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Hydrokinetic projects on deck in Alaska Turbine in Yukon next spring
One of the first pilot projects in the country will be in the city of Eagle, located along the Yukon River not far from the Canadian border, where Alaska Power & Telephone Co. plans to install a hydrokinetic turbine sometime next spring.
Alaska Power & Telephone supplies power to dozens of rural communities around the state, including more hydroelectric projects than any other utility in Alaska.
The company began studying hydrokinetic technologies in the late 1990s, eventually teaming up with the Maryland-based UEK Corp. to build a turbine. The Denali Commission gave the utility a $1.6 million grant last year to pursue the project.
Eagle is an isolated community, connected by road only in the summer. Alaska Power & Telephone provides service to some 200 customers in Eagle with diesel-fired turbines, providing around 70 kilowatts in the summer, and more than double that in the winter.
The hydrokinetic turbine would provide 100 kilowatts of power during the summer. The utility doesn’t believe the turbine could work in the winter when ice slows the river. The Yukon typically freezes at Eagle in October and doesn’t start to break up until April.
The goal for the first three years of the project will be to test how the technology will work in Alaska, including operations and maintenance costs and environmental impacts.
But if the pilot project works, and the technology can be standardized, Alaska Power & Telephone hopes to replicate the project in other rural communities along river ways, including some spots where the technology might be able to work year round.
“We’re hoping that the technology will be perfected and be in pretty good shape by the end of that project,” Grimm said.
HGE planning 11 projects The most ambitious hydrokinetic company working in Alaska is Houston-based Hydro Green Energy, a startup exploring projects in seven states from Alaska to Maine.
The company is poised to become the first in the country to put a hydrokinetic pilot project of its kind into commercial application with a 200-kilowatt system in Hastings, Minn. scheduled to start providing power before the end of November.
Over the course of 2008, Hydro Green Energy has received 12 preliminary FERC permits to study hydrokinetic projects around Alaska. The company dropped one permit this year.
The 11 projects moving forward cover the state, including six on the Yukon, two on the Kobuk River, one on the Kuskokwim River and another along Inian Pass in Southeast.
Hydro Green Energy plans to use this winter to learn about those rivers, and to figure out if there is a way to use hydrokinetic technology year round in Alaska. The company toured the state this summer, and is considering setting up a local office.
Hydro Green Energy is partnering with the city of Galena to apply for a grant from the Renewable Energy Fund, which entered its second round recently.
“We’ve really wanted to use the project in Minnesota as a stepping stone, if you will, for our development in Alaska,” Stover said.
Hydro Green Energy hopes the Hastings project will not only earn a small amount of revenue to finally offset years of development costs, but also yield the first real-world data set on hydrokinetic technologies, allowing Hydro Green Energy to have an easier time getting financing and permitting on future projects, like those in Alaska.
“It’s a long road,” Stover said.
ORPC expanding portfolio Ocean Renewable Power Co. LLC isn’t new to the state.
The Massachusetts-based startup with offices in Maine, Florida and Alaska began pursuing a tidal power project in Cook Inlet in 2006. If constructed, the project would generate electricity from the powerful currents in the waterway surrounding the population center of Alaska, as well as the base for significant oil and gas operations.
Earlier this summer, working as ORPC Alaska, the company received a preliminary FERC permit to study a hydrokinetic project on the Tanana River in Nenana, a small community some 50 miles south of Fairbanks on the Parks Highway.
In the company’s application with FERC, it describes a phased project to test a turbine system developed in conjunction with a division of the U.S. Navy.
The first phase would start next year and include “pre-commercialization” testing and construction of a prototype unit. ORPC Alaska said the first phase of the project should cost between $300,000 and $700,000.
The second phase would involve a one-year test of the technology to fix any engineering flaws and indentify environmental impacts. The third phase would install between four and 16 turbines to generate between 100 and 400 kilowatts of electricity to be connected, in theory, to the Golden Valley Electric Association grid through a new transmission line.
Tidal projects continue Other companies like Natural Currents Energy Services and Chevron Technology Ventures and Oceana hold preliminary FERC permits for tidal projects like the ORPC Alaska project in Cook Inlet, rather than emerging “in-river” hydrokinetic technology.
Earlier this fall, the Alaska Village Electric Cooperative, which provides electricity for 53 villages across the state, applied for a preliminary FERC permit to study a hydrokinetic project in Port Clarence, north of Nome.
The utility plans to spend around $100,000 next year gathering engineering and environmental information about the area. As currently proposed, the project would generate 300 kilowatts of electricity from tidal currents to serve communities in the area.
Low-impact hydro on Kenai In addition to “in-river” hydrokinetic projects, companies continue to look for ways to build traditional hydroelectric projects without having to build large dams.
Kenai Hydro LLC, a partnership between Homer Electric Association and the private company Wind Energy Alaska, is studying four “low-impact” hydro projects at Crescent Lake, Falls Creek, Ptarmigan Lake and Grant Lake on the eastern Kenai Peninsula.
Homer Electric currently buys electricity from Chugach Electric Association, a major power cooperative serving Anchorage. But Homer Electric recently announced it would allow the contract to expire in 2013 and generate its own electricity from new sources.
The small utility received $200,000 from the first round of the Renewable Energy Fund grants issue this past summer, and received preliminary FERC permits in October, giving the company three years to study the four lakes near Moose Pass.
As proposed, the four projects would cost between $15.5 million and $19 million each, and would produce around 22 megawatts of power combined, helping to offset demand.
Homer Electric is promoting the projects as far different than traditional hydroelectricity, saying in some cases water could simply be diverted rather than dammed, but the utility is already facing early opposition. A group called Friends of Cooper Landing is challenging the Crescent Lake Project, calling it a “high impact proposal.”
—Eric Lidji
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