The city of Manchester NH was faced with an issue that the older R22 refrigeration ice plant had reached and exceeded it’s useful life. Recent refrigerant leaks in the past years had caused expensive repairs to recharge the systems with the now phased out R22. The city worked with the local New Hampshire manufacturer Emerald Environmental to provide a performance specification based on ICE3 modular chillers. The RFP was a design build request with just the minimum or specifications. Preferred was the successful bidder and performed a design build scope.

The redesign was to reuse the existing indoor cooling tower water tank and cooling tower base structure. The open cold glycol tank was eliminated, and all new cold and warm pumps were installed. (4) new 27 TR Ice Cubes were installed as well as a complete digital control system. A new cooling tower connected to an indoor heat exchanger was also installed.  New Electrical Switchgear was installed to service the entire building. Finally, the snowmelt pit was modified and a new melt coil and barricade system was installed.

The system was placed on line in the compressed time frame with all the challenges of the supply chain post covid. The electrical team was forced to install temporary electrical panels so that that the plant could be started for the City’s contractual dates with their end users.

After months of operation the City realized a 40% reduction in utility costs. Contingency monies were then employed to reclaim heat from the cubes and preheat Zamboni Hot Water. The 80% efficient boilers were removed and downsized with New High efficiency water hears installed sourced from storage tanks heated by the cubes.