GVEA plans $90M Healy wind farm

A Fairbanks utility is planning to build the largest wind farm in Alaska.

The seven-member Golden Valley Electric Association board of directors unanimously approved the $90 million Eva Creek Wind Project near Healy at a meeting on June 27.

“This is really exciting news for Golden Valley and the Interior as a whole,” Chairman Bill Nordmark said. “We have been researching wind in the Eva Creek area since 2003. We’ve done our due diligence. This project integrates well into GVEA’s system, helps reduce our dependence on oil and meets the cooperative’s renewable energy pledge.”

Although Chugach Electric Association recently agreed to buy power from the proposed Fire Island Wind Farm currently being built by Cook Inlet Region Inc. in the Southcentral area, Eva Creek would be the first wind farm in Alaska commissioned by a utility. The system will help GVEA meet its goal of producing 20 percent of its peak load from renewable sources by 2014. GVEA’s peak load in 2010 was 208.1 megawatts.

The GVEA board chose REpower Systems to build the turbines. Construction is set to begin next May and the system is expected to come online in September 2012.

GVEA still needs several key environmental permits, as well as approval from the Regulatory Commission of Alaska, before it can begin work on the wind farm.

The board chose Eva Creek over a competing project out of Delta Junction.

—Eric Lidji