The City of St. Albert has completed the installation of the REALice® water treatment system at the Jarome Iginla and Kinex Arenas, in partnership with the Municipal Climate Change Action Centre and Fortis Alberta. The City previously installed the REALice® system at the Go Auto Arena in early 2023 and the Mark Messier and Troy Murray Arenas in 2021.  

REALice® is a water treatment system for arenas that eliminates the need for hot water when building and resurfacing the ice. Installing REALice® reduces energy consumption, including the natural gas formerly needed to heat the flood water, as well as the electricity used by the ice plant to freeze and maintain the ice. It also makes the ice smoother and more compact, maintaining the ice quality for users. The ice surfaces at the Jarome Iginla and Kinex Arenas see thousands of hours of use per year and the simple installation of REALice® will reduce the facilities’ annual electricity and natural gas consumption by over eight per cent. 

The installation of the REALice® water treatment system was made possible with partial funding from the Government of Alberta through the Municipal Climate Change Action Centre’s Community Energy Conservation (CEC) program and partial funding from Fortis Alberta’s Fortis Save Energy program. The return on investment for using REALice® is typically between two and three years. Factors that influence this timeframe include the size of the arena(s), the amount of water used in resurfacing, the number of resurfaces of the ice per day, the temperature of the water applied, the current ice thickness, and the prices of natural gas and electricity. 

The Municipal Climate Change Action Centre is a partnership of Alberta Municipalities, the Rural Municipalities of Alberta, and the Government of Alberta. Funding for the Community Energy Conservation program was provided by the Government of Alberta. 

- 30 -