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Pool upgrades could save $100,000 annually

New UV, solar and geothermal systems increase efficiency

Visitors to the pool at Meadow Park might have noticed a few changes when the facility reopened to the public on Monday, Oct. 4, like the repainted kids pool and patch painting in the lap pool.

The real changes are behind the steel door, where a new UV system was installed that reduced the need for chlorine in both pools - something that will also improve the indoor air quality. As well, visitors may notice warmer water, both in the pool and in the showers, as a result of the new geothermal and solar systems that have been added to the building - the solar system was added last year and the geothermal in the spring (although it wasn't fully functioning until the end of this summer).

These upgrades haven't been cheap, but Roger Weetman, the manager of recreation services for the Resort Municipality of Whistler, says the expected payback of all these systems is estimated at between six and 10 years by reducing the need for natural gas and chlorine. Operating costs should be reduced by roughly $100,000 a year, although the actual figure could be higher or lower depending on factors like the amount of sun.

The pool closed to the public on Sept. 7 for the latest upgrades.

"The exciting thing for this year is the UV system," said Weetman. "We used to have an ozonator, which were common about 10 years ago, but when you put the pool water through the ozonator it's only about 20 per cent effective. When you use UV, 100 per cent of the water is being disinfected."

Weetman adds that the UV system should help Meadow Park reduce its use of chlorine to the minimum levels mandated by the province, but they could probably get away with using even less than that.

The chlorine smell - which is the result of chloride reacting with organics to create chloramines - should be reduced significantly. Combined with the new heating and air system installed three years ago, Weetman says the air quality will be greatly improved. As well, the water will also be easier on the eyes and skin.

Heating the pool water has also been revolutionized in recent years. Last summer the municipality installed a solar system at Meadow Park that can heat water up to 65.5 degrees Celsius, which is used to assist the boilers in providing hot water to the showers. This spring that solar system has also been hooked up to the pool so heated water can be channeled into the pool system to replace water that's lost to evaporation.

Previously that water was drawn from the municipal water system, which is significantly colder and requires a lot of energy to heat. That required a lot of natural gas, while also resulting in cooler pool temperatures sometimes when more water was required to maintain pool levels.

"There's a lot of capacity in that domestic system at certain times a day that we're not using, so instead of leaving it in the tanks we're diverting it into the pools," said Weetman. "The system can still recharge hot water for the evenings when there is more demand, with some left over for the morning as well. It makes the most sense in the summer when the demand for showers is lower, and we're able to get the most heat from the solar system."

The system is comprised of a series of tubes filled with gas in a closed loop. Any time the sun is shining on the roof of Meadow Park, the system is generating heat. That heat is transferred to the water through a series of exchangers.

The system is so efficient, says Weetman, that some days the solar heaters can provide all of Meadow Park's domestic hot water needs (showers and sinks).

The geothermal system was added in the spring with a series of wells outside of Meadow Park. That project took longer than expected, after the well drillers hit an underground aquifer halfway down the planned 100 metre deep wells. Since the aquifer would have cooled the water, a decision was made to drill additional wells to a lower depth.

The well tubes are filled with glycol that is warmed underground by the ambient heat in the earth's crust. That heat is used to pre-warm water. Water coming into Meadow Park from the municipal system is roughly 11 degrees Celsius, but the geothermal system increases that temperature to around 19 degrees. That means it requires significantly less energy to heat for use in the pools, domestic system and hot tub.

Weetman says over a period of three days as the pools were being refilled, the solar and geothermal systems saved roughly $2,000 per day that would have been spent on gas.

The exact energy and cost savings are unknown, but Weetman expects they'll have a pretty good idea by this time next year. For example, the geothermal system itself was ready before the start of the summer but the tests weren't completed until the end of July. The system wasn't online until mid-August, and was only in operation a few weeks before the shutdown.

"There's still an electrical cost to use the pumps, but it's already far more efficient to use the heat that's underground to pass the water through our boilers. It also means a significant reduction in our greenhouse gases, which we'll be measuring over the year. The general rule for geothermal systems is that all the energy used in the system you get a five-fold return in energy savings."