HANOVER, N.H. - The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center's Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) recently provided a facility for principals of Snow Logic in Park City, Utah, to demonstrate their snowmaking technology, while local snowmakers from Killington Mountain Resort & Ski Area were at the lab to view the newest snow gun in action.
Within the laboratory’s Ice Engineering Facility, a refrigerated test room provided the needed 26-degree Fahrenheit air temperature, an 80- by 160-foot space, and 50-degree Fahrenheit water for making snow.
The cost of snowmaking is a significant portion of a ski area’s operating budget. The tests conducted at CRREL may provide viable technologies to reduce those operating costs.
According to Snow Logic’s Mitch Dodson, president and principle design engineer, the conventional snow gun uses 60 kilowatts versus his company’s newest snow gun that uses just 1 kilowatt.
“With energy-efficient and portable ground units [snow guns], like the one we are demonstrating here today, we can make snow sooner in the season and cheaper.”