HELP US HELP THE ENVIRONMENT
As a business we’re aiming to implement sustainable practices across all departments in the venue. Recently you may have noticed some changes in our start towards a more sustainable Arena.
We recommend bringing your own water bottle and if you are a coffee lover a reusable cup. We offer a 10% discount on hot beverages if you bring in your own cup.
Already implemented:
- Recycle bins located venue wide and lined with clear biodegradable bags
- Paper recycle bin in our main office
- Sustainable and environmentally friendly paper used in our printer
- A discount will be provided to customers using their own cups
- Plastic cutlery will be replaced with biodegradable corn starch cutlery
• The O’Brien Icehouse has two 80,000 litre rain water tanks.
• This water is not only collected from the roof, but also collected from the ice melt pits in the Zamboni garages.
• The snow from the Zamboni resurfacing is dumped into the melt pits (melted by heat from the reclaim system) and then pumped to the tanks. It then goes through a water treatment plant and is reused in the Zamboni as well as being used for flushing the amenities throughout the
building.
• Water for ice making is best when it is pure as takes less refrigeration capacity and energy to freeze.
• The water from the tanks get pumped through a series of filters. A 20- micron filter and a 5 micron filter to remove the larger particles, then a UV filter to remove biologicals in the water.
• It is then pumped through a sand filter, a 2-micron and a 0.5-micron filter to further reduce the particles in the water and finally through a reverse osmosis plant to remove any remaining salts or TDS (totally dissolved solids) from the water.
• The purified water is then stored in the two 8,000 litre tanks for use in the Zamboni
• When filling the Zamboni, we heat the water to 65˚C. This removes any trapped air in the water which not only further reduces energy usage, but also makes the ice stronger. This also reduces the need for more frequent resurfacing.
• Heat generated by the chillers is reclaimed and utilised elsewhere via the heat reclaim system.
• This is used for heating in the air handling systems, the “warm slabs” under the ice pads, hydronic floor heating in the skater’s lounge and team dressing rooms and the two ice melt pits in the Zamboni garages.
• As efficient our refrigeration plant is, it does still require a substantial amount of electricity to run and to maintain our ice. To help combat the amount of energy the building uses we installed a solar system on our roof.
• The system consists of 1361 solar panels which can produce around 400Kw of electricity. On a sunny day, it is enough to run our buildings entire electrical load.
• We estimate that over the entire year it will produce around 608MWh saving us around 20-25% of our total electricity uasage.