Preface — The Ski Area’s Energy Challenge

What you’ll learn:

• The ski area pains, gains, and research CutPeak has done
• The CutPeak Energy value proposition
• Our promise to the ski area

01Why this matters

A ski area’s energy strategy must begin with the operating reality of the ski area itself, not just its unused grid infrastructure. Ski areas must blow snow when the weather allows, and water and power are available because its core to the ski area’s continued operation. Trails are open, and remain open, when there’s a safe and enjoyable snow base.

The snowmaking triangle

1. Weather
2. Water
3. Power

• Weather is warming and becoming more erratic with extreme events of cold and warmth. Ski areas are expanding snowmaking in response.
• Water is limited given the expanded demand from snowmaking. Ski areas are adding water catchment, storage, and retention.
• Power is limited and utility demand charges are surging in price at the same time a ski area is adding pumps and compressors to expand snowmaking.

When the snowmaking window opens, the mountain has to act. You do not throttle back to manage the bill if doing so risks losing the snow base, the holiday week, the race program, or the season. You make snow.

That is why the energy problem at a ski area is different from the energy problem at most commercial buildings. You must act with urgency.

A normal commercial building may want lower consumption. A ski area needs enough power to make snow when the weather allows it, enough resilience to keep critical systems operating when power is interrupted, and enough financial flexibility to allow the mountain to have it without taking on project debt that risks the future.

02The ski area pains

Demand Charges: The universal pain for a ski area is the rising cost of demand and delivery charges because snowmaking creates large peaks in power demand. Those peaks occur in relatively short windows, but they shape the bill for the month, the season, and sometimes longer depending on the utility tariff rate structure.

Utility Curtailment: The most impactful pain is utility curtailment, if it’s an issue.Some face utility curtailment when the mountain needs power most because they’re on a rural feeder and everyone in the valley is cranking the heat at the same time snow needs to blow.

Backup Power: Some need backup power not because they want to run the entire ski area during an outage, but because they need enough time to protect pumps, drain lines, keep pipes from freezing, and avoid operational damage.

Lack of Credit: The financial pain sits underneath all of it. Independent and family-run ski areas often have the most urgent need for infrastructure investment, but the least access to conventional financing. Traditional energy developers see weather risk, seasonal revenue, merchant uncertainty, and non-investment-grade credit. They don’t serve these ski areas due to trouble underwriting the risk.

Enter CutPeak Energy.

03The ski area gain

A ski area with a large electrical service, a severe snowmaking load, and underused grid interconnection capacity sits on a valuable energy asset. The same infrastructure that enables large snowmaking loads has value during the rest of the year.

That value comes in three forms of varying relevance to a ski area:

• Revenue: enroll the battery in grid services to trade on the wholesale market and respond to utility programs.
• Savings: reduce peak demand and save money on your utility bill.
• Resiliency: reliable backup power to enable snowmaking and critical loads.

04Some mountains are in need of upgrading their existing electrical infrastructure for snowmaking, and they could gain a return on investment that supports the snowmaking expansion.

05What CutPeak Energy has learned

CutPeak began with a narrow, practical question: Can batteries be used to drastically reduce the cost of snowmaking?

The short answer is typically yes, but the better answer is more strategic.

Snowmaking can push load 10x or more above normal winter operations. Those peaks are not always short. They may last many hours or multiple days. That means short-duration storage alone will not give a ski area the resiliency and peak shaving ability they need to realize meaningful savings.

Once you size the system for operational requirement: the snowmaking demand and expansion, you realize the need for a longer duration battery.

If a ski area has costly snowmaking peaks, it is likely to have a large grid interconnection. That interconnection is sized for the heaviest used winter hours, but it exists all year. During the rest of the year, the ski area may be using only a small portion of the capacity it already maintains, for say, mountain biking.

Once you see that clearly, the question changes.

The question is no longer only: How do we reduce demand charges?

The question becomes: What should this electrical infrastructure be doing for the ski area when it is not being used for snowmaking?

06The CutPeak Energy value proposition

CutPeak Energy helps ski areas understand, protect, and monetize their energy infrastructure.

That work can include energy strategic planning (complimentary), interconnection analysis, storage and microgrid development, project financing, incentive strategy, and long-term operations, maintenance, aggregation, and support.

In simple terms, CutPeak helps a ski area answer three practical questions:

• What’s the value of my existing infrastructure?
• What are my options and best strategy to support snowmaking expansion?
• What project structure protects the ski area while creating the most upside for them?

That may lead to a CutPeak-developed storage project. It may lead to a no-CAPEX structure. It may lead to a host-to-own structure. It may lead to a third-party interconnection lease. It may lead to a decision to derisk and collect data before doing anything.

The right answer depends on the mountain.

07Our promise to the ski area

CutPeak will act in the ski area’s fiduciary interest. Our mission is to help you survive warming winters.

We believe ski areas should own their own electrical infrastructure including their energy storage; however, we realize that many ski areas can’t afford the risk or debt. So, we can finance the project and offer it no-capex to the ski area, monetize the tax credits and incentives, and give you the exclusive right to purchase it any time after five years.

Our role is to help operators make informed decisions — not force products, maximize equipment sales, or create dependency on outside vendors.

If a project does not make operational or financial sense for the ski area, we will say so.

We are building CutPeak Energy to help independent and family-run mountains survive warming winters — not extract value from them.

08What operators should do first

Before evaluating any energy project, start with the operating question.

Do you need lower costs, more snowmaking capacity, backup power, revenue from unused infrastructure, or a better understanding of your options before you commit? Set your objectives and be ready to communicate them.

Then gather the your site data:

• electric bills
• load interval data (might take some effort and time)
• meter and account numbers
• electrical diagrams (site plan and one-line diagrams, if available)
• nameplate information (major loads and sources of onsite generation)
• known utility constraints or curtailment history

That is enough to begin turning the energy conversation into a strategy.

09Key takeaway