A community known for being a leader in green initiatives is showing off its projects in two facilities during a provincial showcase this weekend.
The Town of Black Diamond is opening the Oilfields Regional Arena and Scott Seaman Sports Rink to public tours on Oct. 4 every hour from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The annual, single-day Alberta Green Energy Doors Open event invites users, producers and advocates of Decentralised Energy, a non-profit organization that works to accelerate the decentralized energy industry through programs and initiatives, to showcase their sustainable energy projects to the public.
“We do try to promote the town and what we are doing, so this just seemed like an opportunity to help promote it a little more locally and hopefully to our neighbours,” said Les Quinton, Black Diamond’s parks and recreation manager.
Quinton plays a major role in the Town’s green initiatives at the indoor and outdoor arenas. They include energy-efficient lighting, high efficiency furnaces and water heaters, programmable thermostats, motion sensors for lights, showers and faucets in the change rooms, a timer for exterior lights, low flow toilets, a 16.65 kilowatts solar system and a web-based energy management system.
The initiatives have been so successful the 678,000 gallons of water it took to operate one rink in 2003 dropped to 370,295 gallons to operate three, said Quinton.
Electricity use in the outdoor and indoor arenas measured 265 megawatt hours of power in 1999, dropping down to 241 megawatt hours in 2013, despite the ice staying in the rink an extra month, said Quinton.
Natural gas also dropped due to the Town’s energy-savings initiatives from 2,287 gigajoules in 2008 to 1,764 last year, he said.
“We are busier, but we are using less utilities because of these changes,” he said. “There’s been work that’s happened every year.”
Doug Webb, vice-president of operations with Decentralised Energy, said Black Diamond is one of about a dozen communities and more than 15 showcases taking place across Alberta on Oct. 4.
“My understanding is the Oilfields arena is one of the leading arenas in Alberta for energy efficiency and optimization,” he said. “The solar that the Town has put up on some of the town buildings as well as some of the residents down there is a very high number per capita.”
Getting the public to view the projects and initiatives is a great educational tool and why the Green Energy Doors Open was initiated in the first place, said Webb.
“Oftentimes we’re not aware of what’s happening in other communities or around the corner from us,” he said. “This is an opportunity for people to look and see what the Oilfields arena is doing and has done and how they’re saving energy or becoming more efficient with what they’re doing.”
Quinton said the Town’s green initiatives have drawn interest for years.
“I get people that hear what we’re working on and want to go for a tour of the outdoor rink and solar system because we have things that are quite unique towards energy management,” he said. “On an average year I’m sure I tour 30 to 50 people in the facility.”
Quinton said many visitors are from other municipalities interested in energy management for their own communities.
Participants will tour through both facilities and learn the various green initiatives that have taken place, said Quinton.
“We will show them what we have done so they can see where the solar is and see some of the taps, all the fixtures, items on the refrigeration system to explain how some of the items work and explain the energy management system and what it does,” he said. “There is some people that are very interested because they would like to do it as well.
“A lot of things we’ve done here are things that people can do at home. It’s simple, easy things that will give you a good payback in a shorter period of time.”
For more information go to www.deassociation.ca, greenenergydoorsopen.ca or gedo14ab.deassociation.ca
