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Campbell backs renewable energy in state Visits Unalakleet wind project with Vermont’s lieutenant governor; six 100-kilowatt Vermont wind turbines being installed there Stefan Milkowski For Petroleum News
Alaska Lt. Gov. Craig Campbell affirmed the Parnell administration’s commitment to renewable energy at a forum in Fairbanks on September 17.
“The bottom line is we face a bright future with an aggressive pursuit of renewable energy for all our communities,” he told a small crowd that included Fairbanks lawmakers, researchers and those in the energy industry.
Campbell stressed the need for a natural gas pipeline to market vast North Slope gas reserves, and said there is every reason to believe such a project will be economic. “We must have gas as an alternative source,” he said, “but in conjunction, we also must look for solutions that work for Alaska, and today I will tell you from my experience wind power is one of those we have to pursue.”
The day before, Campbell traveled to Unalakleet to meet with local leaders and see the six 100-kilowatt wind turbines being installed there this summer. Vermont’s lieutenant governor, Brian Dubie, and representatives from the Vermont-based turbine manufacturer Northern Power Systems also made the trip to the western Alaska village.
All-of-the-above At the forum, which was held at the Cold Climate Housing Research Center, Campbell stressed the need for an all-of-the-above approach to energy in which oil and coal will continue to play some role, natural gas will expand into the state and renewable energy technologies will grow as they become economic.
The former commissioner of the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs described himself as a proponent of small government who sees value in reducing long-term energy costs by investing in capital improvements. “We have to get over the idea that a capital cost is a negative,” he said.
Campbell added that some renewable technologies, such as wind, are more ready than others. “Wind power is very abundant in Alaska, especially in rural Alaska, and we ought to be capturing that,” he said.
Campbell’s counterpart from Vermont promoted small-scale wind power as a simple way to lower electricity costs and hedge against emergencies like fuel shortages caused by missed deliveries. “For a diversity of reasons, wind really makes a lot of sense, especially in rural, western Alaska,” he said, adding that Alaska is already leading the nation in deployment of small-scale wind systems.
‘Cow power’ a methane source Dubie, who is also a colonel in the Air Force Reserve and was deployed to Iraq in 2006, added that domestic energy sources and renewable energy would strengthen the country’s “moral authority” around the world by reducing its dependence on foreign oil.
Dubie said he is a “green” lieutenant governor but still sees the need for some kind of bridge fuel to help the country shift from oil to renewables. “Natural gas from Alaska could provide that bridge to the Lower 48,” he said.
Dubie also encouraged the audience to consider power from waste methane produced in agriculture — dubbed “cow power” in Vermont — and from wood. Vermont’s Middlebury College recently installed a biomass plant in the center of campus that uses wood harvested sustainably within 75 miles of campus, he said.
Campbell, who has served on the Matanuska Electric Association board, said he has not yet taken a position on the issue of net metering, a regulatory issue important to small-scale energy producers. Dubie said Vermont had passed net metering legislation, but he warned that grid stability is a serious issue in Alaska, where a “mindboggling” collection of isolated utilities covers the state and where shutdowns in the winter would be dangerous.
Conservation important John Davies, a senior researcher at CCHRC, urged the officials to pay attention to energy conservation as well as renewable energy. “I’m pleased to hear the emphasis on renewable energy,” he said, “but let’s integrate that with considerations for energy-efficiency and good building design.”
Davies used the CCHRC building, which he said uses less than half the energy of a typical building its size, as an example. “That’s a win-win for everyone,” he said.
Campbell agreed, saying that all Alaskans need to be looking at CCHRC’s energy-efficient approach to building.
Buki Wright, the president of Aurora Energy, which operates a 30-megawatt coal-fired power plant in downtown Fairbanks, urged Campbell not to forget about coal, which he touted as “sustainable” in the sense of providing a constant, reliable source of power.
Campbell said he would not.
Turbines in the Bush Wind power, and specifically Northern Power Systems’ hardy, 100-kilowatt turbine, were at the center of the talk. The Vermont company designed its Northwind 100 wind turbine with Alaska in mind and installed the first unit 10 years ago in Kotzebue. The company will have 31 turbines installed by the end of the summer and 40 by next year in at least eight different Alaska villages, according to Jim Stover, the company’s vice president of marketing.
Roughly a quarter of Northern Power Systems’ business is with Alaska customers, and company officials hope to expand even further into Alaska. “We would very much like to work with the administration to look at the entire state holistically,” Stover said.
The small turbine is designed without a transmission and with blades fixed at a certain pitch, which Stover said makes it more reliable and easier to maintain. “There’s no oil to change, there’s no hydraulics. It’s a very simple machine,” he said.
The units are rated to operate at 40 degrees below zero.
Smart electronics Smart electronics allow technicians at Northern Power Systems and at the Alaska Village Electric Cooperative, a regional utility serving rural communities throughout the state, to monitor the turbines’ performance from afar. But the company is also training “windsmiths” from Alaska villages through workshops held at its plant in Barre, Vt.
John Simon, Northern Power Systems’ board chairman, said the company will likely use Alaska as a test site for technologies relating to wind-diesel integration and energy storage.
Gwen Holdmann, director of the Alaska Center for Energy and Power at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said ACEP and Northern Power Systems had just recently submitted a proposal to research technology that would allow wind-diesel systems to operate with the diesel generators shut off.
“We’re already collaborating between our two states, and we hope to increase that,” she said.
Sen. Joe Thomas, a Democrat from Fairbanks, said after the talk that he continues to see a large hydroelectric project on the Susitna River as a long-term solution to Railbelt energy needs. He added that he also favors continued state investment in renewable energy projects to build on work already done.
“Fifty to 100 million (dollars) would be at least a good starting point,” he said.
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