“Where others see credit risk, we see untapped rural load centers—dispatchable microgrids that enhance grid reliability while directly addressing ski areas’ greatest threat: a warming climate.”
— B. David Miller, Principal, CutPeak Energy

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About Us

About CutPeak Energy

CutPeak Energy is a lifeline for struggling indie ski areas—often rural, locally owned resorts facing warming winters, rising energy costs, and the ever-present threat of consolidation by Big Money.

These indie operations are responsible for their rising energy bills, aging snowmaking infrastructure, and increasingly Epic and Ikon-ic competition. These rural resorts are economic and cultural anchors—supporting regional jobs, small businesses, and year-round recreation affordable for the locals. But they face escalating temperatures, more frequent warm spells, and exclusion from traditional financing and lending.

Snowmaking now accounts for 50–70% of electricity usage at most ski areas. Over 90% of skiable terrain in the Northeast depends on blown snow. Yet many resorts cannot operate snowmaking at full capacity when it matters most—due to feeder constraints, demand spikes, and unaffordable energy rates.

Traditional energy developers avoid these sites entirely, often due to non-investment-grade credit, seasonal volatility, and the inability to underwrite merchant revenue.

The current downward cycle:
Warm weather → Insufficient or expensive power → Limited or costly snowmaking → Fewer ski days → Lowering revenue → Limiting credit → No investment → Diminished local economic impact → Closure or consolidation

CutPeak was designed to save slopes facing this uphill battle.

The CutPeak Upward Cycle:
Battery-backed warm weather snowmaking → Reliable early base + energy peak shaving → More ski days → Higher revenue → Lower energy charges + Summer grid revenue → Improved credit & confidence → Reinvestment in operations → Stronger local economy → Indie ownership preserved

We design and deploy behind-the-meter battery storage systems structured around:

1. Snowmaking-centric dispatch and demand charge reduction
2. No-CAPEX project structures repaid via realized savings and grid revenue
3. Backup power during winter outages and summer heat waves

CutPeak helps resorts unlock the energy value of their land and infrastructure—stabilizing ski operations and generating more operational revenue. Just as critically, we recognize and embolden the ski resort’s community value: money staying local, affordable enjoyment, and jobs in small businesses and entrepreneurial ventures—the bedrock of a functioning democracy.

Founder Background

CutPeak Energy was founded by Brett David Miller, an avid skier and downhill race coach, who by age 26 had built and owned the largest private employer in East Timor—a 4,000 person unarmed security company— responsible for protecting the fledgling young democracy’s critical infrastructure, including the UN peacekeeping mission, telecommunications, hospitals, banks, and essential systems for food, water, and electricity.

Miller later founded and scaled a facility services firm in Myanmar (Burma) at the relaxation of US economic sanctions, fostered it’s growth to 750 employees in under three years, then sold the company to a $2 billion global integrated facilities management provider—after bringing in superior, operationally proficient leadership to continue its growth.

Returning to the U.S., Miller jumped into energy by joining the nation’s leading techno-economic modeling platform in distributed energy, analyzing hundreds of properties to output CFO-ready feasibility studies for solar, storage, generator, wind, and advanced behind-the-meter microgrid systems.

Following that Miller joined Generac Industrial Power to spearhead business development for the commercial and industrial battery energy storage system (BESS) and microgrid division, leading channel partnerships with the top national developers, financiers, and engineering/procurement/construction firms.

It was in the role with Generac that Miller saw the gap: indie ski areas weren’t even being approached by energy developers—because they lacked the Moody’s ratings.

CutPeak Energy was founded to change that.