Town of Drayton Valley's Aquatic Facility NetZero Design

The Town of Drayton Valley will examine the feasibility of designing a NetZero aquatic facility through heat storage and capture, system optimization, combined heat and power, and renewable energy generation. In order to assess the feasibility of a NetZero design for an aquatic facility, the municipality has set five goals for technology exploration: using the pool to store energy as a heat vault; designing an auxiliary heat vault; designing a combined heat and power system; considering heat loss and recovery optimization; and custom designing the control system. In order to achieve NetZero status, the study will also investigate how to integrate on-site renewable energy generation to either offset fossil fuel use in the combined heat and power system, or to sell the generated renewable energy back to the grid. Reducing water consumption will also be considered in the building design. The initiative ties in directly with the municipality’s community sustainability plan, a previous aquatic feasibility study that reviewed capital and operational costs under more standard building code regulations, and its existing recreation cost-sharing agreement with Brazeau County, which is part of an intermunicipal cooperation agreement between the two municipalities that supports potential capital projects such as this one. A Joint Municipal Aquatic Committee, which consists of representatives from both municipalities, will be responsible for developing the plans and strategies to implement the engineering specifications for a NetZero design and for ensuring that project scope, risk, and procurement are all managed within the vision and goals of the study. Furthermore, a Systems Thinking Approach, which views systems as bodies of interacting relationships rather than separate components acting in isolation, will also study patterns and relationships in the proposed energy systems and how these relationships can change or fulfill the goals of the study. The study will emphasize quantifying operational savings and an extended lifespan for the facility in order to assess the value of increased up-front capital spending for NetZero building design. A successful NetZero aquatic facility design could have a significant impact on municipalities which are struggling with the high operational costs of aquatic facilities. If Drayton Valley can demonstrate the cost-savings of a NetZero design over the life expectancy of the aquatic facility, other municipalities can see this study as a supporting model when budgeting for and weighing the potential additional capital costs of a NetZero aquatic facility. The Aquatic Centre would serve the town’s growing population while building on key social and economic benefits of a new and enhanced public space, such as the continued promotion of community public health with increased access to recreation and physical activities, community revitalization, and business attraction. (Project description from original funding application)