Salisbury Council Pool

Salisbury Council in Adelaide South Australia is an original Federal Government “Solar City”. When the existing gas boiler (used to heat a 50 metre pool and a 25 meter undercover learner’s pool) reached the end of its life, the Council decided to investigate solar pool heating as a means of lowering their costs.

After discussions with Wayne Greenhill, the Heliocol distributor for South Australia and an experienced installer of commercial heating systems, a decision was made to install two new gas heaters and a large solar array. This combination of gas and solar would achieve two things for Council:

1. Regulate pool temperatures all year round supplied by the gas heaters.

2. Reduce running costs for Council with a considerable amount of the yearly energy provided by the solar array.

Although the two pools shared the same filtration equipment, it was decided to install the solar as two separate systems – each with its own gas heater. This allows the pool operator the option of running the two pools at different temperatures.

With insufficient roof space available for the installation of the entire solar equipment, the Council agreed to fence off and seal some ground space on the slope behind the

filtration equipment building. Heliocol was then able to install sufficient square metres of panels to supply the solar savings for the 50 metre pool. The separate solar system for the undercover 25 metre pool was installed on the pool’s own curved fibreglass roof.

To ensure maximum energy savings, the electronic controllers were programmed to turn off the gas heaters whenever the solar systems were running. At last report, the Council was enjoying energy savings of over $15,000 per year.