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Subsea transmission line progressing
AEA project for subsea line under the Cook Inlet progressing on schedule but will need additional funding in a couple of years
Alan Bailey for Petroleum News
A project for the construction of a 38-mile high-voltage, direct current electricity transmission line under Cook Inlet from the west coast of the Kenai Peninsula to the Beluga area on the northwest side of the inlet, to connect with the transmission grid in the Anchorage area, is progressing to plan, Curtis Thayer, executive director of the Alaska Energy Authority, told Petroleum News on June 13.
Now named the Cook Inlet Power Link, the project has a $206 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy. The funding comes through the federal Grid Resilience and Innovations Partnerships, or GRIP, award program and requires matching funds from sources other than the federal government. Although some federal grant program funding has been frozen under President Trump's administration, the funding for the transmission system is still in play. The Secretary of Energy has indicated that the administration supports transmission and generation projects, Thayer said.
The concept behind the planned new transmission line is to significantly increase the power transmission capacity between the Kenai Peninsula and the Anchorage region while also eliminating the single point of potential failure represented by the single, relatively low capacity transmission line that currently connects the two regions.
Reliable and efficient transmission Having adequate transmission capacity and a more resilient system will enable the more efficient sharing of power generation capacity between the two regions, thus enabling more cost effective power generation and a higher potential to make more use of renewable energy sources. Currently the cheapest source of power in the Alaska Railbelt is the Bradley Lake hydropower facility in the southern Kenai Peninsula. All of the Railbelt electricity utilities make some use of Bradley Lake power.
AEA has been working with consultant firm Stantec on preliminary procurement, scheduling and cost estimates, Thayer said. Cost estimates are within budget, he said. Environmental work is also starting, he added. A next step will be to figure out where to place the terminals on the opposite coasts of the inlet at each end of the transmission line.
Project funding Last year the state allocated an initial $12.7 million in matching funds for the project and this year has allocated an additional $1.5 million. The Railbelt utilities have also been able to contribute some available bond funding. Currently AEA has $65 million in funding towards the $206 million in matching funds, thus releasing $65 million in federal funding, Thayer said. The project has enough funding to carry it through the next fiscal year, he said.
The most expensive stages of the project will be the ordering of the components for the line and the eventual line construction. Those components will obviously require significant additional matching funds. Thayer said that AEA is considering a number of possible options for obtaining the required funds. Ordering will probably start in year three of the project, with construction beginning in year five. And, given that the project is still in its first year and that under the rules for the federal grant AEA has eight years to complete the project, Thayer is confident that the project will proceed successfully.
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