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Peninsula power
AEA is working to increase hydroelectric generation and power transmission
Alan Bailey for Petroleum News
During the Alaska Energy Authority's Oct. 30 board meeting, AEA officials talked about the status of the agency's initiatives relating to hydroelectric power generation on the Kenai Peninsula and the transmission of power from the peninsula.
AEA is involved in three projects relating to electricity supplies from the peninsula: a proposed expansion to the Bradley Lake hydroelectric facility in the southern Kenai Peninsula; the upgrading of the SQ electricity transmission line between Sterling and Quartz Creek in the northern Kenai Peninsula; and progressing a planned high voltage direct current transmission line under the Cook Inlet between the Kenai Peninsula and the Anchorage region.
Cheapest power The Bradley Lake facility supplies the cheapest electrical power in the interconnected Alaska Railbelt electrical system. The power is shipped to electricity utilities using the Railbelt transmission system.
However, the transmission system has limited throughput capacity: the work on the line in the northern peninsula together with upgrades that Chugach Electric Association is making to the transmission line between Anchorage and the Kenai Peninsula are designed to increase this capacity. And the planned HVDC line under the Cook Inlet would both significantly increase the transmission capacity while also achieving improved transmission reliability by providing a second transmission route.
All three of the AEA projects are linked, in that significant additional transmission capacity would be needed to support the increase in power output from Bradley Lake while also ensuring the reliability of access to this power across the Railbelt.
During the board meeting Tony Izzo, chief executive officer of Matanuska Electric Association, commented that the Bradley Lake facility already has a power generation capacity that exceeds the throughput capacity of the transmission line connecting the Kenai Peninsula to Anchorage.
Status of Bradley Lake expansion Ryan McLaughlin, AEA senior infrastructure engineer, reviewed the status of the proposed Bradley Lake expansion. At the core of the expansion is a proposal to increase the water level in Bradley Lake by diverting water from the nearby Dixon Glacier through a directionally drilled tunnel. Given a plan to also raise the height of the Bradley Dam, the project is now called the Bradley Lake Expansion Project, McLaughlin said.
Recent activity has included the drilling of some boreholes near the dam and the wrapping up of some environmental studies, McLaughlin said. The project team also submitted to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission a hazard classification recommendation for the required Dixon Diversion Dam -- FERC has agreed that the dam should be classified as a low hazard facility, he said.
Curtis Thayer, executive director of AEA, commented that AEA hopes to see the Dixon Diversion water flowing at the end of 2030, with the potential to increase power output from Bradley Lake by 50%. That could displace the need for a significant amount of natural gas for power generation, an important consideration given the uncertainties over future gas supplies from the Cook Inlet basin, Thayer said.
HVDC transmission line The project to construct an HVDC transmission line under the Cook Inlet, now referred to as the Cook Inlet Power Link project, has involved a $206 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy through the federal Grid Resilience and Innovations Partnerships, or GRIP, award program. The award requires matching funds.
AEA moved ahead with the project, having so far obtained $14.2 million in matching funds from the state government and some bond funding from Railbelt utilities. The agency has worked with consultant firm Stantec on preliminary procurement, scheduling and cost estimates. Environmental work for the project has also started.
Freezing of federal funding However, the federal funding has been frozen under the Trump administration, pending a review. James Mendenhall, AEA interim director of owned assets, told the board that on Oct. 9 the Department of Energy had issued a letter with a list of 223 projects that had been removed from the award program and that the Cook Inlet Power Link project was not on that list.
DOE has yet to announce which projects have now been approved. AEA is continuing its discussions with DOE, Mendenhall said. The first phase of the project was completed on June 30, he said.
Meanwhile, AEA has commissioned some environmental fieldwork in the Cook Inlet in 2026 and has decided to proceed with the preparation of documents required for the procurement of long lead time items, including the HVDC cabling and the converter stations for the ends of the line.
AEA has obtained a total of $64.2 million in matching funds for the project, with $142 million left to raise, Mendenhall said. So far the agency has spent a little less than $15 million on the project he added.
Mendenhall also commented that AEA is nearing the completion of some work on a strategic transmission plan for the Railbelt.
SQ transmission line Bill Price, AEA senior infrastructure engineer, provided an update on the upgrading of the SQ transmission line in the northern Kenai Peninsula, saying that phase one of the project was completed in February of this year. Phase two will be conducted in the winter of 2026/2027 and phase three in the winter of 2028/2029.
A similar project to upgrade the connecting transmission line between Soldotna and Sterling is currently on hold.
AEA is considering the use of additional bond funding to help finance projects including the Bradley Lake Expansion and Cook Inlet Power Link projects. During the board meeting the board authorized Thayer to apply to the Department of Energy for loan funding under the DOE's Title 17 Clean Energy Financing Program.
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