Amusement parks nationwide are premier destinations of family fun and lifetime memories. Themes are also prone to consuming large amounts of resources in order to maintain attractions for thousands of daily visitors. For example, theme parks and city officials in areas where the parks operate have been quiet about rates of water consumption, though archived resource from the Los Angeles Times revealed that Disney Land in Orange County, California used nearly 430 million gallons of water for irrigation and non-irrigation applications in 1989 alone.

It is likely that modern theme parks across the country will continue to struggle with the costs associated with footing gigantic water bills. Thankfully, there are several ways that theme park managers can reduce water and energy consumption throughout the park. One fitting solution for the needs of an amusement park is the use of distributed heat generation via tankless water heaters. Park managers can better recognize the potential of tankless water heaters to improve the rate of water consumption by understanding just how many points of application exist at the average theme park.

Sustainability quickly becoming a point of marketing competition
More customers these days are beginning take a company's dealings with the environment into consideration when deciding where to spend their discretionary income. This trend has extended to the theme park industry, as demonstrated by SeaWorld's recent issues despite an overall good year of ticket sales. While other theme parks have seen healthy resurgence in customers over the past few years, SeaWorld has suffered continued attendance drops following the release of the documentary "Blackfish.'

This trend is especially relevant considering that most amusement parks across the country are doing quite well in recent months thanks to factors like low gas prices and the end of the recession, according to Motley Fool. The park's declining ticket sales were largely in part to bad publicity generated by CNN's broadcast of the documentary. With sustainability issues on the minds of more families than ever before, it's no surprise that SeaWorld felt a sizable backlash. Other parks can learn from SeaWorld's lesson and improve their profile with visiting families by committing to green solutions.

Theme parks have plenty of opportunities for tankless deployment
Amusement parks are filled with points-of-use where the high thermal efficiency of tankless water heaters and the appliance's compact size can help curb water waste and energy efficiency. Visitor bathrooms, theme restaurants and other locations at theme parks could be heated with a central appliance, but the unique demands of each building would make it difficult for a single or multiple reservoirs to keep up. Alternatively, heating each point of use with its own tankless water heater would allow each application to utilize just as much hot water as necessary.

Distributed generation can help streamline how a theme park consumes water.

Spread out park design a good fit for distributed generation
Another weakness of centralized heating is the heat loss that occurs when hot water travels from its source to the point of use. Sinks, kitchens and other points of use are often quite spread out to account for a theme park's massive square footage. Heating each of these locations separately with its own tankless water heater eliminates this heat loss completely as hot water is delivered exactly when and where it's needed.

A distributed generation approach to water heating helps theme parks to account for standby loss as well. Standby loss occurs when visitors wait a few seconds for hot water to travel from a centralized heater to the point of use. This rush of water adds up quickly, adding to the extraneous water bill that theme parks are already paying.