{"id":23911,"date":"2018-02-08T13:16:33","date_gmt":"2018-02-08T21:16:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/?p=23911"},"modified":"2020-05-22T13:06:29","modified_gmt":"2020-05-22T20:06:29","slug":"ski-resorts-turn-to-renewable-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/snowsports\/ski-resorts-turn-to-renewable-energy","title":{"rendered":"Squaw Valley Ski Resort Partners with Tesla on Renewable Energy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Squaw Valley announces a new battery storage system that will help the ski area to rely on 100 percent renewable energy.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s face it. Operating a ski resort requires a lot of energy to power chairlifts and hotels, water for snowmaking, and gas for groomers and snowmobiles. But over the years, many ski resorts have realized their responsibility and duty to be environmental stewards, despite\u2014or perhaps because of\u2014that large footprint.<\/p>\n

This week, California\u2019s Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows announced plans to partner with Tesla and the area\u2019s Liberty Utilities to build a new battery storage system high up on the mountain. Called the Olympic Valley Microgrid Project, and still pending approval from local regulatory agencies, it would store up to 8 megawatts of energy generated from a variety of sources, including solar. All that energy would be returned to the area\u2019s power grid, providing back-up power to the resort and surrounding community in the event of an electricity outage. The battery system supports Squaw\u2019s recently announced<\/a> goal to run on 100 percent renewable energy as early as December 2018, by utilizing solar energy and working to cut its carbon footprint nearly in half.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe take accountability for our company\u2019s contribution to CO2, hence our longstanding and unyielding internal focus on reducing our overall footprint,\u201d Andy Wirth, Squaw Valley\u2019s president and COO, said in a statement. \u201cWe\u2019re glad to finally advance on this key, strategic level changeover to 100 percent renewably-sourced energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The proposed Olympic Valley Microgrid Project. Photo Credit: Squaw Valley<\/p><\/div>\n

In a press conference at Squaw Valley on Monday, Wirth said to the crowd, \u201cHow do we reduce our carbon footprint, not just as a company, but also as a community? How do we create more reliability and resiliency in our grid?\u201d The answer, he said, was through this partnership with the local utility company and tech giant Tesla, which is in the process of constructing the massive battery-producing Tesla Gigafactory<\/a> outside of Reno, Nevada, less than an hour from the snow-covered slopes of Squaw Valley. The batteries used on-site at Squaw Valley will be manufactured in the Gigafactory, which is already producing batteries, with construction on the whole project aiming to be completed by 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the Tesla Gigafactory, it shows that this is more than a promise,\u201d said Wirth. \u201cIt\u2019s becoming real. Renewable energy is affordable now. This kind of storage and backup is being produced by Tesla just down the road right now. Why would we set our sights on 2030? If it\u2019s affordable and doable now, why aren\u2019t we doing it now?\u201d<\/p>\n

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A Tesla lithium-ion battery system. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Tesla<\/p><\/div>\n

Tesla has been deploying more and more energy storage projects around the world, including a recent 100-megawatt project in Australia<\/a> that\u2019s become the largest lithium-ion battery system in the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt Tesla, we started working with energy storage seven or eight years ago. When we first started working in that space, we saw it as an inevitable part of the future,\u201d says JB Straubel, co-founder and chief technology officer at Tesla. \u201cYou can\u2019t get to renewable energy without that storage. So, this is something we\u2019re very excited about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Squaw represents a growing trend of ski resorts committing to major energy-changing initiatives. In July, Vail Resorts announced its plan to achieve net-zero emissions across its 14 resorts by 2030 and purchase 100 percent renewable energy over the next few years. Before Whistler was purchased by Vail Resorts, Whistler Blackcomb built a micro-hydroelectric plant in 2010 to return to the grid the equivalent of the resort\u2019s annual energy needs, an estimated 32 gigawatt hours.<\/p>\n

Colorado\u2019s Aspen Skiing Company has been leading the way in this category for years. In 2004, Aspen built the first solar array in the ski industry, inside ski patrol headquarters at the top of Aspen Highlands. They then added a micro-hydroelectric plant to generate electricity from snowmelt at Snowmass, Colorado. In 2012, they built a $5.5 million coal mine methane plant that they say produces enough carbon-negative energy (which actually helps remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere) from waste methane gas to eliminate three times the resort\u2019s annual carbon footprint. Aspen Skiing Company is currently at work lobbying the Colorado Public Utilities Commission to close two coal-burning power plants in the state.<\/p>\n

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Aspen Skiing Company uses carbon-negative energy from waste methane gas. Photo Credit: Jeremy Swanson<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s great resorts are doing clean power, but we\u2019re still missing this big opportunity, which is to push hard on policy and use that bigger voice more coherently as an industry. It\u2019s not enough to just zero out your carbon footprint. That\u2019s yesterday\u2019s approach,\u201d Auden Schendler, Aspen Skiing Company\u2019s vice president of sustainability, told the Co-op Journal. \u201cTomorrow\u2019s approach is using your political power and reach to lean hard on policy makers to pass aggressive climate policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mega resorts aren\u2019t the only ones working on renewable energy. Tiny, family-owned Berkshire East, in Charlemont, Massachusetts, became the first ski area in the country to generate 100 percent of its electricity from on-site renewable energy when they installed a wind turbine in 2010. They followed that up with a solar array in 2013, and they\u2019ve recently won a grant from GE Energy Services to build a microgrid battery system.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t just altruistically make such a significant investment in renewable energy. It made financial sense for us, too,\u201d says Jon Schaefer, general manager of Berkshire East. \u201cIt\u2019s like there were $5 bills sitting on the ground waiting to be picked up. For us, it guaranteed the price of power for Berkshire East over the next 25 years. Snowmaking is such an energy intensive and key part of our existence, so to guarantee the price of power as a hedge against future increases was a good bet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back at Squaw, the decision to rely on renewable energy\u2014and reduce its total annual carbon footprint from 13,078 metric tons to an estimated 6,682 metric tons\u2014will help the bottom line, too, says Wirth. \u201cWe think ultimately this is a good, honorable effort and frankly, it\u2019s also affordable,\u201d Wirth said.<\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Squaw Valley announces a new battery storage system that will help the ski area to rely on 100 percent renewable energy. Let\u2019s face it. Operating a ski resort requires a lot of energy to power chairlifts and hotels, water for snowmaking, and gas for groomers and snowmobiles. But over the years, many ski resorts have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":24008,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[846,727,59,364],"internal-tag":[1683],"class_list":["post-23911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-snowsports","tag-environment","tag-latest-posts","tag-ski","tag-snowsports","internal-tag-pre-redirect-snowsports"],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/rei.com\/blog\/snowsports\/ski-resorts-turn-to-renewable-energy","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Squaw Valley Ski Resort Partners with Tesla on Renewable Energy","url":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/snowsports\/ski-resorts-turn-to-renewable-energy","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/snowsports\/ski-resorts-turn-to-renewable-energy"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/02\/20180125_EIPSVAMSquawNewSnow_0102.jpg?resize=150%2C150","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/02\/20180125_EIPSVAMSquawNewSnow_0102.jpg?fit=4256%2C2832"},"articleSection":"Snowsports","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Michelle Flandreau"}],"creator":["Michelle Flandreau"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Uncommon Path \u2013 An REI Co-op Publication","logo":""},"keywords":["environment","latest posts","ski","snowsports"],"dateCreated":"2018-02-08T21:16:33Z","datePublished":"2018-02-08T21:16:33Z","dateModified":"2020-05-22T20:06:29Z"},"rendered":"