The Town of Oakville received its first electric Zamboni this month as part of a climate change initiative that is expected to save taxpayers money, and improve indoor air quality at the same time.
Carlos Cardoso, lead hand at the Sixteen Mile Sports Complex on Neyagawa Blvd, says spectators likely won’t notice much difference but operators sure will.
"Because we’re not running any extra oil or coolant for the Zamboni itself, that will reduce our maintenance costs and reduce our exhaust needs on the rinks," Cardoso says. "People probably won’t notice it’s here because they won’t hear it."
Supervisor Jim Luis says ten staff were being trained on the machine this week and next. “This is the future and we’re excited to be a part of it as the first community centre in Oakville to take it on,” Luis says.
Although electric ice resurfacers cost about $15,000 to $20,000 more to acquire than their conventional counterparts, they are expected to be much cheaper to operate over time. "We’re expecting at least $7,000 savings per year in maintenance alone," Luis says. "And another $48,000 savings over the (machine’s) ten-year-life cycle."
The new machine will replace one of the three ice resurfacers dedicated to the Neyagawa arena. The Town of Oakville maintains 14 ice pads and one outdoor refrigerated surface. Typically every two ice pads require one ice resurfacer.
According to Dave Cano, the Town’s facilities and constructions manager for corporate emissions, ice resurfacers are one of the largest sources of emissions within municipal facilities because they run on natural gas. Natural gas engines have one of the highest emissions per unit of fuel.
"What we’re trying to do is go to a lifecycle costing exercise for these machines. With this acquisition, we’re hoping to gather good data to inform future decisions on purchasing these machines."
Although battery-operated Zambonis are not a new technology, reliability, performance and price have not always been competitive. In choosing electric, Oakville joins a recent trend among other municipalities choosing to reduce climate emissions with the transition to electric ice resurfacers.