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A Cold Call Nets A Cool Result At Killington

By Craig Altschul
January 11, 2008

The audit gave him a chance to show how his Freeaire Refrigeration System could tap into winter --something all ski resorts have in abundance - and annually save the resort 86,389 kilowatt hours of electricity, while eliminating a 58 tons of CO2 emissions. Check it all out tonight (1/14) at 10 p.m. (EST) on Discovery Network's Science Channel during Invention Nation.

"I guess it's a bad pun to say it started with a cold call, but that's what it was," Travers, of the R.H. Travers Company of Warren, Vt. told The Industry Report. "The ownership at the time didn't have the funds to make the investment, but the staff saved the audit and pulled it out when new owners arrived. It's a new environmental era these days."

The former owner, of course, was the perennially financially-challenged, and now defunct, American Skiing Company. The investment price tag to retrofit 10 of the resort's walk-in coolers with the Freeaire System was $50,000. Powdr, Killington's most recent new owner, looked over the audit, and wrote the check.

"Ski areas are really well-paired with the product, because they obviously operate a significant part of the year in winter," Travers says. Killington expects to save 86,389 kilowat hours.

Freeaire (aptly named) uses cold outside air to chill walk-in coolers and new high-efficiency fan motors.

"It's really a simple and applicable solution, which is what made it stand out and attractive to us for inclusion in the show," said Michael McNally, of Peace Point Entertainment. The Science Channel filmed the show during installation in September.

Travers has been tinkering with the concept for years. "I started experimenting with it back in the 1970s, but really didn't start the business until 1993."

Killington's Tom Horrock told the IR "the project was presented to Chris Nyberg and it fit into Killington's environmental initiatives and we moved forward on it." Nyberg is Killington's President and General Manager under Powdr Corp. ownership.

Other initiatives to date at Killington include replacing all light bulbs throughout the resort with CFL bulbs and installing motion-sensing on/off switches. A resort-wide co-mingled recycling program was initiated and is expected to eliminate 113 tons of solid waste annually.

Horrock said "the vast majority of home-grown ideas come directly from our employees. In fact, it was the employees who pushed for the recycling program."

Travers thinks his Freeaire System would benefit ski resorts and hopes others will jump. He said that while gazing out his window at Sugarbush. "They haven't bought yet," he laughed. Maybe they need another cold call.

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