By Florian Gabriel
Enhanced Ice Rink Quality, Cost, Energy and Emission
savings
GLOBE-Net, October 17, 2012 - A Swedish
technology already widely applied in Europe, helps to create the
ice in ice arenas using cold instead of hot water, saving energy in
the process and creating a slicker and faster ice
surface.
The system removes micro-bubbles from water and is used when
laying the ice and resurfacing it. The main feature is that the ice
sheet can be resurfaced with treated ambient temperature water
(eliminating the need to burn natural gas to heat the
water).
By removing the micro-bubbles, the ice sheet is less like a
"Swiss Cheese" and more like a compact sheet of ice. With energy
savings per ice rink of 50'000 kWh - 100'000 kWh per year, this
technology, if applied across Canada's 3000 ice rinks, could
save as much as 200 - 300 Gigawatt hours per year and over a
100'000 tons of CO2 emissions.
This solution now installed in over 250 ice rinks across Europe,
of which some have hosted the Hockey World Championship 2012 and
the European Figure Skating Championship 2010 - both in Helsinki.
Currently there are only a handful of installations in North
America.
The idea behind this technology is to allow a fluid, to
self-organize into an ordered vortex movement. Vortex movement is
fundamental in nature. It occurs in galaxies, tornados,
mountain streams and human blood flow. 
Macroscopic and microscopic gas bubbles in water will be pulled
into the low-pressure zone in the vortex chamber. The low pressure
will cause them to expand and gather into large bubbles that can be
easily extracted downstream of the vortex generator. This process
is called degassing.
Besides the degassing phenomena of vortex treated water, the
vortex generator also decreases viscosity. The difference lies
between 3% and 17%, depending on water quality and
temperature.
By using the vortex generator technology in laying and
resurfacing ice rinks, the ice gets harder and therefore faster.
Harder ice produces less snow and becomes more transparent as a
surface.
Depending on how the facility is run currently the energy
savings can make up to 20% - 40%. In a regular size ice rink this
would be (average savings per ice sheet, based on 150 gallons per
resurfacing, 12 x daily, 48 weeks/year)
- Natural Gas: 600 - 1000 GJ
- Electricity: 50'000 kWh or more
- Emissions: 30t - 50t of CO2
These savings result in a payback of less than two years of the
initial investment. Some European ice rink operators have decided
to lease the system and pay for the leasing costs through their
Energy savings.
Given the endorsement from the International Ice Hockey
Federation, Swedish, Finish and soon Russian Hockey Federation, it
is only a matter of time until this technology will be widely
applied in North America, given the increased quality of the ice
rink, cost, energy and emission savings.
It could also make the fast moving game even faster and more
exciting - a double edged bargain.
More info on the Vortex Technology is available at:www.real-ice.com
Florian Gabriel is an enthusiastic Swiss economist,
entrepreneur and fan of sustainable technologies. As former
Trade Commissioner for Switzerland in Western Canada, Florian
has led key initiatives for the Swiss Government &
swisscleantech and keeps driving sustainable technologies to the
Pacific Northwest. Florian can be reached at florian.gabriel@swisscleantech.ch