The Armadale Fitness and Aquatic Centre (AFAC) was recently awarded and recognised as a Gold Waterwise Aquatic Centre. As part of the Waterwise Aquatic Centre Program, this is a joint Water Corporation and Leisure Institute of Western Australia Aquatics (LIWA) initiative to encourage waterwise practices among aquatic centres.
The Gold Waterwise Aquatic Centre is awarded for demonstrating best practice water management in an aquatic centre and is the highest award level recognised outside of the Platinum Waterwise Aquatic Centre of the Year (which only one Gold Centre can receive annually). This positions AFAC as a leader in efficient and sustainable water use. The AFAC team worked diligently to reach this Gold level by reducing the amount of water consumption per patron, increased water conservation efforts in pool plant operations and installing new pool blankets to reduce evaporation.
Mayor Ruth Butterfield said: “There are many avenues that contribute to the City becoming more sustainable and climate adaptive, and AFAC are actively playing their part. Congratulations to the AFAC team for their dedication and efforts to reduce their climate impact across their day-to-day operations.”
The Waterwise Aquatic Centre program started in 2012, and has saved approximately 1.59 billion litres of water, the equivalent of approximately 707 Olympic sized swimming pools. The program encourages aquatic centres to join and work towards improving their water efficiency and sustainability goals. The program currently has 57 aquatic centres taking part.
AFAC has been on a journey to make the centre more sustainable. During the centre redevelopment in 2018 they installed a geothermal heating system for the pools, and in 2020 joined the Waterwise Aquatic Centre Program. In 2022, they installed an additional 500kW solar system for a total generation of 539kW. 2023 saw the installation of 500kW of battery storage, to act as a virtual power plant with participating households within the City of Armadale. The battery and virtual power plant are part of the WA Government’s Project Symphony initiative.
AFAC were recipients of both the 2022 and 2023 Western Australian Aquatic and Recreation Industry Sustainability Awards.
The award of the Gold Waterwise Aquatic Centre is just another step forward in AFAC’s commitment to sustainability and continuous improvement.
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