Sun power heats Verona aquatic center

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

From an article by Kevin Bargnes in the Wisconsin State Journal:

It’s not just the campers and sunbathers soaking in the rays at Verona’s Goodman Aquatic Center anymore.

Joining them are 45 new solar panels installed this summer to heat the 5,500-square-foot pool.

The $80,000 project, funded in part with a $7,500 grant from the state’s renewable energy initiative, Focus on Energy, will eventually pay for itself.

Heaters at the pool are constantly running and are kept particularly high on cloudy days and at night. As a result the pool has spent an average of $18,000 on propane each summer since it opened in 2002.

"These are special," says Jamie Gepner, management and marketing director for the Goodman Jewish Community Campus, which owns the pool. "We’re not the first to do it, but we’re one of the first pools open to the public in (the) Madison (area) and even in Wisconsin to do this."