Snowmaking automation is still a relatively new phenomenon in North America. But it is gaining ground as resorts look to trim energy and labor costs, reduce environmental impact, and maximize operational productivity.

Automation can be pursued on many levels and in a variety of ways. The basic components of an automated system include:

• Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC) for on/off functionality

• a computer with control software

• communications networking between controls and equipment

• weather station(s)

• hydrant/valve controls

These can be applied in the snowmaking plant, guns, hydrants and valves, in various combinations, or all of the above. How’s that for flexibility?


PUMPS AND COMPRESSORS
The current trend is to upgrade or retrofit existing systems to newer technologies rather than to install completely new systems, says Joe Cousins of Torrent Engineering & Equipment. (Pumps and compressors, he notes, haven’t changed in a long time. What is changing, he says, is how we use them.)

“We’re working with operations and making changes right through the winter season, and we never used to do that,” he says. “I had crews in Tremblant [in January] upgrading half their system to a new automatic setup, bringing it up to current technology so it can all be networked by fiber optic and viewed on mobile PCs and the web, so that we [Torrent] don’t have to send anyone up there to troubleshoot.”

A popular plant retrofit is automation of pumphouses via the installation of Variable Frequency Drives (VFDs) on pumps combined with Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs). This upgrade allows the pump to maintain constant pressure to meet the demands of the system, saving energy by reducing demand when not needed and vice versa. It’s made a big difference in plant energy use. At Bristol Mountain, head snowmaker Ken Keenan estimated the upgrade saved up to 60 to 70 percent by matching load to demand. (For more, see “Better Snow, Less Cost,” SAM July 2008.)

Camelback, Pa., has been investing strategically in energy-efficient technologies and is just starting to add automation as part of that initiative. Bill Toye, director of mountain operations, started by building a new pumphouse (which had to be done anyway for the area’s waterpark expansion) and buying three new high-horsepower pumps.

The pumps (three new, three old) were outfitted with VFDs and PLCs, a move that he estimates has saved about 10 to 15 percent in energy costs simply by better managing the pumps’ performance. The PLCs allow him to run the right mix of pumping capacity at the right time for the right trail. Prior to that, he was basically running a pump per trail.

“It greatly improved our snowmaking the first year we did that,” he says. “It blew me away.”

With the pumphouse automation in place—with an estimated five to 10 year payback—Camelback began upgrading the snowgun fleet to low-e air-water and fan guns, a move that Toye estimates will eliminate 50,000 gallons of diesel fuel from the area’s operations this season. Some of those guns are automation-ready, so when Camelback is ready to make the investment in on-hill automation, the infrastructure will be in place.

“Right now we’re trying to get the system running as efficiently as we can on manual mode,” Toye says. “We have to get that right first. Once you do that, then it’s very easy to automate, either through a master central computer with simple line flooding or hydrant automation.”

“Camelback has been really open to automation,” says Ismael Fréchette of Turbocristal, Inc. “They know that, in the future, it will be the best way for them to make the most of their resources, like electricity, air and water.”


SNOWGUNS AND AUTOMATIC CONTROLS
On-hill automation can be approached in a variety of ways: start/stop automation of guns, snow quality adjustment automation, hydrant automation, central or distributed intelligence, and communications automation. Semi-automa- tion might use a combination of these things (start/stop automation combined with hydrant automation, but manual adjustment) while full automation incorporates all of the above, both in the pumphouse and on-hill.

In semi-automation, you can automate the parts of the system that make the most sense for your resort. For instance, if getting things up and running quickly is your primary concern, then automating the pumphouse and start/stop functionality is a good place to start.

If snow quality is a primary concern and your system consists of air/water guns, then water flow adjustment might be your main automation objective. Simple line flooding strategies via valve automation has become a common upgrade, says Joe Tropeano of Larchmont Engineering, because it is easy and inexpensive. “That’s the biggest direction we’re seeing ski areas go in terms of automation,” he says.

However, if getting the most snow on the mountain for the greatest length of season in a highly variable climate is your goal, then full automation of the entire system could be the right investment.


WHAT’S THE ROI?
In general, there’s about a 20 to 40 percent premium on automated equipment, says Joe VanderKelen of SMI Snowmakers. If you are talking about a fully intelligent snow gun, this can be a significant cost. But the return for that investment, he says, is more hours of operation, improved snow quality, plus labor and energy savings from running the equipment for fewer hours. Automated equipment can save approximately 20 to 30 percent in energy costs alone.

To truly calculate the ROI of making such an investment, he says, “I would encourage resorts to try and understand what an acre-foot of snow costs them today, so we have something to judge them against as a relative data point.”

Even then, judging ROI in snowmaking is difficult, as Jay Roberts, vice president of mountain operations at Wintergreen, Va., knows. Wintergreen is 100 percent automated—there isn’t a manual gun on the hill. (For a detailed report, see “Put It on Autopilot,” SAM, July 2007).

The benefits are both concrete and abstract. Wintergreen spent more than $5 million on the system, and saw labor costs drop by 85 percent in the first year. Operating costs dropped by 45 percent. Yet snowmaking productivity shot up 100 percent and resort revenues rose 70 percent (other upgrades factored into the rise as well).

But more abstract benefits (in a financial sense) include quantifying the area’s snowmaking—Roberts knows exactly how much snow is being made where and when, and can go back to that data in the future when it’s time to make critical snowmaking decisions. And quite simply, the snow quality is way better, and guest satisfaction higher.

Estimating ROI, in the end, depends on your resort’s unique priorities. “You can open twice the trail count and double the snow production in the same operating hours as a manual system,” says Jim Horton of Johnson Controls snowmaking. “If your revenue depends on how many trails you have open, and the quality of snow on them, and the quality of the skier experience, then automation is about generating revenue.”

Key considerations in creating an ROI estimate involving automation:

• Would opening your resort earlier justify the investment in automation? Many resorts cite this as their number-one justification.

• Are your labor costs too high? Is it hard to get seasonal staff? Does a volatile local climate mean poor snow quality? Perhaps automated air-water tower guns will help solve the problem. (“With automation,” says Geir Vik, CEO of Technoalpin, “you can remake your mountain over and over again in season without killing yourself labor-wise.”)

• On the flip side, does your operation warrant automation? A small system based on older technology might require a complete overhaul.


TIME IS MONEY
Remember that automation is just one aspect of energy efficiency, says Ian Jarrett of HKD Snowmakers. You can’t gain energy efficiencies through automation with old, horsepower-sucking guns and outdated plants, so the first step in automation is replacing guns with more efficient models. “Once you gain efficiency,” he says, “what automation then really impacts is your time.”

In that respect, automation can be invaluable. Alta has employed automation since the mid-’90s. It runs a mix of Lenko and TechnoAlpin fully automatic fan guns and low-e towers, all controlled by computer at a remote location—and by extension, anywhere with a web connection. The system’s valves, pump houses and reservoir supply are all automated as well.

Snowmaking and vehicle operations supervisor Buck Boley says the greatest benefit is simply “making the best use of limited resources like water, power and people.” The resort opens earlier and makes more with less—two key benefits in any ski resort operation. Plus, it’s given him the opportunity to see his family a bit more in the winter.

“I like being able to monitor the system from home at night because that's a nice time to be at home with my family, but it's also often the best time to make snow,” he says. “Web-based software allows me to do that. And if I need to get on the phone with the crew that's on the mountain, I can do that, too.”


OPTIMIZING WINDOWS
The single greatest benefit of partial or full automation is making the most of snowmaking opportunities. That’s what Chris Bates, general manager of Cataloochee Ski Area in North Carolina, was searching for.

Cataloochee’s snowmaking windows are short, sometimes only five or six hours; the area can run its system all night only in rare instances. With manual guns, he says, it would take an hour to get started and as long to shut down, effectively limiting the opportunities to take advantage of small windows.

Now, with 92 tower fan guns (with on board compressors, allowing him to take out his air compression plant), including 30 automated guns on the main trail, automated hydrants and updated electrical and communications lines, “We’re capturing all those hours ,” he says. “With our automated stuff we go from pumping nothing to pumping almost 800 gallons in five minutes. And we’re more likely to push the other side too—we run until it’s too warm to make snow.”

Since installing the system a few years ago, Cataloochee has experienced a 40 percent increase in business, thanks in part to gaining a much earlier opening day (late October/early November versus mid-December). It has gone from from 600 snowmaking hours a year and 90 days of skiing to 1000 hours of snowmaking and more than 125 days of skiing. At the same time, it reduced its snowmaking team from eight to four—although Bates is careful to note that has not resulted in a decrease in payroll, only a decrease in man-hours. Team members now have greater technical skills and are on year-round, and are paid accordingly.

In return for the investment in the new system, the area gained a valuable ROI: “We stopped running our air compressors,” he says. “We financed the purchase of the guns, and we were able to take the money we were paying the power company for the compressors and pay the payment balance on the guns. We had very fast payback on the system.”

Labor is often cited as one of the main reasons that a mountain resort operation will seek to automate its snowmaking. But remaining staff must understand both the new and traditional methods. “The reality is that you have a machine that is supposed to be doing something, but if there is a weak link—either in communication from the main computer or a sensor fails—the snowmaker has to go there and problem solve,” points out Ed Dietzel of Areco Snownet Group.


MANAGING THE ENERGY LOAD
Even with Colorado’s cool winter temperatures and elevation, automatic snowmaking has been a good investment for Keystone, says head snowmaker Bill LeClair. The resort started with installing 215 automatic hydrants in ’94 and has since expanded to 393, covering about 30 percent of the resort’s snowmaking acreage. The entire system (including the plant) is centrally controlled, via communications lines, and monitored from an on-mountain control room.

The biggest advantage is in the pre- and early-season, says LeClair, because that’s the time the resort can really benefit from the cost savings that automation brings in terms of energy efficiency (in addition to the increased productivity during snowmaking windows). “It really helps manage electricity at that time of the year,” he says. “With the electrical rates the way they are now, managing that and maintaining peak voltage is a huge thing. That’s really the reason we turned the corner to automation.”

As the examples above illustrate, automation can be approached on many levels. Resorts, snowmakers, engineers and suppliers have the tools to craft good solutions.

-Katie Bailey 

 

Automation Considerations
1) Auto systems use a sophisticated combination of instrumentation, PLCs, communication networks, computers and software. Maintaining/troubleshooting these systems, except for the simplest cases, is beyond the ability of most ski areas, and requires a reputable and responsive vendor to provide service on a yearly or as-needed basis.

2) Instrumentation calibration and reliability directly impact the performance of an auto system. Garbage in, slush out. Count on yearly instrumentation calibration/checks. This is where web-based or remote-access systems are worth their cost.

3) Control room operators are a valuable mountain resource—they are trained to operate your system and understand its inner workings. These operators are rare birds and worth keeping on a year-round basis. Same applies to snowmakers who work with ‘intelligent’ snow guns. Higher education level requires higher pay, and perhaps more coddling.

4) Communication systems are the heart and soul of an auto system. Who will maintain/repair this system when the Murphys arrive? What happens when lightning knocks out instrumentation and communications? Much can be done to isolate these systems, but nothing is perfect. Have expertise readily available.

5) Web-based and web-accessed systems require stringent access controls to keep out computer viruses. There is a growing concern about future cell phone and PDA viruses. Do not allow process control computers to be used for games, surfing, music etc. Provide a separate computer for these activities and nighttime amusement; you will sleep better for it.

6) Ensure that an auto system has a redundant manual backup and analog gauges. Backup systems are important for VFD systems as well as intelligent snow guns/hydrants.

7) Most VFD pump control systems utilize a single pump for control purposes and water filling. This can add a substantial amount of time to fill/charge an extensive system with water—be aware of this limitation and how to get around it if need be.

8) Keep an inventory, as large as necessary, of important computer, PLC, and electrical components. Next day delivery is very useful, but useless when you need a component now. Most instruments have a longer lead time—like a week to ten days.

9) Protect computers and PLC components with power conditioners, backup power supplies and isolators in the event of power spikes and transients. A power spike may shut down your pumps and compressors, but the computers and PLCs will be ready for an immediate system restart.

10) Keep a separate spare hard drive or backup computer loaded with your auto system in the unlikely event of a Murphy visit. Backup your system on a regular basis so as to retain valuable operational data. Have instructions on hand for the hookup of all peripheral components should this be required.

—Yaroslav Stanchak