Grantee Research Project Results
Final Report: Energy Management Innovation in the US Ski Industry
EPA Grant Number: SU831884Title: Energy Management Innovation in the US Ski Industry
Investigators: Troxell, Wade O. , Davis, Ashley , Dean, Jesse , Jansen, Seth
Institution: Colorado State University
EPA Project Officer: Page, Angela
Phase: I
Project Period: August 25, 2004 through May 30, 2005
Project Amount: $10,000
RFA: P3 Awards: A National Student Design Competition for Sustainability Focusing on People, Prosperity and the Planet (2004) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: P3 Challenge Area - Air Quality , Pollution Prevention/Sustainable Development , P3 Awards , Sustainable and Healthy Communities
Objective:
The location and electrical demographic of many American ski towns creates a unique opportunity to explore innovative energy management practices within a particular industry. Ski areas are often located near the extremities of electrical grids where power quality is lowest; yet much of the equipment operated in this industry requires reliable, high-quality power In addition ski areas are often a significant consumer of electricity in their particular provider’s service area. Aspen Ski Company, for example, consumed over 2% of Holy Cross Energy’s total energy delivered in 2002. Considering that Holy Cross also serves the resorts of Sunlight, Beaver Creek, and Vail, this represents a serious portion of Holy Cross’s load. The summation of these factors is a strong motivation to make vast improvements in energy management at ski areas.
Under the Sustainable Slopes program of the National Ski Areas Association (NSAA), many ski areas are undertaking innovative approaches to sustainability in a number of disciplines. However, according the NSAA’s 2003 Sustainable Slopes Annual report, ski areas surveyed indicated that among the four least implemented sustainability principles were energy use for lifts, energy use for vehicle fleets and energy use for snowmaking. There is obviously a need to implement an energy management program at ski areas.
The ultimate goal of the project is to develop innovative methods of integrating existing ski area infrastructure, onsite generation and better management to create a more robust, flexible and sustainable energy cycle.
Net Energy aims to develop a comprehensive management system model to monitor network requirements and identify opportunities for onsite generation, energy storage, and information technologies for better control of the energy network. Key goals include: understanding energy requirements and load characteristics through audits and equipment listings, targeting key areas for improvement, reduction, and/or better management, and developing a suite of solution scenarios.
In addition to the energy management tool there are many other goals which this system addresses. Economic incentives are identified in the reduction of peak demand to save hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in coincident demand charges. Incorporating onsite generation and storage technologies reduces dependency on the grid network. This eliminates transmission losses through long range transmission into the mountain valleys, and generates more reliable power. Renewable onsite generation is more sustainable than the grid network and has drastic emissions reductions. Net Energy aims to provide a better energy management tool, provide a suite of economically viable recommendations, with more reliable and sustainable solutions.
A number of energy related projects have been implemented in the ski industry to date. Based on data collected by the National Ski Areas Association, for the purpose of tracking and communicating environmental progress in the ski industry, these initiatives can generally be categorized as demand-side management or small-scale onsite generation.
Demand-side management activities typically involve some combination of service curtailment through a contract with the utility, improved communication and coordination for better internal management of load, or the utilization of back-up lift diesel engines to shed load. These strategies are common in the ski industry and have well accepted analogs in many other industries. Potential applications of these strategies should be investigated thoroughly in the development of an energy management program.
To date, onsite generation projects in the ski industry have generally been of small-scale and had limited impact on the character of a ski area’s energy usage. A number of areas, including Breckenridge and The Canyons, have implemented small photovoltaic arrays to power remote operations such as ticket scanners and a bus shelter. Two larger efforts include a 115kW microhydro system at Snowmass Mountain and cogeneration using a 30kW microturbine at Blue Mountain, Ontario.
Larger-scale energy management efforts that significantly alter a ski area’s energy usage are yet to be implemented in the industry. This report will investigate the feasibility of such projects.
Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):
Generation and Storage Technologies
Implementation of renewable generation alleviates grid dependency, creates a more reliable electric scheme, and reduces emissions. Wind technology has developed to the extent that it can now compete economically against traditional fossil fueled power plants as an energy source. Ski resorts have unique characteristics as prime locations for taking advantage of high wind capacity factors and open ridgelines for installation of tall towers.
Micro-hydro generation is a competitive technology because the infrastructure necessary is already in place to operate ski resorts snowmaking equipment. The available head and water flow rates on mountainous ski resorts is an attractive opportunity to incorporate a turbine with high mechanical to electric wire outputs. Pumped hydro is a supplemental opportunity to micro hydro as a storage mechanism for the vast amounts of energy available through hydro power. By pumping water to replenish reservoirs at off peak times, the stored energy can be released through the turbines during high peak times for energy generation. Coupling of these technologies leads to significantly short payback periods when they are phased in, with each technology having high return on investments.
Selection Criteria
The different technologies were selected based on their commercial availability, ease of integration into the current system, economics and emissions characteristics. The technologies had to be commercially available on a relatively large scale to reduce capital costs. These technologies are proven to be reliable, robust commodities with an average lifetime of 20-30 years.
Each technology selected was to have a payback period of less than three years. The technologies also had to be as environmentally friendly as possible. Thus, renewable technologies were explored that significantly reduce the total amount of pollutants per unit of energy use.
Economics
Ski resorts usually have a simple payback period restriction of 2-3 years. Since most renewable generation and storage technologies are relatively expensive, innovative designs were constructed to couple different technologies, bringing the payback period down 2-3 years.
To determine the economic feasibility of each technology, they were assessed by their capital costs, operation and maintenance costs, balance of plant costs and their average annual savings. It was assumed that the resort would pay the entire cost of the system upfront. The operation and maintenance costs were set between 1-5 % of the total capital costs, depending on the systems operational characteristics. The balance of plant costs associated with the additional equipment required to integrate the technology into the current infrastructure was included in the capital costs.
To determine the annual savings for each technology a capacity factor was calculated, which provides information on how many hours per year the given technology can produce its maximum rated electricity out put. The electricity produced by the different technologies can either be used directly onsite to offset the total electric energy use, or it can be sold back to the utility. For example, it could be more profitable to use the electricity onsite during peak demand periods, because both the overall use and demand charges are reduced. Yet, at night it might be more profitable to sell the electricity back to the utility because the peak demand is not set at not and the utility will pay $0.07/kWh, where if this electricity was used onsite it would only save them approximately $0028/kWh.
After the capacity factor was calculated, the peak demand savings were determined. If the technology can he turned on during peak demand periods to offset the load, they are considered dispatch able. The dispatch able technologies such as biomass can offset the peak demand charges every month, where the non-dispatch able technologies such as wind and solar have an inconsistent load profile that will vary from day to day, thus unless coupled with the appropriate storage mediums they cannot offset the peak demand charges every month.
The US also currently has a renewable energy production tax credit that will pay between $0.018/kWh-$0.009/kWh for the first ten years of system operation. Wind and solar technologies receive the larger incentive, while micro-hydro and biomass receive the lower. This incentive helps to bring the payback period down, and was included in the annual savings. The return on investment for each technology was then calculated by subtracting the operation and maintenance costs from the annual savings.
Conclusions:
A number of technologies are commercially available today that would enable ski areas to achieve economic and environmental benefits with reasonable payback periods. These paybacks do not account for potential ancillary benefits relating to such potentials as the marketability of sustainable ski area operations or the future cost of carbon.
Implementing these initiatives in phases can be beneficial, spreading the capital cost out over time and reducing the impact on a single year’s budget. In addition, earlier phases can help to finance later phases once they have reached the break-even point.
Regardless of the emissions requirements that a ski area’s energy provider is subject to. or even in the absence of renewable generation targets, a number of renewable technologies are well qualified for implementation. Due to the likely availability of wind, biomass, and high-potential- energy water resources at ski areas, technologies utilizing these resources deserve detailed investigation.
In addition to good payback and ROI characteristics, some of these technologies can also offer energy security by providing backup power during grid power interruptions. For example, a well placed biomass unit might maintain power to a ticket office during a power outage while lifts continue to operate on backup diesel. Providing for such critical power applications can be a significant competitive advantage.
Environmental benefits of implementing these technologies are primarily related to air emissions. Wind turbine and micro-hydro installations, without water pumping, can be said to offset emissions from traditional grid resources. Based on a typical energy provider’s portfolio, the installation of the four wind turbines described in the following section would offset 8,830 lb/yr SO2, 6,850 lb/yr NO, 3,880,680 lb/yr CO2. 456 lb/yr particulates, and 0.043 lb/yr of mercury. Actual offsets will vary depending on system characteristics, performance, and the resource portfolio of the energy provider. A biomass gasification system, though not zero emission, will likely represent a reduction in emissions over the offset grid power that is based primarily on coal.
Two of the biggest challenges facing the implementation of these technologies are: 1.) information gaps related to energy usage at ski areas. Essential to the implementation of such projects will he the development of research and audit-based resources that will provide ski areas with the information they need to perform good engineering analysis on energy related projects. 2.) Information gaps related to the technologies themselves. It is important that resources continue to be made available to ski areas to keep them informed on the latest technological developments. This includes the technologies evaluated in this study as well as those that were dismissed in the initial selection. Many technologies that might find applications in the ski industry are rapidly approaching the market, including fuel cells, improved batteries, and flywheels. These should not be ignored.
The near future is likely to see a significant increase in the number of sustainable distributed energy projects being implemented. Ski areas have opportune access to some very powerful resources and have the potential to he a significant part of this movement.
Proposed Phase II objectives and strategies:
In order for any of the ideas developed to come to implementation at a ski area, the detailed engineering work necessary will require a better information set based on actual audit data. Some ski areas will have great difficulty in developing the understanding of usage necessary to support serious engineering proposals for traditional energy management or innovative projects.
The resources are available at Colorado State University to fill this information gap for ski areas and thus facilitate the necessary understanding for the implementation of a myriad of energy projects. Building on the knowledge obtained in the Phase I case study at Vail, the Center for Networked Distributed Energy and the Net Energy senior design team will continue to investigate and quantify innovative concepts, keeping the industry well aware of cutting-edge options for energy management.
Further research and assessment will he continued at numerous local ski resorts. Data will he collected and analyzed for potential implementation scenarios. Actual project implementations are probably a number of years away. Deliverables for the first year would include at least two workshops, hopefully at the Nation Ski Areas Association conferences, to develop stakeholder awareness and interest. Audit results from a number of ski areas would also be delivered to support the industry as a whole with appropriate baseline data for energy analyses. Finally, the next NetEnergy senior design team would continue to refine specific opportunities and seek to bring the baseline audit data together with the technology evaluation in an actual implementation.
Supplemental Keywords:
Energy engineering, pollution prevention, sustainability, air, ambient air, atmosphere, global climate, combined heat and power, compressed air energy storage, micro-hydro, solar, wind turbines, renewable energy, energy storage, biomass,, Scientific Discipline, INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION, Sustainable Industry/Business, POLLUTION PREVENTION, cleaner production/pollution prevention, Energy, Economics and Business, Ecology and Ecosystems, Environmental Engineering, snow making alternative technologies, cleaner production, environmentally friendly technology, clean technology, emission controls, energy efficiency, engineering, energy storage, air emissions, ski industry, environmental management plan, environmentally conscious designThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.