunteer board, said the project is the latest in a series of upgrades since the community of less than 700 finished fourth in the Kraft Hockeyville competition in 2010.
“There’s been an incredible amount of work done at the arena,” she said. “We actively look for projects to improve the arena every single year and this is just the next one in the cycle.”
Roscoe said they want to reclaim the heat generated from the refrigeration process and use it to warm the water for its Zamboni to flood and maintain the ice. The arena has two compressors in its ice plant, and one of the compressors was upgraded about a decade ago.
“We find that it is really useful in keeping our costs down for the hot water, but during tournaments or startup time or heavy usage at the arena, we run out of that reclamation water, and we have to rely on a standard electrically heated hot water tank, which of course costs quite a bit,” she said.
More than 25 renovations have been done at the facility, which opened in 1971, during the past decade.
Roscoe said when it started the renovations in 2010, the arena was paying about $25,000 annually for electricity. Today, its costs are between $10,000 and $12,000. She said three of the biggest costs to operate the arena are electricity, wages and insurance. She
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