San Ramon Commissions Solar Thermal Collectors and Insulated Pool Covers at Dougherty Valley Aquatic Center

The City of San Ramon Parks and Community Services Department and facility managers from the San Ramon Valley Unified School District commissioned a high-efficiency solar thermal heating array and motorized insulated pool-blanket system on Friday evening at the Dougherty Valley Aquatic Center at 10550 Albion Road. Operated under a joint-use agreement adjacent to Dougherty Valley High School, the 50-meter Olympic competition pool and 25-yard instructional warm-water pool host year-round lap swimming, master swim workouts, water polo tournaments, and youth water-safety lessons. Over the past month, mechanical contractors mounted 140 glazed solar-thermal collector panels across the locker room roof and connected them via titanium heat exchangers to the main filtration loop.

To prevent overnight evaporative heat loss during crisp late-autumn and winter nights, aquatics technicians also installed low-voltage motorized stainless-steel reels at the south deck apron that deploy multi-layer cross-linked polyethylene foam covers across the 50-meter basin in under eight minutes after the 8:30 PM closing bell. Keeping the water surface sealed overnight maintains steady 79.5-degree Fahrenheit competition temperatures while reducing treated pool-water evaporation by an estimated 1.1 million gallons annually.

Combined telemetry from the rooftop solar-thermal loop and the insulated blankets is projected to reduce winter natural gas boiler consumption by 45 percent—preventing roughly 195 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions and saving the joint city-school aquatic operating budget $68,000 per year. Variable-frequency circulation pump drives installed during the same maintenance window further trim daytime electrical demand by 18 kilowatts.

The $390,000 energy and water-efficiency project was financed through San Ramon's Capital Improvement Program Energy Conservation Reserve paired with a Bay Area Regional Energy Network municipal decarbonization incentive. Swimmers can check autumn lap-swim lane availability, Masters workout times, and winter swim-lesson registration dates on the San Ramon Aquatics Official Portal.