With oil and gas prices spiking to historic levels, reducing energy consumption has once again become a hot-button issue in just about every industry. The price-hikes pose special challenges for those who own and operate amusement parks. Fortunately, while energy prices have ebbed and flowed over time, energy-saving technology has steadily advanced, presenting new opportunities to become more efficient.

“Much more thought is being given to energy consumption than there ever was in the old days,” says Ken Lucci, president of Camarillo, California-based Lucci & Associates. “Ever since utility deregulation a few years ago, it has become more important to reduce energy use. Everybody wants to know where their (energy) costcenters are.”

With more market for energy-saving devices such as variable-frequency drives, “we’re getting cheaper, smaller, and better-designed products. There has been a quantum leap in technology,” Lucci explains. “Also, some of the larger ride manufacturers are making available more effi­cient drives and motors, at additional cost.”

At Valleyfair amusement park in Shakopee, Minnesota, the big, new ride for 2006, “Xtreme Swing,” will incorporate energy-efficient electric motors on the air compressors, which power the ride. On new installations, the park makes a policy of choosing energy-efficient equipment, according to spokesman Bill von Bank. In maintaining high-energy use equipment such as large motors and air-conditioners, Valleyfair installs high-efficiency replacement parts, whenever necessary and possible.

New LED Technology Is a Bright Spot
Reducing electricity use has been a major strategy for Morey’s Piers of Wildwood, New Jersey, a state with some of the highest utility rates in the United States. Before last season, Morey’s replaced the traditional lightbulbs on its Ferris wheel with 200 light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The park’s new “Atmosphere” drop tower was also outfitted with energy saving LEDs.

“We’re primarily a nighttime park and we’ve got lights everywhere,” says Executive Vice President Jack Morey. “Energy consumption is a big issue for us. The great things about the new LEDs is that they’re brighter, more durable, and use significantly less energy. They’re also much more flexible in terms of computer animation. LEDs are not an inexpensive investment—the Ferris wheel cost $240,000 (to retrofit). But it pays for itself in no time, especially with energy prices going through the roof.”

Another energy-saving retrofit at Morey’s has been magnetic brakes installed on some rides by Velocity Magnetics, a Pennsylvania-based company. The firm’s patented Dyna-Brake system requires no friction and no electrical input, and generates virtually no heat.

Several years ago, an energy crisis in California led to skyrocketing electricity bills and blackouts in the Golden State. Since 2000, Paramount’s Great America has implemented a number of energy conservation efforts. One upgrade was a new, PC-based control system that manages light­ing, air-conditioning, and water heaters for maximum efficiency.

The park has also partnered with the city of Santa Clara, conducting an electrical audit and doing some lighting retrofits, according to park spokesperson Holly Perez. In addition, the park is part of the city’s Power Reduction Pool—large businesses who agree to reduce energy loads, when requested, to reduce the possibility of brownouts during peak-load periods.

To reduce its own peak loads, the park has also implemented staggered start-up times on some of its high-energy use rides. While the park opens at 10 a.m., some rides may not open until 11 a.m.

Paramount’s Carowinds theme and waterpark in Charlotte, North Carolina, has upgraded the energy-management control system it installed in 1999-2000, according to Jamie Gaffney, assistant manager of utilities and technical service. The system, which includes equipment from Allen Bradley Inc. and Rockwell Automation, has recently been enhanced to divide lighting controls into zones, as a way to reduce lighting in specific areas of the park as occupancy dictates.

Daily sunrise and sunset times are programmed into the system, which controls lighting for a 170­acre area, including parking lots. Replacing incandescent lighting with compact fluorescents has also helped reduce electricity usage, according to Gaffney.

Over time, park crews have replaced a number of older motors on rides with high-efficiency models and added variable-speed drives. Switching to on-demand water heaters, which only heat water as it’s needed, has also yielded savings.

For several years, Carowinds’ dozen ride technicians have used bicycles instead of cars to move around the park; some gasoline vehicles have been replaced with smaller utility carts, Gaffney notes.

A Conservation Tradition at Disney
Energy conservation has been much more than a recent fad at Disney amusement parks and resorts, according to Jacob DiPietre, manager of public affairs at Walt Disney World Resorts in Orlando. Some years ago, the 30,000-acre WDW implemented a state-of-the-art energy management program. Disney participates in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star buildings program and, in 1996, implemented the EPA Greenlights program. Projects undertaken as part of that effort have included optimizing efficiency of compressed-air system controls and hot-water boiler controls, retrofitting variable-speed drivers into air-pumping and chilled water systems, retro­fitting demand-control ventilation into convention center spaces, upgrading and integrating energy management systems, and installing utility sub-metering systems in areas operated by non­Disney companies working in Disney facilities (for utility cost recovery).

All told, the measures undertaken since 1996 have yielded a 53 percent internal rate of return and metered annual reduction of 100 million kilowatt hours of electricity, and 1 million thermal units of natural gas.

Retrofitting variable-frequency drives on rides has also been an effective energy-saving strategy at Pennsylvania’s Hersheypark, according to Kent Bachmann, director of planning and engineering. “To start a motor takes three times more energy than to keep it running,” he notes. “Once a train is moving, we don’t need 100 horses [for example]; we might need only 60 horsepower. So we use the drive to ‘dial in’ what’s needed.”

When Hersheypark installed its “Storm Runner” coaster in 2004, management chose a hydraulic launch system rather than a linear induction motor, which would have used substantially more energy, Bachmann says. “We’re able to build up hydraulic pressure in the accumulators,” he says. “Once the pressure from the nitrogen is at the right poundage, we release it, so we’re transferring pump energy into compressed gas energy. As a result the amount of energy needed to start the ride is reduced from 5 megawatts to 2.6.”

To reduce water bills, the park uses its own well water, rather than the city of Hershey’s public system. “Roller Soaker,” the water coaster installed in 2002, recycles about 85 percent of its water, using a closed-loop circulation system.

Energy-smart in Europe
In Europe, $5-a-gallon gasoline and other higher (by U.S. standards) energy prices have been a reality for years. So, a number of European parks and attractions have taken proactive approaches to energy management.

Europa-Park, Germany’s largest theme park, strives for a sparing use of resources. Its own hydroelectric power station produces approximately 1 million kWh of electricity per year— more than 8 percent of Europa-Park’s annual electric power consumption, according to park spokesperson Esther Wawrin. (Watch for more about the use of solar power at Europa-Park and other facilities in the March issue of FUNWORLD .)

Of course, some of the unique operational challenges of amusement parks constrain parks’ ability to reduce energy use, Lucci points out. During the design phase, Lucci would like to see parks make more effort to design energy-efficiency into rides. However, “most of the time, parks are on a short fuse, rushing to finish an attraction for a Memorial Day opening. The design and construction processes are compressed, so it’s a challenge to put all that together with energy-efficiency. Compromises have to be made,” says Lucci, an energy consultant to a number of major parks around the country.

“Sometimes, parks have to bite the bullet on whatever it ends up costing them to run some rides. An Islands of Adventure ride takes two megawatts to run,” Lucci notes. “It’s the nature of the beast. You can try and make things as efficient as possible, but when it really gets down to it, it is what it is.”