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Fig. 3:
The reservoir lake
2 The snow-making plan
In 2008, Liftverbund Feldberg decided to
place a contract with the well known consulting
engineers Klenkhart & Partner Consulting
ZT GmbH, whose head office is in Absam in
Tirol, to draw up a basic plan for snow-making.
Klenkhart & Partner counts some 250 cable car
companies all over the world among its regular
customers and a flagship project for it was the
drawing up of the overall technical plan for the
FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 2011. It
developed a forward-looking snow-making plan
for the enormous skiing region on the Feldberg.
In its fully developed form, this will guarantee
reliable snow on all the main downhill runs on
at least 110 days of operation a year.
At the heart of the snow-making plan was the
setting up of a central reservoir lake with a
capacity of around 250,000 m 3 (Fig. 3). This
lake is an environmentally acceptable way of
ensuring a supply of water for the snow-making
systems. Environmentally acceptable means
that the reservoir lake will be filled at the times
when the surrounding flowing watercourses
are carrying high levels of water (i. e. during
the melting of snow or during and immediately
after heavy rainfall), and the withdrawal of
water from these flowing watercourses is therefore
not a problem for freshwater ecology. Water
does not need to be withdrawn from flowing
watercourses at times when flow is low, whereas
there is no objection from the point of view of
freshwater ecology to large volumes of water
being withdrawn from the big reservoir lake for
short periods.
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Fig. 4:
Leisure-friendly landscaping for around the reservoir
lake
What is more, the reservoir lake was to be laid
out in such a way as to look like a natural mountain
lake. Habitats for amphibians, reptiles and
insects in the form of small untended pools of
a wide variety of types are also to be created in
the area immediately surrounding the reservoir
lake.
These operations are enriching the appearance
of the landscape, are creating new and attractive
habitats and are widening the range of what is
on offer to summertime guests and local residents
looking for recreation (Fig. 4).
3 The reservoir lake
In drawing up the basic plan for snow-making,
a main concern was finding a solution which
was as energy-efficient as possible. Because of
the high altitude of the reservoir lake in the skiing
region, full use can be made of the natural
pressure produced by the geodetic difference in
height. There are also enough springs and flowing
watercourses on the same level as the reservoir
lake, making it energy efficient to fill it.
The altitude of the reservoir lake combined
with the use of the geodetic difference in height
also allows the pumps used to be only mediumpressure
ones (high-pressure pumps are not
required); as well as reducing the capital costs,
this fact also means a considerable reduction in
the use of energy and, as a result, in the operating
costs.
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