Innovation and Energy Efficiency
This Community Center energy retrofit project was unique in that not only was it designed to replace end of life heating equipment, but it also had to reduce energy costs, emissions and provided emergency shelter functionality.
Turn Key Package
Stage 3 Renewables provided this project from concept to commissioning. The scope included solar, roofing, mechanical, boilers and tanks, controls, electrical and project management.
Emergency Shelter Operation
This Community Center doubles as an emergency shelter and as such needs to be able to provide very large quantities of hot water in the event of an emergency. For the vast majority of time, this quantity of hot water is simply not necessary. As a result, we designed the system to utilize a low temp solar preheat tank with very large capacity that can be used as a domestic hot water tank with the flip of a switch. Excessive jacket losses and water heating is avoided and solar capacity gained without loosing the capability to function with very large capacity.
Energy Efficiency
The new solar thermal system provides much of the hot water for the facility for a large portion of the year. The new condensing boilers provide reduced gas use when you do need them. High efficiency tanks, variable speed pumping, fiber insulation and reduced standby capacity (jacket loss) all contribute to a significant reduction in energy use. Incremental strategies such as setbacks and variable speed pumping in conjunction with optimized mechanical design can play a big role in improving energy efficiency.
Before and After Mechanical Room
This video clip and boiler installation was provided by Innovative Mechanical and shows some images from before and after the overhaul.
Do you have a Community Center that could benefit from a similar project?
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