DENVER, COOpteon™ Refrigerant
Provides Ice for NHL® Elite
Denver’s Ball Arena, Home of theNHL®’s Colorado Avalanche®,Achieves Successful Upgrade
to Sustainable Opteon™ XP10Refrigerant in Ice Plant

A Partnership for Sustainable Hockey Operations
After every NHL® hockey game, the ice surfaces are gradedby the referees as well as representatives from bothteams. For the NHL®, it’s their responsibility to ensure all
aspects of League facilities that impact player performanceand safety meet the highest standards. For every period ofevery game, starting with the preseason through Game 7of the Stanley Cup Finals, before approximately 20,000
screaming fans, nothing is more important than the ice foran NHL® game.

According to Brian Jennings, EVP Marketing and Chief
Branding Officer, “The speed, energy, and forces thattoday’s top players impart into the ice sheet when skating,turning, and stopping during a game can impact the rink’s
surface, and it needs to be ensured that the ice is in great
shape for the entire game, beginning with pregame
warm-ups when 40 world-class athletes take the ice, until
potential overtime play, and even between game periods
when the ice sheet needs to be quickly resurfaced, frozen,
and ready for play within minutes.”

The content of this story is the sole responsibility of The Chemours Company.

Recently, the NHL® partnered with the Chemours Opteon™

performance and reliability for more than 10 years,”

refrigerants team as part of the League’s effort to promotestated Craig Smith, Ball Arena’s Sr. Director ofsustainable rink solutions across hockey at all levels. TheEngineering. When the opportunity was presented topartnership aims to educate and share best practices inupgrade to Opteon™ XP10 refrigerant (R-513A) atthe places and spaces where hockey is played to ultimately

Ball Arena, Smith was excited to participate.

ensure continued growth of the sport in both an
economically and environmentally sustainable manner.
Omar Mitchell, VP of Sustainable Growth and Infrastructure
at the NHL®, who heads the partnership commented, “We“Ball Arena has set a leading example

found that many of the rinks in North America have aging

for the sports community with theirand inefficient ice refrigeration systems. Partnering withforward-thinking approach toChemours, with their Opteon™ line of low global warming
potential (GWP), non-ozone depleting refrigerants, as wellsustainability. We share ouras their network of OEM partners, rink application

customers’ commitment by providing

specialists, and engineering and design experts has been
instrumental in addressing these industry needs.”

Ball Arena, Denver, CO
Ball Arena, owned by Kroenke Sports & Entertainment(KSE) in Denver, CO, home of the NHL® Colorado Avalanche®,has consistently received some of the best grades for ice
quality over the last decade. “At Ball Arena, we have been
fortunate to have a great ice plant, consisting of Trane®
chiller systems that have provided outstanding

environmentally responsible products
without compromising safety,performance, or efficiency.”—David Gauvin, Strategic Manager
Ice Rinks, Trane®, North America

several months of operation.

“Opteon™ has performed flawlesslyWith respect to energy efficiency, the bottom line is reallyand exactly as expected...”the kW/ton value; where kW is the energy or power
consumption and ton is the amount of heat removal or—Craig Smith, Senior Director ofEngineering, KSE Ball Arena

cooling load (Btu). Modern refrigeration systems aredesigned to provide the highest efficiency (lowest kW/ton)
at maximum loads as evidenced in Ball Arena data plottedin Figure 1 (kW/ton vs. cooling load). For the best direct
performance comparison of Opteon™ XP10 refrigerant to“After observing their track record of reliable performance,
I had great confidence in the Trane® machines,” said Smith.

R-134a, data was analyzed for the initial month ofoperation under typical steady-state conditions (fixed ice“Since upgrading to the new low GWP Opteon™ refrigerant
would reduce our arena’s environmental footprint, while
maintaining our dependable performance, it was a pretty“We are excited to have Opteon™

easy decision to make the switch; and, because Ball Arena

installed at a premier facility likehas redundant backup chillers, it also made a great
opportunity to directly compare the performance of aBall Arena, where the Avalanche®

newly charged Opteon™ system with an identical systemand some of the world’s best

still running the legacy R-134a refrigerant under the sameplayers perform daily on highoperating conditions.”

quality ice. Working together withIce Plant Conversion to Opteon™

leading equipment suppliers likePrior to the start of the 2019-20 season, chiller 1 at Ball

Trane®, great facilities like KSE’s

Arena was converted from R-134a to Opteon™ XP10refrigerant. The conversion was straightforward, and, otherBall Arena, and alongside thethan the gas change out, consisted of only upgrading theNHL®’s operations staff has been acontrols for the new refrigerant and a compressor lubricant

tremendous success.”change. The Opteon™ chiller was started and closely
monitored by facility operators while being used
exclusively for the very important process of initial ice
sheet build, as well as for several preseason tournaments
and throughout the NHL® preseason and opening monthsof the NHL® season.
As part of the evaluation, Nexant, Inc. was brought in as athird party energy validation resource and installed dataloggers to measure the energy performance of therefrigerant systems.

Successful Operations with Opteon™
“Operationally, based on the data collected and our direct
observations, Opteon™ has performed flawlessly andexactly as expected based on the engineering analysis
performed by Trane® and Chemours,” reports Smith after—Chuck Allgood, PhD, Refrigerant
Technology Leader, Chemoursset-point and covered slab), and, as Table 1 shows, both

Table 1. Comparison of Ball Arena Chiller 1 (Opteon™ XP10)

systems were operating equivalently with respect toand Chiller 2 (R-134a) Performanceenergy efficiency.

Chiller 1 (XP10)

Chiller 2 (R-134a)

kWh22,751

6749

Figure 1. Energy Performance for Ball Arena Chiller 1 with

Run-hours

244

71

Opteon™ XP10 (R-513A)

Avg. kW

93.1

94.7

Ton-hours

24,5987427

Avg. tons

102

104

kW/ton0.91

0.91

Data Source: Power Metering Results from Ball Arena Chiller Plant, Nexant, Inc., Oct 2019 Report to KSE

CH1 kW/ton vs. cooling tons
1.30
1.20

Data Source: Power Metering Results from Ball Arena Chiller Plant, Nexant, Inc., Oct 2019 Report to KSE

1.10
1.00

While energy usage is important from a financial point of0.90

view, it also contributes to the environmental footprint of0.80

operations, as carbon emissions are generated during
energy production. Another important factor impacting

0.70

sustainability is the GWP of the refrigerant itself. As shown

0.60
0.50

in Table 2, the GWP of Opteon™ XP10 is 631, a reduction
406080100120

140160180of ~56% compared to the legacy R-134a refrigerant.
Table 2. Refrigerant Physical, Chemical, and EnvironmentalProperties
Opteon™ XP10 (R-513A)

R-134aHFO-1234yf/HFC-134a(56/44%)

HFC-134a

Boiling Point at 1 atm-20.6 °F

-14.9 °F

ASHRAE Safety Class

A1A1

Liquid Density at 70 °F

74 lb/ft

76.2 lb/ft3Ozone Depletion Potential

00

GWP (AR4 Value)

631

1430

Composition

3Refrigerant Properties provided by Chemours (www.opteon.com)

For more information on the Opteon™ family of low GWP products,visit optforbetter.com/NHL© 2020 The Chemours Company FC, LLC. Opteon™ and any associated logos are trademarks or copyrights of The Chemours Company FC, LLC. Chemours™
and the Chemours Logo are trademarks of The Chemours Company.
NHL and NHL Shield are registered trademarks of the National Hockey League. © NHL 2020. All Rights Reserved.
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