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AK-WA Connection 2012: Hydro projects promise affordable energy Decade-long development process for remote facilities on Susitna,
Allen rivers will include multi-year construction projects. By Rose Ragsdale Alaska-Washington Connection
Several projects aimed at helping Alaskans meet their goal of switching to renewable energy sources for half of their energy needs by 2025 are making significant progress toward becoming reality.
The Susitna-Watana Hydroelectric and Chikuminuk Lake Hydroelectric projects would largely transform the energy-consumption landscape in the Alaska Railbelt and in remote Western Alaska, respectively, while the Eva Creek Wind Project will reduce diesel consumption in the Interior and save Fairbanks power users millions of dollars.
The Susitna-Watana project would be located on the Susitna River about 90 river miles north of Talkeetna near Cantwell in Matanuska-Susitna Borough, and the Chikuminuk Lake project would be located at the northern end of Wood Tikchik State Park in the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge about 118 miles southeast of the community of Bethel in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region. The Eva Creek project, currently under construction, is located in Ferry, Alaska, about 14 miles from Healy.
Big goal for large project As currently envisioned, the Susitna-Watana Hydroelectric project would include a roughly 700-foot-tall dam with a 20,000 acre, 39-mile long reservoir. The type and final height of the dam construction are still being evaluated as part of engineering feasibility studies.
Preliminary studies have indicated the surface powerhouse should have three generating units with an installed capacity of 600 megawatts. The powerhouse, dam and related facilities would be linked by transmission lines to the Railbelt Intertie.
The intertie, a 170-mile, 345kV transmission line that currently runs between Willow and Healy, allows Golden Valley Electric Association of Fairbanks to purchase electricity produced less expensively with lower cost energy such as natural gas and hydroelectric from utilities in Anchorage and the Kenai Peninsula. Fairbanks consumers save an estimated $7 million a year.
The Susitna-Watana project would produce nearly 50 percent of the electrical demand of railbelt communities, or an annual average of 2.6 gigawatt hours. Currently estimated to cost about $4.5 billion, the project’s construction will take five years and an operating license is obtained by 2017, it could produce power as early as 2022.
In March, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission granted to the Alaska Energy Authority a preliminary permit to study the feasibility of the project, including studying its potential impact on the environment.
Critical goal for smaller project The hydroelectric project at Chikuminuk Lake would be much smaller than Susitna-Watana, with a 128-feet-high concrete-faced rockfill dam at the Allen River discharge from the lake. The surface powerhouse would contain two generating units with combined capacity of 13.4 MW with estimated annual energy production under average water conditions of 88.7 GWh.
The facility, estimated to cost about $507 million, would provide most of the electrical power required for Bethel and the 13 surrounding communities of Akiachak, Akiak, Kwethluk, Tuluksak, Oscarville, Napakiak, Napaskiak, Atmautluak, Kasigluk, Nunapitchuk, Tuntutuliak, Eek and Quinhagak.
“This project has the potential to positively change the cost and availability of energy in the Calista region for both families and businesses. Rural Alaska can no longer sustain the diesel fuel required by antiquated power systems,” said Nuvista Executive Director Elaine “Chicky” Brown. “Finding a regional alternative to diesel fuel for electricity would displace over 5 million gallons of diesel per year barged into Bethel alone, and reduce 55,000 tons of carbon dioxide.”
Nuvista Light and Electric Cooperative, which is spearheading the project is a non-profit member organization comprised of Calista Corp., Association of Village Council Presidents, AVCP Rural Housing Authority, Yukon Kuskokwim Health Corp., Alaska Village Electric Cooperative, Middle Kuskokwim Electric, Chaninik Wind and Lower Yukon.
The cooperative’s mission is to improve the energy economics in rural Alaska by creating affordable and sustainable energy generation and transmission infrastructure in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region.
The Chikuminuk Lake project, the cooperative’s most ambitious project to date, got a boost from a $10 million appropriation by the Alaska Legislature in 2011. The funding allows Nuvista to perform detailed field work in geotechnical, environmental, preliminary engineering, licensing, and public meetings related to the hydropower project, which could be the first of its kind anywhere in Southwest Alaska.
Another $1.5 million in state funding this year will allow Nuvista to study services consolidation in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region. “We are looking at cluster community dynamics, how to connect the communities together with possible roads and power interties and possibly better hospital service,” Brown said.
Unlike the railbelt where electricity costs about 14 cents per kilowatt per hour, power costs in the Yukon-Kuskokwim are substantially higher, currently averaging 50 cents to $1 per kwh. Providing hydroelectric power to all 14 communities has the potential to displace up to 20 million gallons of diesel averaging $7-$12 per gallon annually.
In addition, hydropower would reduce or even eliminate the barging of diesel upriver, which is a significant environmental hazard that threatens all-important subsistence fishing in the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers.
In February Nuvista signed a contract with Hatch Engineering for the Chikuminuk Lake project, and the agreement requires the use of Alaska-based subcontractors on the project. Nuvista also filed an application March 1with FERC for a preliminary permit. Since then, the cooperative has met with federal agencies and land owners in early consultation regarding permits and other authorizations needed to conduct related studies within the park and the refuge.
Excess power for Dillingham? Brown said a sense of urgency about the project has gripped local communities. At one joint Nuvista/Calista public meeting in Bethel in March 2011, individuals urged the cooperative “to stop talking and do something about energy,” she said.
“When we returned for a public meeting in March this year, some elders said they were hoping to see the hydro project completed in their lifetime,” she said.
The power project technically is for Southwest Alaska, with the Yukon-Kuskokwim region designated as the primary service area.
“If the project has greater-than-anticipated capacity, however, we may also run power to Dillingham,” Brown said. “It depends on whether we can get permission to extend the transmission line through the wildlife refuge.”
Nuvista began its first field season of project studies with raptor surveys in May, and in June, conducted the first reconnaissance tour of the proposed site with a fly-in, geotechnical mapping and other activities planned across the summer.
“We need to determine if the walls of Allen River can hold the dam, which would be located at the mouth of the river above the waterfall,” Brown said. “Once we obtain FERC permits, we will hold scoping meetings and (begin other work.) It’s very similar to what the Susitna-Watana project is going through.”
Wind studies pay off Golden Valley Electric Association is building Eva Creek Wind this summer. After a six- to seven-week erection process, the 12-turbine wind farm is expected to be completed Aug. 31 and to come online in October.
GVEA studied the project site in Ferry nearly a decade before giving the project a green light. The utility says the Eva Creek project will integrate well into its system, helping to reduce its dependence on oil and meets the cooperative’s renewable energy pledge. And it won’t raise rates.
In fact, assuming oil prices of $90 per barrel, GVEA estimates that Eva Creek will save members $13.6 million over the next 20 years.
After importing the giant components for the wind farm from Korea, Germany and the Lower 48 during the spring and early summer, turbines, measuring about 410 feet from base to blade, are being erected at the site.
A complete turbine is made up of three sections of tower, a hub, a nacelle (sticks off the backside of a hub and houses the generating components like the drive train, gearbox, etc.) along with the three blades and inside components.
Together, the turbines will be capable of producing about 25 megawatts of electricity, which translates to 77 million kilowatt hours per year at an average cost of 9.5 cents per kwh.
Eva Creek will meet GVEA’s goal of having 20 percent of its system’s peak load generated by renewable resources by 2014. The cooperative’s 2011 peak load was 211.5 MW.
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