McKinstry turns up the heat for recreational center in Cortez, Colorado
November 2009
City Facility to Undergo $800,000 of Improvements by 2010
A recreation center in Cortez, Colorado aims to generate some much needed heat this winter with new solar panels, and chose McKinstry to help. In addition to the installation of integrated panels, which began on Tuesday, the project will also include further upgrades to the facility. All work is slated for completion sometime in January 2010, according to Cortez City Manager, Jay Harrington.
“We’re wanting to make the facility more energy efficient,” the Cortez Journal quoted Harrington as saying.
McKinstry will install two racks of solar panels on top of the recreation center that face south. One group will include three rows of eight panels, and a second group will have one row of sixteen. McKinstry has left room in the existing plan leaves an option open for creating an additional solar energy if required.
The solar panel upgrades are meant to heat the water in the recreation center swimming pool. The facility’s pool is expected to experience a temperature rise from around 86 degrees to 90-29 degrees as a result of the solar-thermal upgrade, according to city parks and recreation director Dean Palmquist.
According to Rick Smith, the city's General Services Director, of all Cortez’s city buildings, the recreational facility uses the most gas and electric power. In 2008, the complex consumed $123,107 of electricity, or 3,419 kilowatts, and $89,392 of natural gas, or 75,129 Therms. One Therm (a heat energy measuring unit), is approximately equivalent to burning 100 cubic feet of natural gas.
Ongoing upgrades to the recreation center will include lighting retrofits for the pool, installation of variable-frequency drives to pool pumps, applying new digital control systems, and efficiency improvements to the heating and cooling system of the facility. Total energy-related costs of the upgrades are $850,127, with $425,000 from a state energy-impact grant. The remaining $425,127 is from the city's Rec Center Fund, Harrington said.
Once McKinstry has finished the upgrades, says Smith, the estimated annual savings for the recreation center’s energy cost is $32,280.
Source: Cortez Journal (www.cortezjournal.com)
Original report by Journal Staff Writer Steve Grazier
