Snowmass Village leans on renewable energy to power buildings

Snowmass Village hopes to one day join Aspen as one of a few cities in the country that are run on 100% renewable energy.

To do so, the Town is currently contracting with Basalt-based nonprofit Community Office for Resource Efficiency (CORE) to identify properties 50,000 square feet or smaller to conduct free electrification studies. The effort will help property owners prepare their buildings for a switch to heat pump technology, a more environmentally friendly heating option. 

Snowmass has made a goal to use 100% renewable energy resources by 2030, and CORE is hoping to help the town reach 70-90% electrification by the end of the year, CORE Senior Energy Concierge Mary Wiener said.

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“Buildings and transportation are the big contributors to climate change in our valley, so we’re trying to take existing buildings and see if we can switch them off of gas power,” she said. “The Town of Snowmass has gas lines, and we want to get them on the electrical grid.”

CORE is looking to target smaller lodging complexes in Snowmass in its electrification study. Representatives from CORE will do walkthroughs with interested property owners to assess their existing heating equipment, like boilers and furnaces. CORE will then hire an engineering firm to do a comprehensive study of what equipment it will take to make electrical upgrades.

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Wiener is hoping to complete the studies by June.

CORE will help property owners identify rebates and grant opportunities for electrification of their buildings. It will also help owners determine their return on investment for several electrification options.

“We want to make sure we don’t strap people with a huge electric bill because that’s not what electrification is about,” she said. “It’s about reducing our carbon footprint, but also doing it in a cost-effective way.”

CORE has a Community Priority Participant Program that will give twice as much money in rebates to community buildings such as workforce housing, childcare, and school facilities that participate in an electrification study and implementation. One of the buildings Wiener is communicating with in Snowmass would be eligible for the program, Senior Director of Climate Programs Ryland French said.

Wiener did not share what property owners she is communicating with because plans have not been finalized for the studies.

CORE also has a grant program that will provide up to $200,000 in funding for implementing electricity upgrades to buildings that are 20,000 square feet or more. Another building CORE is working with in Snowmass would qualify for the grant, French said.

Last year, CORE was involved in 72 heat pump projects in the Roaring Fork Valley, including commercial, multifamily, and individual office units. 

As CORE continues its electrification studies, it hopes the studies will help identify more complicated electrification projects and create an easier path forward to those complicated projects in the future.

“We’re trying to really ramp up the easy stuff,” French said. “At the same time, through efforts like this study and others in the upper valley, we’re trying to create a recipe for how you do it in other buildings with systems that aren’t so easy. The larger a building gets, the more complex the systems can be, therefore the more complicated it can be to switch.”

“We’re working with local government partners and pursuing federal and state grants and working with private donors and business sponsors to help CORE scale up what we’re trying to do. Having studies we can point to and say, ‘Here’s the opportunity, and if we triple our funding, maybe we can triple our greenhouse gas impact,'” he added.