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Technical snow

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Without technical snowmaking, continuous ski operation would no longer be possible in many places today and is therefore being used more and more. The aim is to optimize snowmaking technology in order to use less energy and water. Natural fresh snow is produced when the finest droplets of supercooled water attach themselves to crystallization nuclei in the clouds, where they freeze and grow. In contrast, tiny water droplets are sprayed into the cold air to produce technical snow. The water droplets freeze directly from the outside in and hit the ground as small ice balls. As a result, technical snow is denser and harder than natural fresh snow and is ideally suited for snow sports slopes, which must be prepared very compactly to meet the demands of winter sports.


Today, snowmaking systems with nozzle technology are primarily used, in which water is sprayed through nozzles into the air and forms water droplets. At the same time, a compressed air-water mixture is sprayed through smaller nozzles. These microscopic droplets immediately freeze into ice granules. The ice grains then serve as freezing nuclei for the larger water droplets. Thanks to nucleation, it is possible to produce snow down to a temperature of just below 0° C (normally, water would only freeze below -7° C). In collaboration with industrial partners and the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland, the entire freezing process of snowmaking was optimized and the result was a snow lance head that consumes up to 80% less energy in snow production. If the water flows down to the snow lance from a reservoir at a higher altitude (for example, on the Parsenn near Totalp), the compressor for generating compressed air is eliminated. The potential energy gained through the difference in altitude is sufficient to save the entire electricity consumption, but also the infrastructure for the compressed air.

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