The CEO of Squaw Valley has sent a letter explaining an interruption of services and loss of power at one of their busiest times of year.
On December 30 at about 12:00pm, the power lost one “leg” from the bottom of Headwall to the upper mountain. We immediately pursued contingency plans to activate backup power, and contacted the power company, NV Energy. A fuse located on a power pole operated by NV Energy near Granite Chief Road had failed. It took us 30 minutes to locate the fuse following the failure, at which point the power company was already en route. Upon arrival, the power company repair crew replaced the fuse, which they found had melted. We were advised, based on the state of the melted fuse, that failure was attributable to a defective fuse and was not related to the mountain’s infrastructure or operations.
Good example of a disaster recovery plan failure; the energy company was wrong in their assessment and the mountain infrastructure was the problem. Power failed at about the same time the next day, indicating it was caused by load.
The same fuse failed again on December 31 at 11:00am. Again, our team immediately mobilized backup power supplies and generators. NV Energy was on site within 30 minutes. A decision was made to replace the fuse with a larger set, which had to be sourced and delivered. The process took about 30 additional minutes.
The three legs of power thus had to be upgraded to the larger fuse. The CEO did not explain the cause of load or why the larger fuses were necessary. Squaw Valley has initiated an audit of their infrastructure and operations. It could also be related to how the power company was handling a wider set of power outages in the region.
A similar incident happened last year, when the Kirkwood infrastructure was overloaded and overheated. Kirkwood runs on power from six diesel generators, however, and so it caused an explosion and giant fuel fireball, covering the mountain and visitors with pollution for several days. The Kirkwood Senior Vice President said their plan has been to migrate the resort to power lines.
Ultimately, Cohee said, the resort would like to maintain the diesel generators for back-up purposes only. For the last few years, Kirkwood has sought to connect to Pacific Gas & Electric’s power grid in the region. The move, which would mean burying power lines in federally owned forest land, is under environmental review.
It is a wonder the resorts do not work on developing locally-sourced energy. They often have to close due to high-winds, which seems like an ideal time to run windmills and generate power. The days without high-winds produce abundant sunshine, which seems like an ideal time to collect solar energy. Innovation could also improve the efficiency of lifts and the resort, with sources more independent and redundant, so less load would have to be pulled from a grid. Guests would be less at risk of emergency conditions even with a main-power outage.