due to splash out. Other environmentally-efficient features of the project include LED fixtures, sensors and timed controls to ensure lighting only operates when required. There will also be a hydronic heating system, 95 per cent efficient condensing boilers and high efficient motors, as well as a heat recovery system. Lastly, there’s the outdoor landscaping – which will include native trees and grasses that won’t require heavy maintenance, and will only require the water provided naturally by rainfall. Annette Driessen says that emphasizing energy-efficiency made sense for the project from a number of perspectives. She says that limiting energy output is not only the right thing to do from an environmental perspective, but that it’s also the sensible thing to do from an economic perspective: “If you talk to anybody that’s in the recreation administration world, they’ll tell you that the scary thing about a recreation facility is not the capital cost of construction, it’s the operating cost,” she explains. “We decided very early on to put some extra capital into the construction in order to make sure we were hitting the mark on the operational costs and keeping those costs minimal.” Troy Smith explains that in designing the new facility, their goal was to make it as efficient to operate as possible. In particular, they wanted to make it at least as efficient to operate as the older, existing facility. That was a challenging objective, because the old facility was smaller and had a smaller pool, but the team pulled it off. “The new facility is close to three times larger than the old facility, but we’re actually looking at an annual energy cost to the town that’s slightly less than the existing facility,” Troy says. Arshia Ahmed says that the project also has the potential to be even more efficient in the future: “Besides the photovoltaic system in place, the project allows for a future combined heat-and-power (CHP) unit to be hooked up to the facility,” she explains. “We didn’t go with the CHP unit at this point because of the financial constraints, and the fact that there may be companies out there in Drayton Valley that can install and service those units. We’ve left that as a future rough-in possibility. We’ve definitely accounted for it.” Additionally, Annette says there is also space available for more solar panels, in case the Town of Drayton Valley ever decides to go in that direction. When designing the project, they learned that it would take almost 800 panels to achieve a net-zero building. They ultimately settled on just over 300, but Annette says the potential is still there to add to that number. “If we wanted to expand solar at some point in time, this building could actually achieve net-zero efficiency,” she says. “That’s still a possibility.” DRAYTON VALLEY BRAZEAU AQUATIC CENTRE
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