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FACILITY OVERVIEW
Location:
Type of Facility:
Technology/Refrigerant Used:
PROJECT BACKGROUND
A direct refrigeration system circulates the primary refrigerant directly through the ice rink floor.
Schematic of the CACs current NH3/CaCl2 refrigeration system. The NH3/CaCl2 system is housed in the equipment room for Rink 2.
Source: Stevens Engineers
An indirect refrigeration system uses two refrigerants. A primary refrigerant stays confined in the ice equipment room and a
secondary refrigerant is circulated in the rink floor.
3
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 2007. Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC (AR4).
Available at: www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/contents.html
4
U.S. EPA. 2014. GWPs and ODPs of Some Ozone-Depleting Substances and Alternatives. Available at: www.epa.gov/ozone/snap/
subsgwps.html
5
Ibid.
2
SYSTEM DESCRIPTION
The new indirect NH3/CaCl2 system has a refrigeration
charge size of 387 pounds of NH3, which replaces the
6,000 pounds of R-22 and 1,200 pounds of NH3 used in
the previous systems. Brooklyn Park expanded the ice
equipment room for Rink 2 to accommodate the
NH3/CaCl2 system. The renovated equipment room now
houses three compressors on concrete pads, an
above-ground NH3 containment tank, a chiller, a leak
detection system, heat exchangers, and a combination of
welded steel and high-density polyethylene piping. Each
rink floor has approximately 10 miles of 1-inch piping.
SYSTEM PERFORMANCE
AND COSTS
The Brooklyn Park CAC ice rink is now considered one
of the most energy efficient ice rinks in the United States,
and possibly the world. The new system requires half the
energy of the previous systems to perform at the same
capacity. The unique heat design and incorporation of
the heat pump system allows the recovery and reuse of
95 percent of the waste heat that is generated from the
refrigeration system. When compared to an indirect R-507
system, the two-sheet ammonia-based system is at least
15 to 20 percent more energy efficient. The Brooklyn
Park CAC ice rink is also achieving additional energy
efficiency gains due to the integration of the geothermal
exchange system. The system uses advanced controls
to lower the condensing temperature from a typical 96F
for NH3 to approximately 5257F, resulting in increased
operational efficiency. Overall, the citys energy efficiency
retrofit project is reducingits annual electric and natural
gas consumption by 317,000 kWh and 11.1 million ft3,
CHALLENGES AND
LESSONS LEARNED
The conversion to a new ice rink was a major
undertaking, and with it, the Brooklyn Park CAC faced
a number of construction-related obstacles, including
renovation is as follows:
or exterior entrance).