Recreational Facilities
 Tecogen cogeneration and cooling CHP products are a proven way for recreational facilities to reduce their operating costs and carbon footprints significantly, and maximize overall efficiency.
Health and sports centers (especially those with large swimming pools) represent an excellent match for CHP systems, due to their steady electric and thermal loads. Best applications include athletic clubs, YMCA’s, YWCA’s, Jewish Community Centers (JCC’s), municipal pools, college and high school pools, and ice rinks.
The “Microgrid” feature of Tecogen’s InVerde product is particularly valued in recreational facilities, because it can be easily configured to provide convenience power during an outage, keeping important services operating until the utility grid is restored.
Economic Benefits
Operating savings to a recreational facility can be over 50%, year after year. Tecogen systems can help recreational facilities of all types squeeze the most value out of limited budgets. We would be happy to provide you a detailed free economic analysis, to help you estimate the savings at your particular facility.
System Options
Tecogen will help a recreational facility determine which type of CHP system makes the most sense.
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 Cogeneration – Either a Tecogen induction generator-based or inverter-based cogeneration system can generate electricity that reduces a recreational facility’s electrical bill significantly, cutting the cost of running pumps, lighting, air conditioning, etc. At the same time, free waste heat can be recovered from the cogeneration system and used to offset fuel that would otherwise have to be burned in the recreational facility’s water or pool heaters. So in addition to savings on the electricity bill, the gas bill for space heating, domestic hot water (DHW for locker rooms), and pool heating is also reduced. Alternatively, the free waste heat can even be used to drive an absorption chiller, a device which generates cooling a heat source, thus relieving the recreational facility’s other chillers from having to do as much of the air conditioning.
Ice rinks are a special kind of recreation facility that offer some special application possibilities for cogeneration, such as for melting ice shavings and desiccant dehumidification.
A Tecogen InVerde module can be operated independent of the grid during power outages, keeping some, or even all of a recreation facility’s services operating for extended periods. The patented “Microgrid” operating software allows multiple InVerde modules to operate harmoniously without any specialized external controls or field balancing.
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Chiller – A TECOCHILL chiller, by comparison, provides cost-effective chilled water directly for a recreation facility’s chilled water loop. It does this without using expensive on-peak electricity, greatly reducing the building’s electric bill. At some recreation facilities, free waste heat available from the engine(s) on the chiller can also be utilized to satisfy simultaneous hot water requirements, such as for domestic hot water (DHW), space heating, or pool heating.
Ice rinks again offer unique application possibilities for chillers.
TECOCHILL systems require very little electric power, so are ideally suited for keeping recreation facilities cool when the utility power has failed. In these applications, the existing backup power sources need only supply electricity for the chiller’s controls and ancillary equipment, rather than for the entire chiller.
Environmental Benefits
 Efficient Tecogen CHP systems can help a recreational facility reduce its Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions (CO2 output, or “carbon footprint”) by as much as 50%.
Tecogen CHP systems are a good way for a recreational facility to “go green”, but in a practical, sensible way. They reduce global warming emissions, while achieving decent paybacks on their own and do not rely extensively on massive government incentives and tax benefits, like some other “green” measures do. Tecogen systems are an efficient and responsible investment of taxpayer and institutional dollars.
Marketing and Educational Benefits
 Tecogen systems can even provide educational benefits in recreational facilities. The technology itself can be closely monitored and studied so that the environmental and economic benefits can be quantified and tracked by operating staff, recreation users, and students, on a “real-time” basis. Tecogen CHP can have marketing benefits, too, as facilities become justifiably proud of their green accomplishments.
Please check out our list of cogen and chiller case studies and find out how facilities similar to yours are benefitting from Tecogen.
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