Putting on Fire Island finishing touches

Cook Inlet Region Inc. is close to the completion of its new wind farm on Fire Island, offshore Anchorage, Alaska, the Native regional corporation’s spokesman Jim Jager told Petroleum News in a Sept. 11 email. After connecting the wind farm to the Southcentral Alaska electricity grid at the end of August, CIRI started testing the first two of the farm’s 11 wind turbines and succeeded in delivering power to Chugach Electric Association, the wind farm’s initial customer, Jager said.

CIRI then succeeded in completing the testing of five turbines before a severe wind storm in the Anchorage area on Sept. 4 led to an evacuation of the wind farm site. Workers returned on Sept. 6 and, despite finding toppled trees and other wind damage on the island, found no significant impact on the turbines, Jager said. Testing resumed on Sept. 7.

“We’re in the process of commissioning the remaining turbines and the SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) system that Chugach Electric Association will use to control and monitor power production and integrate Fire Island wind energy into its power grid,” Jager said. “We’re also wrapping up the last of the construction work and dealing with some minor warranty issues.”

Completion of all remaining work, probably by Sept. 21, will be followed by a 72-hour test of the entire wind farm, with CIRI potentially taking over commercial operation of the farm about a week later. The precise timing will depend on whether any issues emerge from the testing and whether the weather cooperates, Jager said.

CIRI expects the wind farm to deliver about 51,000 megawatt hours of power annually, enough energy to power about 6,000 households.

—Alan Bailey