Bromont, montagne d’expériences: when energy efficiency rhymes with big savings
Bromont, a mountain of experiences, is a true gem in the Eastern Townships. The ski area boasts 144 runs, including 33 glades, 99 floodlit runs and 8 snow parks on 7 slopes.
With such a vast ski area, you’ll understand that the energy consumption of such a business is enormous. We’re talking about 11 lifts and 101 floodlit runs. However, as a corporate citizen, this has not prevented him from questioning the optimization of these resources. That’s why Bromont, montagne d’expériences decided to take part in Hydro-Québec’s Power Demand Management (PDM) Rate Option program to modulate its power demand during extreme cold.
In the end, the company’s efforts enabled it to generate significant savings, which translated into $861,840 in compensation over 4 years!
Technirep’s contribution
At Technirep, we’re proud to boast that we’ve helped the Eastern Townships company become a better consumer by improving its electricity consumption.
Snow pits
Many of Bromont’s ski lifts are equipped with boarding carpets. To avoid mechanical problems, snow pits are located underneath these loading mats. These pits are used to accumulate snow that falls from the carpets.
Prior to Technirep’s contribution, these snow pits were equipped with a heated concrete floor. The purpose of this floor was to melt the snow so that it would not accumulate and eventually block the carpet. However, this type of system is rather fragile as the earth moves, causing the concrete to crack and the heating cables to break.
Technirep’s contribution: we developed an infrared heating system to quickly melt the snow under the carpets. As it turns out, our system works perfectly, while consuming less energy.
Ski lifts
Each lift has its own engine room. This chamber contains mechanical and hydraulic components. However, this chamber needs to be kept at a temperature that is sometimes higher than the outside temperature to ensure that all its components function properly.
It turns out that these rooms were heated with electric unit heaters. In such a scenario, unit heaters should be avoided, as it is very difficult to keep the heat in these rooms. In many cases, there is simply no floor and the walls are not insulated.
Technirep’s contribution: we replaced the electric unit heaters with infrared heaters. As you know, the principle of infrared is to heat the masses, not the air. Thanks to our more efficient system, we’ve managed to significantly reduce the number of kilowatts needed to heat these rooms. In fact, we replaced several electric unit heaters ranging from 5 to 10 kW with our 2.5 kW short-wave infrared systems.