Snowbird increases power by 270%
Background
Located 29 miles east of Salt Lake City in the Wasatch Mountains, Snowbird ski resort is one of North America’s most accessible alpine resorts, with year-round access to 2,500 acres of mountain terrain.
Since 1986, the resort was powered by a 1.9-megawatt cogeneration plant featuring Cat G399 gas generator sets. The gensets logged nearly 300,000 hours, which is double the 120,000-hour expected operational life, so when the time came to update the resort’s power system, the resort leveraged Cat’s technology and expertise again with a focus on sustainability.
Solution
To meet Snowbird’s sustainability and efficiency goals, Wheeler Power Systems built and installed a new, custom-designed, 5.3-megawatt cogeneration facility that features two Cat G3520H units and a Cat G3512H, all synchronized and paralleled. The plant also includes Cat switchgear, high-efficiency boilers, heat exchangers, pumps, control valves, and electronic controls.
The new facility lets Snowbird create its own power and recycle the waste heat from the gensets to heat its buildings and water, raising the efficiency of the combined heat and power to 80-85 percent.
Results
The new cogeneration plant produces 270 percent more power than its predecessor while cutting the resort’s carbon footprint in half and saving 62,000 dekatherms of natural gas a year—the equivalent of removing the emissions of 789 passenger vehicles for one year.
The upgraded plant also reduces Snowbird’s dependency on the traditional electric grid, meaning that the resort is almost entirely energy independent, more efficient, and coal free. In all, Snowbird’s power system can supply anywhere from 60 to 90 percent of the resort’s energy requirements during the busy winter season, and up to 100 percent of its summer energy needs.
| Before – Running Since 1986 | After – Upgrade Completed 2021 |
Testimonial
“We know from our prior plant that these newer Cat gensets are going to run a lot longer than their expected lives, so we’re really excited about this new plant, and a lot of that really comes down to Caterpillar making great engines—but also the expertise of Wheeler, their technician teams and our Snowbird power generation group. This was a once-in-a-lifetime project. It was a real pleasure working with the Wheeler team. They were here through rain or shine, pandemics and earthquakes, and through two big ski seasons where we had a lot of snow avalanches. So, it was really good having a partner that works with you through your resort operations to complete a project of this magnitude.”
Nima Mahak, Director of Village Operations for Snowbird
