An ice rink arena can bring medals – or money

Electricity production must always equal electricity consumption. The balance between production and consumption is monitored by following the grid frequency – it must remain at 50 hertz.

The larger the share of renewable energy technologies in the electricity generation portfolio, the more dependent energy production is on weather fluctuations. To stabilize the energy system and balance out deviations, the national transmission grid operator acquires various types of reserves from the reserve market.

Reserves are electricity production, consumption and storage facilities that are able to adjust their electrical power according to the needs of the electricity grid.

Power in numbers

Large-capacity energy resources, such as hydroelectric power plants, electric batteries or gas turbines, are usually used as balancing power. However, Finland is full of smaller resources that do not participate in balancing the grid by scheduling their electricity production or use. However, so-called aggregated entities consisting of several smaller sites can also participate in the reserve market.

Such distributed energy resources can be aggregated and managed through a centralized control system. These aggregates of small resources are called Virtual Power Plants (VPPs). They can provide economic benefits that small energy resources cannot provide individually.

Tieto and Suomen Tekojää Oy launched a joint project to investigate, develop and test how the refrigeration equipment of multiple ice rink arenas can be connected together and the aggregate thus formed used in reserve markets.

Significant savings with technology

Energy management and participation in the energy reserve market require specialized expertise and processes that are not cost-effective to build for just one ice rink. The expertise and technologies were developed by Tieto and Tekojää together with Finnish and European actors in the GenerIOT-project funded by Business Finland and ITEA 4. 

Energy costs are typically 50–70% of the total costs of operating an ice rink. That makes energy the largest single operating expense of the rink. In the pilot, automation tools were developed that keep the indoor conditions and energy costs of the ice rinks under control, ensuring good conditions for the use of the space while balancing energy consumption.

How much could you save?

Based on the project experiments and findings, demand response can achieve 10–20% cost savings in the energy use of ice rinks at current electricity prices in Finland. This means that there are hundreds of ice rinks in the country that can be connected to the energy market, with a very significant combined demand response potential.

If you would like to know more about how to start saving from your ice rink, don’t hesitate to contact us. We will be happy to tell you more!

Suomen Tekojää Oy is a Finnish company founded in 1997, specializing in ice sports and industrial refrigeration technology. To date, it has completed 1,000 projects in 25 different countries, including World Ice Hockey Championship and Olympic ice arenas.