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Fossil fuels dominate Alaska power New ISER report show hydropower also significant, while wind power has increased but is still a tiny component of overall total Alan Bailey Petroleum News
Although hydropower makes a significant contribution to meeting Alaska’s electricity needs, fossil fuels continue to dominate the state’s power generation, according to the latest edition of the Alaska Electric Energy Statistics report, a preliminary version of which has been released by the Institute of Social and Economic Research, the University of Alaska Anchorage, in collaboration with the Alaska Energy Authority.
The report, which primarily covers data for 2011, says that in that year natural gas accounted for 58 percent of power generation, an increase from 57 percent in 2010. The use of oil products such as diesel fuel also increased slightly, rising from 15 percent in 2010 to 16 percent in 2011. Coal use has remained fairly steady at around 6 percent.
The use of hydropower, a resource that is sensitive to the vagaries of rainfall levels, has tended to fluctuate from one year to the next: In 2011 hydropower generation came in at 20 percent of total power, a drop from 22 percent in 2010, the report says.
Wind power, a power generation technology that has been deployed at a number of locations in rural Alaska as an offset to expensive diesel fueled generation, has seen high rates of growth in recent years but still only accounts for about 0.3 percent of power generation statewide. Diesel fuel remains the dominant energy source for power generation in western and Interior Alaska, the report says.
Natural gas In 2011 natural gas usage dominated power generation in the Alaska Railbelt and was also a major fuel for power generation on the North Slope — both these regions enjoy convenient gas supplies from local oil and gas fields. However, the Railbelt also accounted for around half of the total Alaska oil consumption for power generation, mainly because of the use of naphtha and other oil products for power generation in Fairbanks. Railbelt utilities also use fuel oil for stand-by generation, the report says.
Thanks to plentiful rivers, lakes and rainfall, hydropower was by far the biggest source of electricity in southeast Alaska, although residents of this region also used some oil-fired generation. Hydropower generation was also significant in the Railbelt, accounting for about 8 percent of that region’s electricity.
Coal is only used in the Fairbanks area of the Railbelt, thanks to the proximity of suitable coal supplies, presumably from mining operations at Healy.
Some communities, mostly in southeast Alaska, also used wood to fire power generation systems.
Being home to much of the state’s population, the Alaska Railbelt consumed around 77 percent of the power generated in the state in 2011. Power stations in Southeast Alaska generated about 12 percent of the total power.
But, while these total figures reflect in part the population distribution across the state, the power consumption per customer in different places is strongly influenced by the cost of the power: Annual consumption per customer in 2011 ranged from 1,500 kilowatt-hours in places where power is especially expensive to 14,900 kilowatt-hours in places where power is cheapest, the reports says.
Cheapest in southeast With abundant hydropower resources and some public funding for hydropower projects, southeast Alaska enjoyed the cheapest power in the state in 2011, with some rates as low as 10 cents per kilowatt-hour, the report says. High electricity usage in this region in part reflected the use of cheap electricity for heating residential buildings, the report says.
Residents of Southcentral Alaska, where electricity comes primarily from gas-fired power plants, with some hydropower, paid around 13 cents per kilowatt-hour.
Alaskans living in small rural communities that depend on diesel fuel for power generation suffered by far the highest electricity costs. Electricity in diesel-dependent rural communities cost from around 50 cents to more than $1.50 per kilowatt-hour in 2011, the report says. The Power Cost Equalization program, a state program designed to bring rural electricity prices more into line with prices in more populated areas, alleviates the cost to rural residents somewhat, but rural electricity is still much more expensive than electricity in Southcentral Alaska, for example.
Commercial usage In 2011 a little less than half the electricity produced in Alaska went to commercial users rather than residential customers, with commercial usage being highest on the North Slope and in the Railbelt. Total revenues from electricity sales in 2011 were 11 percent higher than in 2010. In 2011, residential customers in the Railbelt and southeast Alaska spent on average a little under $1,300 on electricity. The average North Slope residential customer spent $850. By comparison, a residential customer in the northwest Alaska region spent on average $3,419.
Total generation and sales of electricity across the state have been fairly stable, increasing by about 1 percent between 2010 and 2011. The preliminary energy statistics report only has power station installed capacity data for 2010. In that years the installed capacity, at 2,189 megawatts, had almost returned to the level seen in 2001, after a fall in the intervening years, the report says.
The authors of the report say that, although the data in the report covers the bulk of power generation in Alaska, data from some small power generation installations that are not power utilities are incomplete. And because the report is preliminary in nature, there may be some adjustments to the data in the final report, to be published in the spring.
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