Port Hawksbury Civic Centre

Port Hawksbury, NS

The Port Hawkesbury Civic Centre is a new state of the art facility serving residents, tourists, and the business community of Port Hawkesbury, NS, Canada and the surrounding area. The Centre is a truly "green building" that utilizes design and construction innovations to make it more efficient and easier on the environment and its users. The innovations used in the construction of the Civic Centre makes this truly a "green building" more efficient and easier on the environment and its users.

Through the use of green protocols and innovative technology, the Town of Port Hawkesbury integrated strategic features into complementary systems which optimize the overall energy efficiency of the building. Notably, the ice-making process for the skating rink which generates heat that is recycled through a thermal exchanger, providing radiant heat inside the arena. This exchanger currently diverts excess heat to the adjacent geo-thermal storage under the adjacent parking lot and could potentially be reused to provide heat for another building. Another multifaceted strategy is the day lighting system for the arena which not only reduces the lighting costs by 45%, it reduce the heat generated indoors thus lowering the chilling needs for ice-production.

The arena is equipped with the Ice Kube System which is an energy efficient geothermal chiller which has cold storage in the rink slab. The heat generated during the ice-making process is recovered and use throughout the facility as radiant heating. A site-specific pipe layout design optimizes the efficiency of mechanical pumping reducing the needs from 20-30 hp to 3 hp. The modular design of distributor heat pump network system allows adaptation to variable energy needs thereby reducing part-load inefficiencies. The modular design allows adaptation to variable energy needs thereby reducing part-load inefficiencies.

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