The Snowy Precipitation Enhancement Research Program (SPERP) is a 6-year winter orographic cloud seeding research program located in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales, Australia. The purpose of this research program is to investigate the economic and environmental feasibility of augmenting snow precipitation for hydrogeneration and water supply requirements. The SPERP is being undertaken by Snowy Hydro Limited during the winter months from 2004 to 2009. The first year of the program (2004) consisted of testing equipment and procedures to be used during the randomized experiment, which will run from 2005 to2009.

The SPERP will be evaluated using both traditional statistical techniques and a newer snow chemistry method, and will involve randomized operation of twelve ground-based silver iodide generators, paired with generators releasing an indium tracer. The project configuration involves an array of snow profiling sites and high-resolution precipitation gauges located in both the target area and control area.

This presentation will discuss the conceptual model and describe the infrastructure that supports the SPERP. The criteria used to determine an experimental event will be reviewed and preliminary results from the first year of operation will be presented.