RFS Engineering contacted Emerald Environmental Technologies as an alternate designer for Colgate University’s LEED Silver Certification project. The customer wanted a design that did not require ammonia and eliminated the heavy maintenance costs associated with a standard industrial plant. Emerald met with a design team of Sasaki Architects, whom had previous experience with Emerald Environmental Technologies’ ice3 Cube System arena installations at Plymouth State University and University of New England—both of which had RFS Engineering and Emerald Environmental Technologies to complete their installations.
The design worked exactly as intended. The equipment was designed for multiuse allowing for both air conditioning and heating of the spaces. Low temperature back up natural gas boilers were added to the loop under the RFS design, these boilers only operated when refrigeration load went out of sync with heating loads. Stress tests were placed on the cube system for refrigeration lowering floor temperatures to 12-15*F – responding correctly and impressing the end user and engineering team. It was proven that modular ice3 Cube technology was of great benefit in a rink that went from zero to 100% occupancy in a matter of an hour. Additional ice3 Cubes have not proven to be needed as the load shed controls in place have mitigated the need. The Colgate Facilities department has maintained and provided any minor repairs these past few years and are well within control of this technology.
We specialize in highly efficient refrigeration plant replacements with total heat and geothermal reclamation, an asset waiting to be harnessed.