Town of Bonnyville Centennial Centre – REALice Retrofit  

Overview 

As part of the Action Centre’s Recreation Energy Conservation Program, the Town of Bonnyville installed a REALice system at the Centennial Centre. Located in the Lakeland region of Northern Alberta, the Centre (250,000 ft² in size) was originally constructed in 2007 and features two ice rinks.   

REALice is an energy-saving de-aerating system for ice rinks. It creates a controlled and structured vortex to remove gases and other particulates such as limescale as water flows through the device. REALice-treated water eliminates the need to use heated water when building or resurfacing your ice and reduces compressor loads. The system has no moving parts and is easily integrated into existing piping systems. 

The project was commissioned in August 2022. 

Approach 

This newly installed REALice system will help to reduce the costs of heating the water used to resurface the ice as well as the electricity costs associated with cooling the ice following resurfacing. This system eliminates the need for hot water when building and resurfacing ice by removing micro air bubbles from the incoming water resulting in lower natural gas consumption from water heaters and less load on compressors. 

Results 

The REALice installation resulted in a reduction of 45 tCO2/year and an energy cost saving of $8,744.58/year.. The project resulted in a 7% GHG reduction from the existing system and a 2% reduction facility-wide from the baseline. 

“REALice is an amazing system that allows rinks to flood the ice without using hot water. This creates a large cost-savings for the facility. We installed the system over the summer months and are excited to see it at full use this winter.”

Les Parson, General Manager