City of St. Albert: Servus Credit Union Place REALice Retrofit 

Overview 

As part of the MCCAC’s Recreation Energy Conservation (REC) program, the City of St. Albert installed a REALice system at the Servus Credit Union Place. With over 320,000 square feet of leisure and fitness space, there is a children’s playground, fitness and wellness centre, and track. Servus Credit Union Place has three NHL-sized ice arenas – the Go Auto Arena, the Mark Messier Arena and the Troy Murray Arena. Aquatic Centre with over 25 spray and water features, including a river ride and two giant waterslides. 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 March 2023. 

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 39 tCO2/year and an energy cost saving of $5,209.01/year. The system enabled the water heater setpoint temperature to be dropped from 134 F to 69 F. The project resulted in a 13% GHG reduction from the existing system and a 1% reduction facility-wide from the baseline.  

Being champions of environmental action and upgrading our facilities to be more energy efficient as we adapt to a changing natural environment, are major priorities for the City. Converting all our rinks at Servus Place to a REALice cold water flood system directly showcases this commitment to find innovative ways to protect our environment for future generations.

Mayor Cathy Heron