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PETROLEUM DIRECTORY: Bright people at Precision Power light up the tundra Alaska power plant manufacturer sends products to Greenland and Antarctica, and of course the North Slope Sarah Hurst Petroleum Directory Contributing Writer
In a state where it’s dark and cold for most of the year, power plants are a good business to be in. So it’s not entirely surprising that Precision Power has grown in the past five years from one branch with 18 people to three branches — Anchorage, Deadhorse and Auburn, Wash. — with more than 60 employees, and is making some of the darkest and coldest parts of Alaska tolerable for work and day-to-day life.
Precision Power is the only company in Alaska that designs and manufactures power generation modules listed to UL Standard 2200. UL 2200 focuses on safety and specifies construction, performance and rating details. Precision Power is able to meet this rigorous standard because of their staff, who have a combined experience of more than 200 years in the power generation industry in Alaska. The company itself has been in existence since the mid-1990s, and in 1999 it became a division of Peak Oilfield Service Co.
John Cameron, Precision Power’s general manager, has been involved with power generation in Arctic conditions since 1969. Originally from Montana, he began his career with Emerson in Seattle, and was transferred in and out of Alaska three times before joining Precision Power at its Anchorage headquarters. Some of Cameron’s earlier achievements included being project manager for Emerson during the construction of the Alaska Pipeline, and helping to put power in the Seoul stadium for the 1988 Olympic Games. ARCTIC PAC company’s flagship AC product The ARCTIC PAC power module is Precision Power’s flagship AC product. The name is so well-known that many people think it’s a type of equipment, not realizing that it is a Precision Power trademark, Cameron said. The types of wire and air inlet systems used in the ARCTIC PAC are specifically designed for Arctic applications, and the modules are climatized, regardless of the outside temperature. They work equally well in the desert or the far north. Precision Power builds about 30 modules annually, selling them at prices that start at $80,000 and can reach several million dollars. The company also builds around 70 UL-listed custom generators each year, ranging in capacity from 20 to 500 kilowatts.
Among the most high-tech, custom-made ARCTIC PAC modules Precision Power has sold, three are in Greenland and another in Antarctica. In Greenland, they are part of the polar ice core drilling program, which is researching what the weather was like 20,000 years ago by analyzing the layers of ice. These modules not only generate heat and light for the camp, but also produce fresh drinking water and they are smaller than the usual design, so they can be flown into remote locations in a Hercules. It takes between three weeks and two months to manufacture the modules at the on-site shop in Anchorage. Modules power North Slope In Alaska the modules are used to power everything from oil companies’ camps on the North Slope, to main power for Native villages. Some of the more interesting modules Precision Power has built recently include the Department of Transportation’s state-of-the-art weather monitoring stations to be located at remote sites along the state’s highway system and a new power house for the city of False Pass.
Currently Precision is in the process of installing four 2.7 megawatt generators at the somewhat mysterious HAARP project. Conspiracy theorists have suggested that the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program near the village of Gakona in Southcentral Alaska could be intended for sinister purposes such as mind control. In fact the HAARP transmitter, which sends signals into the ionosphere, meets more prosaic civilian and defense needs, according to Cameron. “It’s America’s technology at its best, it does nothing but good things for the free world,” he said.
Precision Power has two operations on the North Slope: a branch office that provides general parts sales, rental and service for the power generation and electrical industry; and the company also operates and maintains the main, privately owned, power plant in Deadhorse. The Deadhorse office is manned 365 days a year, 24/7. Precision has field technicians available at every branch to respond to emergencies on the slope or at any other location in the state. “They could be eating dinner on a Sunday night and have to be on a plane to a village in two hours,” said Al Drake, Precision Power’s service manager.
“We travel to and service over 110 villages throughout the state, maintaining, repairing and upgrading their main power plants,” Cameron said. “The company has continued to grow in spite of external economic factors. I think it’s because of our diversity, I won’t say we’re immune from it, but we don’t experience the extreme highs and lows that other industries do. Our sales base is broad, it’s not just the oil industry.”
Precision Power keeps a strong training budget each year, sending employees outside Alaska to the training centers of the various manufacturers that the company represents. “A lot of our technicians are cross-trained, they can do multiple tasks. It keeps them interested,” said Allan Rocker, Precision Power’s customer relations manager. Company also a distributor As a distributor, Precision Power represents John Deere’s generator drive engines, General Electric’s large-bore diesel engines and — in Washington, Oregon and Alaska — Waukesha’s gas engines. The company also does a considerable amount of business in DC power: “We’re the largest supplier in Alaska of commercial UPS systems and stationary batteries,” said Cameron. “We don’t address the home-use UPS market, we’re in the commercial sector, which is a completely different world.”
The DC power systems can be used for telecom systems, computer rooms, multiple servers, data centers, plant floors, broadcasting and in a variety of other ways. The company builds UPS systems and battery chargers to the customer’s specifications.
“We also provide certified disposal of spent battery cells so we can offer complete turn key projects for all your DC needs,” said Dave Cunningham, Precision Power’s DC salesman.
When Peak Oilfield bought Precision Power they brought additional financial resources and bonding capabilities. Renowned for construction of ice roads and oil field services, Peak is owned by Alaska Native corporation CIRI and Nabors Drilling, the largest land based oil and gas drilling contractor in the world.
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