Where Does It Go?
Staying Cool, and Green, for a Thousand Years

This summer a savings bank was established in the lower level of our House of Worship. Instead of storing money, this bank stores thermal energy in the form of ice. That's right - ice. Bob Armbruster, head of the restoration team, enlightens us...

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‘Green’ building at the House of Worship? Definitely. When your project has to last for a thousand years, you want everything you do to be sustainable, financially and environmentally. With everything from reusable concrete molds to super sensitive sprinkler systems that only water the gardens when necessary, environmental sustainability has been part of the Temple restoration since the beginning. These efforts are about to take a major step forward.

One of the major goals of the Kingdom Project has been to add an air conditioning system to our beloved House of Worship to befittingly welcome the thousands of visitors, many of whom come in the summer, searching for God’s newest Message to humanity. Temperatures inside the Temple can currently approach 80-85 degrees in the hot, humid summer days of Chicago. But how do you cool such a huge building, and the soon-to-come adjacent Visitor’s Center, efficiently? You use ice, it turns out.

The ice bank, installed in the basement of the Temple, is a group of four large tanks that hold water. During the daytime, the ice in this storage bank provides the source of cooling for the air conditioning as fans blow cool air throughout the building.  During the nighttime hours, refrigeration equipment re-freezes the tanks of ice. Engineers call this an “active-ice” system.

What are the benefits of an active ice system? Plenty, from environmental to spiritual:
•    The active-ice equipment operates more efficiently than a conventional air conditioning system and uses less energy to create a similar cooling effect.
•    On the outside of the Temple there will be no cooling tower or compressor equipment so the peaceful atmosphere of the gardens will not be disturbed.
•    On the inside of the Temple there will be no compressors running during the daytime so the cooling system will be silent to maintain the serenity of the Temple for prayer and meditation.
•    Electricity costs are less expensive during the off-peak, nighttime hours when the ice will be made.
•    The equipment required for the active-ice system is smaller than conventional air conditioning systems and, therefore, costs less to purchase and install.

Because the ice-storage air conditioning system does not require us to build an additional structure as a powerhouse, we have been able to install the ice-based system two years ahead of schedule. This has saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in construction costs – hundreds of thousands of dollars of savings for our Kingdom Project.

All of these features will save energy, reduce our impact on the environment and will significantly reduce the Temple’s operating costs for the decades ahead. These savings in operating costs are savings for our National Baha’i Fund. These environmental benefits are savings for mankind throughout the future.

Comments

[Earl C. R.]

Thanks for your wonderful article. CALMAC is pleased to have been able to participate in the restoration project at the Temple. We are glad that you are sharing the message of sustainability and environmental friendliness that are among the inherent characteristics of off-peak cooling.

[Paul]

Some ice storage systems do use ground source heat pumps to generate ice for overnight storage. For partial storage systems it works really well because fewer wells are required and there are choices available to move the heat around where needed. The heat could be used for hot water, snow melt or comfort heating. Here is a good link about a church in Canada using ice storage and ground source heat pumps.

http://www.icekubesystems.com/htmlfiles/Story-2.asp

[FUNDamentals Team]

Thanks for the question! We talked with the engineers involved and here's what they said:

While cooling during the daytime, the heat that is removed from the building is used to convert the ice into water within the ice tanks. In this way the heat is stored in the tanks until the nighttime hours when the water within the tanks is frozen back into ice. As the water gets frozen the heat is slowly released into the air outside the building.

Geothermal energy and geothermal storage are not used with the ice system.

[Dan]

great article! that's a really cool concept.

[Vahid]

Very good planning. I wonder, is the heat dumped into the air during the night or into the ground using geothermal?