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Fire Island wind farm taking shape First turbine assembled as construction moves towards end-September startup for CIRI’s pioneering renewable energy project Alan Bailey Petroleum News
It has been many years since people started looking at harnessing the abundant and often strong winds that funnel out of Alaska’s Turnagain Arm over Fire Island, offshore Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. But the years of effort to build a wind farm on the island, initially by Chugach Electric Association and then by Cook Inlet Region Inc., or CIRI, the island’s majority landowner, are finally paying off as CIRI’s team of contractors hoists the farm’s 270-foot diameter wind turbine blades into place on top of white, tubular towers that project above the island’s spruce forest. One turbine is now complete and other turbines are scheduled to follow in short order.
17.6 megawatts The wind farm will use 11 General Electric turbines to supply up to 17.6 megawatts of power to Chugach Electric Association, currently the farm’s only customer. CIRI, the Native regional corporation for the Cook Inlet region, says that, taking into account the variable nature of the wind energy source, the farm will likely deliver about 51,000 megawatts annually to Chugach Electric, an amount of power needed to supply about 6,000 households and representing about 4 percent of the utility’s total power needs.
The price of the power, $97 per megawatt hour, equivalent to 9.7 cents per kilowatt hour, is fixed for the 25-year life of the Chugach Electric power supply contract. The State of Alaska is providing a $25 million grant towards construction of the transmission line between Fire Island and the electrical grid on the mainland, with CIRI picking up the remainder of the transmission line cost and the $65 million cost of the wind-farm itself.
The wind farm is slated to go on line at the end of September, said Suzanne Gibson, CIRI’s senior director for energy development, during a July 18 media tour of the Fire Island project.
Challenging project The Fire Island wind farm venture has proved something of a nail-bite-inducing obstacle course, especially given the proximity of the site to a major airport and concerns among Alaska utilities about the potential cost of integrating wind power into the Railbelt electricity grid. At various times the wind farm development has involved negotiations with the Federal Aviation Administration over issues relating to possible interference with the radar systems at the airport and the location of a radio navigation system on Fire Island. After lengthy discussions with power utilities, in 2011 CIRI signed a power purchase agreement with Chugach Electric. And that agreement had to cross the hurdle of obtaining Regulatory Commission of Alaska approval, the first contract of its type that the commission has had to consider.
The power purchase negotiations and subsequent regulatory approval process took place against the backdrop of a deadline to complete the project this year or lose some federal renewable energy funding seen as critical to the project economics.
And, just to add some spice to the challenges, the wind farm’s island location gives the project some of the character and challenge of a remote, rural development despite its proximity to Anchorage.
For the development of the Fire Island site CIRI originally partnered with EnXco, a company that specializes in the construction of wind power systems. However, EnXco, feeling uncomfortable about the unique challenges of the project, eventually opted out of the venture, Margaret Brown, president and chief executive officer of CIRI, told Petroleum News during the July 18 media tour.
Pride in success CIRI subsequently took on sole responsibility for managing the project, obtaining wind power consultancy services from Summit Power Group and contracting with Tetra Tech Construction for building the facility. STG Inc., a company with extensive experience of wind farm construction in Alaska, has been operating the cranes that are so critical to the assembly of the tall wind-farm turbines.
CIRI now takes particular pride in its success with such a unique and challenging project, Brown said. The corporation sees wind energy as an important component of its business portfolio — CIRI also has a wind farm business in the Lower 48, she said.
The Fire Island wind farm has permitted capacity for an additional 22 turbines if CIRI can find additional customers for its facility.
Ethan Schutt, Cook Inlet Region Inc. senior vice president, land and energy development, has been extensively involved in the Fire Island project over the years. Standing near the first completed turbine on the island, the turbine’s tall, slender structure dwarfing the small throng of people who had come to see it, Schutt reflected on the roller coaster ride that had led to the construction of the facility.
“There’s a lot of corporate pride. We’ve done a lot of hard work. … A day like this is just a validation of all that effort and faith in a project like this,” Schutt said. “It’s been a very long haul.”
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