The municipality of Whistler BC is striving to reduce its energy use and its carbon footprint. When an energy audit revealed the poor performance of the Meadow Park Sports Centre—the community aquatic facility—in terms of energy costs and greenhouse gas generation, they came to Hemmera for a solution.
The Hemmera-designed hybrid solar-geoexchange hot water system is exceeding expectations, and is projected to save approximately $130,000 annually, and reduce the facility’s greenhouse gas emissions by 60%. The project’s economics were aided by external funding, including significant grants from the federal ecoENERGY and provincial SolarBC programs.
Our team first completed a feasibility study for a solar-geoexchange retrofit, and followed it with a comprehensive return on investment analysis that ensured the economic viability of the project. We then proposed a concept design for a hybrid system—including a solar hot water system to capture the sun’s heat, and a geoexchange system to draw heat from the ground—for a reliable, efficient, year-round heating of the aquatic centre and its water.
The system is now installed and operating, and is expected to recover its costs in as little as four years. In addition to the annual savings—which will only increase as fuel costs rise—the Meadow Park retrofit is aligned with Whistler’s commitments as a signatory to the BC Climate Action Charter, which sets the objective of becoming carbon neutral by 2012 through reducing emissions or purchasing carbon offsets. The sports centre alone will reduce Whistler’s greenhouse gas emissions by 350 tons each year—the equivalent of taking 80 passenger vehicles off the road.
