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RFP out for Alaska Railbelt power plan AEA is looking for a contractor to develop an integrated resource plan for future electricity generation and transmission Alan Bailey Petroleum News
Hard on the heels of publishing a report on how the Alaska Railbelt electrical grid should be managed, the Alaska Energy Authority is looking for a contractor to develop a plan that will recommend how electricity should be generated and transmitted throughout the Railbelt in the future. The objective is to determine energy sources and the required infrastructure that will, together, minimize future power supply costs while maintaining or improving the level of power supply reliability.
Six utilities Currently, six independent electric utilities and AEA own the electricity generation facilities and power transmission lines that constitute the Railbelt grid. The power transmission grid extends all the way from Seldovia in the south more than 500 miles to Delta Junction in the north; major regions in the network are connected by interties.
Although the current grid includes some hydroelectric power generation, thermal sources of power, especially natural-gas-fired power stations, predominate. And in its request for proposals for the planning project, AEA said nearly all of the existing thermal power stations in the grid are more than 20 years old, with some being more than 30 years old.
The majority of the generation in all but the Fairbanks-based Golden Valley Energy Authority’s area involves combined cycle gas turbine plants, AEA said. Two coal-fired power plants that use local coal supplies are within the GVEA service area. However, one of these power plants, the Healy Clean Coal Project, has been mothballed since some testing done in 1999.
Natural gas for power generation comes from the Cook Inlet basin. But gas supplies from the basin are tightening, thus raising concerns about the future capability of gas-powered plants to provide adequate supplies of Railbelt electricity. There are proposals on the table for the construction of some form of pipeline to deliver natural gas from the North Slope into Southcentral Alaska to bolster future gas supplies.
Variety of options AEA wants the integrated resource plan for the Railbelt grid to consider a wide variety of energy options including the use of new natural gas and coal power plants; the development of new hydroelectric power capacity; coal-to-liquids technology; and wind power. The planning project needs to interface with a current re-evaluation of a previously proposed Susitna River hydroelectric project, and with a current study into the integration of wind power into the Railbelt grid, AEA said.
The project also needs to take into account the recommendation from the recently completed AEA report on how the power grid should be managed. That report recommended that the generation and transmission components of the Railbelt grid should in the future come under the control of a regional power authority, rather than of multiple independent utilities. The study recommended that independent utilities should continue to operate the local distribution of electricity from the transmission grid to individual consumers. 50-year horizon As part of the resource plan project AEA wants to see the development of at least three feasible plan scenarios covering a 50-year planning horizon. Scenarios will need to take into account a variety of views of the possible future economic development of the Railbelt. AEA also wants the project to propose a means of establishing a transmission network that includes redundant circuits (the current grid consists of three major power demand centers connected by single long-distance transmission lines).
A prime result of the project will be the delineation of a time schedule for the development of a portfolio of major energy projects, AEA said. The plan is intended to take into account short-term network needs and a 10-year transition to the operation of a unified generation and transmission entity, as well as the longer term electrical power infrastructure.
AEA expects to see a power supply mix “that includes, in appropriate portions, renewable and alternative energy projects and fossil fuel projects, some of which could be provided by independent power producers.”
Jim Strandberg, AEA project manager, told Petroleum News Nov. 11 that the integrated resource plan would, in effect, form the Railbelt component of the overall state energy plan that AEA is preparing. As a consequence, the integrated resource plan will need to consider the energy requirements for domestic and commercial space heating, as well as for electricity generation.
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