Skilifts.org / SORT Forum

Great website! As a newbie I've been reading through the forums gaining knowledge and answers, from the many experts on this site, to questions I never thought of.

As spring skiing is in full bloom a question has once again come to mind. It's a question that gets pondered every spring as resorts slowly shut down their lifts, and runs, as the snow pack melts away.

What does it cost to keep a chairlift running in terms of power consumption? I realize that there are many many factors involved: length, load, speed, chair size, fixed - detachable, #starts/stops, temperature. I'm thinking there is probably a first order approximation equation that would give a ballpark number in terms of motor horsepower or better yet wattage (kilowatts) used for an average lift (my background is electrical). And at roughly six cents per kilowatt I could satisfy my decades of curiosity that peaks each spring when my favorite lifts cease to operate.

I've searched the internet but haven't found much yet. TIA - Brian

As a mechanic and not an engineer, my understanding of lifts' electical needs is superficial. That being said, here's an approximation of one of our lifts.

O-1 (1986 Poma detachable quad)
2 BBC 676-HP motors running on 480 VDC
1900' vertical
9900' slope length

Fully loaded (101 chairs on a side, each weighing about 450 lbs with 4 x 170 lbs average weight on the loaded side, the lift pulls about 1400-1600 amps for approximately 10 seconds. It then levels off to around 1000-1200 amps running full speed. Imagine about 20 stops per day on a busy day, and you get a vague picture of how much the lift consumes. It runs in a regenerative mode, meaning that on a deceleration or a stop it actually puts power back into the grid, but that is negligible compared to total consumption.

OK, here's an example... Our Motherlode chair used $3558 of power for a 33 day period. This lift is a 400hp triple chair with 711m vertical and 1884m for slope length. For this month we used 34320 kWh. Our rates are a bit funny and seem to change, here's the breakdown:

4363.64 kWh @ $0.06096/kWh
14356.36 kWh @ $0.04629/kWh
3636.36 kWh @ $0.0637
11963.64 kWh @ $0.04837

There's also some other charges such as:
Billed Demand 161.74 kVA @ $4.53/kVA
Billed Demand 134.78 kVA @ $4.73/kVA

I think there was a rate change in the billing period, which would explain a couple things.

Allan

I don't know what our individual lifts cost, since they're not metered. I do know that Xcel raised their rates and we've taken a big hit there... enough to buy a bunch of meters and put them on buildings in the village so we don't have to pay for them. We carry about half the village and all of the mountain in our department's budget, unfortunately.

Strange! The Red Chair/T-Bar have a shared meter, but every other building/lift has a meter on it.

Does Red use more or less power than you guy's Yan?

Thanks liftmech. It looks like your cost for continuous, leveled off operation is $ 28.8 an hour for each 1000 amp meter indication of your 480 VDC motors ( at $ 0.06 kwh). Or was that 1000 amp indication for both motors?

Power = Current * Voltage. 480,000watts = 1000amps*480volts
480,000watts/1kilowatt_hour(kwh) = 480kwh
480kwh*.06 = $28.80 per hour

Thanks Allan too. I had no idea what size motors/ voltages or even if they were AC or DC. You have just put to rest many decades of curiosity! But after reading this site I now have too many more questions...... what to do, what to do!

Hey Palindrome, welcome to the forum. Well, if you have more questoins, feel free to start a new topic. I'm sure a few of the members on this forum can help you out. :)

iceberg210, on Apr 19 2004, 07:54 PM, said:

The Red chair uses about $2000 a month for power, so a fair bit less. I think Silverlode uses about $2k as well. Glad I could help!!

Will do SkiBachelor - I like the jet engines on 'futuristic' lifts!