St. Laurent, MB - Hockey Arena and Community Center 20101

St. Laurent, MB - Hockey Arena and Community Center:

Life in the community of St. Laurent, MB, like in many other prairie communities, revolves around the hockey arena and community centre. Like other small communities, the ongoing cost of operating and maintaining such a facility is a concern for the small taxpayer base. These concerns are balanced with the need to provide the facilities needed to ensure people stay and play in the community rather than migrate to other nearby towns.
 
The need to rebuild the heating system for the community centre and to add air conditioning, as well as the desire to extend the hockey and skating season for youngsters in the community prompted the town to develop an integrated solution that would transfer the “waste heat” from the refrigeration plant and recycle it to heat the nearby community centre.
 
Geo-Xergy Systems worked with Greenbrush Construction to develop such an integrated solution by designing a horizontal ground heat exchanger (GHX) to connect the two buildings. The overall energy cost for the two facilities is expected to be lower than the cost of only heating the two buildings previously, and about 50% lower than operating a conventional refrigeration plant and heating system.