KCP Energy and industry news and events
No more cold showers: Solar rays heat Zamboni water
from the Canmore Leader
By Hamish MacLean
January 28,2009
Geoff Domenico, founder of KCP Energy, and the Town of Canmore facilities supervisor Lloyd Smith stand on the roof of the Canmore Recreation Centre after the official launch of the solar panels that heat the water used by the Zamboni.
Hamish MacLean/Canmore Leader
“In the past, quite often what would happen is that they were flooding two rinks, they would do a flood and then the guys having a shower would get cold water. That doesn’t happen anymore,” said facilities supervisor Lloyd Smith. “And the other thing that happened is that if someone did the flood over here, that flood over there would be done with cold water, making poor ice.”
Solar panels on top of the Rec Centre were officially launched on Thursday.
“I think this is a great project, obviously for a lot of reasons,” said Mayor Ron Casey, “but the truth is, the thing I really like about this is it’s a really practical day-to-day application for solar.”
The mayor thanked Smith for coming up with the idea to supply hot water to the recreation centre for its Zamboni needs and he thanked Geoff Domenico, a Canmorite and founder of KCP Energy, for the expertise in supplying the project.
The system should provide at least 20 per cent (on a sunny day it would be greater) of the Recreation Centre’s Zamboni hot water needs when flooding both ice surfaces.
“Starting now, our operating budget is going to be positively affected because we’re going to be paying less for energy,” Smith said. He will track the savings solar power provides online.
There are three 120-gallon tanks, which means that there is 360 gallons of hot water pre-heated by the solar system available for the recreation centre. At 75 gallons per flood, the extra water will pay dividends.
Geoff Domenico said that KCP Energy was founded as means to create a sustainable future for his family: “That’s why we’re doing it. It’s about our kids. It’s about our kids’ kids. That’s why the name made sense to me.”
The initials KCP correspond to the names of members of his family.
“To me, solar is a part of that solution, no matter what area you’re in. If you’re trying to become sustainable, it’s a part of the solution,” Domenico said. “It’s not the solution and I never would claim that it is, but we have to do many things as we try to get there.”
Any place where we can identify a cost savings, utilizing solar, we’re proceeding with it.” Smith said. “Next year we’ve got quite a large solar project to go with the senior centre, the public works building, the other side of this building (the recreation centre) — about four or five more projects.”
This is a large one, he said. The Zamboni was identified early because of the large amount of hot water that flooding the ice surfaces at the Rec Centre requires.
This was the best system,” Smith said. “We had the potential here to use as much heat as we could possibly produce.
“Even if this wasn’t sort of the in thing to do, it would be the right thing to do just based on saving money,” Smith said. “However, we certainly were very glad that it was in a visible location. And when we install solar panels on our other buildings, we’re certainly not going to try and hide them.”
