Snow Making At 30 Celcius Introduced In The Alps
Thursday, September 11th, 2008
A remarkable new snowmaking system has been installed on the glaciers at Zermatt and Ischgl this summer and both are scheduled to begin operating in the next few weeks, with both resorts already open for the 2008-9 season.
The IDE snowmaking system was developed almost by accident by an Israeli company best known for its water desalination products. It created a cooling system for a South African gold mine in the 1990s, which to their surprise and the delight of surfacing miners, produced snow as a by-product under the scorching African sun.
With no ski industry experience it took a while to modify the system for ski resorts, and indeed to persuade ski resorts to take it seriously. But with melting glaciers a major concern both resorts have forked out over a million Euros each for the IDE system which uses no chemicals and consumes about the same power as an average home.
“As of late autumn the glacier slope comes to a halt approx. 500 meters before the mountain station, forcing skiers to cover the remaining stretch by foot,” said Christen Bauman, CEO of Zermatt Mountain Resort AG. “This is definitely not an ideal situation“. Daniel Luggen, Zermatt Tourism Director, added, ” We definitely saw a decrease in bookings for the usually very popular ski tests that take place between October and December. We have to offer our guests an enjoyable ski experience and this innovative technology could not have come at a better time.”
IDE’s All Weather Snowmaker is based on a 15-year proven, proprietary Vacuum Ice Maker (VIM) technology which utilizes vacuum conditions to generate snow. This economical and ecological technology uses water as refrigerant. Inside the VIM, a high vacuum induces the phenomenon of the triple point of water, where vapor, liquid and ice coexist. Some of the water evaporates, while the remaining water freezes. Ice-water slurry is formed and pumped out of the VIM into a snow concentrator which separates the water from the snow crystals, extracting high quality snow.
“Reliable snow at all ambient temperatures is becoming more and more of an issue for our area. Consequently the purchase of this snowmaker system has generated a lot of interest in the region,” said Willi Krueger, Marketing Manager of the Pitztal Glacier. He said the resort decided on the IDE system following the warm autumn months of 2006 and the subsequent lack of snow.
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