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Providing coverage of Alaska and northern Canada's oil and gas industry
June 2010

Vol. 15, No. 23 Week of June 06, 2010

Kenai Hydro resumes work on power project

FERC to prepare environmental assessment for Grant Lake dam and tunnel, which would generate energy for Homer Electric Association

Wesley Loy

For Petroleum News

Homer Electric Association appears to have reignited its efforts toward a hydroelectric project on Alaska’s central Kenai Peninsula, and has rolled out a significant design change.

In a May 3 filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, HEA’s Kenai Hydro LLC said it plans to file a license application for the project in September 2011.

The project centers on Grant Lake, an L-shaped mountain lake of about 1,700 acres just east of the Seward Highway near the Moose Pass community.

HEA sees hydro as a way to diversify its energy supply. The electric co-op currently buys all its power wholesale from Anchorage-based Chugach Electric Association. That contract expires at the end of 2013, and HEA aims to start making its own power from natural gas or alternatives.

FERC intends to prepare an environmental assessment of the Grant Lake project, and the agency scheduled a pair of public scoping meetings on June 2-3 at the Moose Pass Community Hall.

New design

In early February, Kenai Hydro told FERC it was “suspending major activities to consider how best to proceed” in light of financial constraints and a reorganization of the company.

The effort now seems to have new life.

Kenai Hydro’s project previously featured two major components, one involving a dam to raise the level of Grant Lake and another to pipe extra water into the lake from nearby Falls Creek. Total cost for the project was said to be $30 million to $40 million.

Now the Falls Creek diversion has been removed from the project proposal, Kenai Hydro project engineer Brad Zubeck told FERC in the May 3 filing.

According to a FERC scoping document, the project as now proposed would consist of a 10-foot-high, 120-foot-wide concrete gravity dam on Grant Lake, at the Grant Creek outlet; a concrete intake tower in the lake to withdraw water; and a 2,800-foot-long, 10-foot-high tunnel down which water would flow to a penstock and powerhouse.

The powerhouse would feature two generation units with total installed capacity of 4.5 megawatts.

The project also would require a 3˝-mile overhead or underground transmission line, and an access road.

Kenai Hydro proposes operating the project as run-of-river during the summer months, capturing high spring and summer runoffs. During the winter months, the project would operate by drawing down Grant Lake.

At 4.5 megawatts, the project is relatively small, considering HEA’s peak power supply is 90 megawatts.

The FERC scoping document anticipates the final environmental assessment will be issued in January 2013.

The hydro project has drawn considerable opposition from some Kenai Peninsula residents. Opponents see it as a threat to the downstream Kenai River, famed for its trophy salmon fishing.






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