Covering hundreds of miles of transmission lines and paralleling the railroad, the Alaska Railbelt connects Fairbanks to the Kenai Peninsula through some of the most daunting terrain in the country.
Much of the generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure is antiquated and must be expanded or enhanced to the tune of roughly $15 billion! Add to this mixture the dwindling supply of gas in Cook Inlet and alarm bells should be going off in your head.
Isolated from the rest of the country, the Railbelt's peak load of all six utilities is 870 megawatts. To put this in perspective, many coal-generating facilities in the Lower 48 produce around 900 MW per plant. Comparatively speaking, we are a small operation but to the Alaskans along the Railbelt, it's our only reliable source of heat and light. Without funding to build or upgrade, the bright lights in our future may begin to dim.
In 1986 the Alaska Legislature created the Railbelt Energy Fund with $285 million in its coffers with the intent of addressing the aging infrastructure. With $60 million left and no upgrade or expansion to date, we are at a critical juncture in providing reliable power.
The Railbelt general managers and CEOs' message to the governor and the Legislature has been simple: That the cost of upgrading the Railbelt's transmission lines and generation is far greater than one utility can take on -- many billion dollars short. That message is finally being heard.
A recently developed Regional Integrated Resource Plan has just been published for the Railbelt region, which includes MEA, Municipal Light & Power, Chugach Electric Association, Golden Valley Electric Association, Homer Electric Association and the City of Seward Electric System.
This plan lays out a clear economic picture of fuel supplies, power generation and transmission costs. Underpinning the financing for the plan would be passage of the House Bill 182 or Senate Bill 144, referred to as GRETC (Greater Railbelt Energy and Transmission Corp.)
These bills now before the Legislature would let the Railbelt utilities form a corporation that could collectively provide wholesale power to public utilities, build new generation-and-transmission assets, buy fuel supplies, develop operating standards and have the ability to accept state aid.
Collectively combining assets would yield greater flexibility in securing financing to build the mega-projects desperately needed for our future.
GRETC would be the entity charged with developing and operating the integrated energy, generation-and-transmission system.
The plan's projects for the system were selected and prioritized to identify those needed immediately to maintain current levels of service and provide continuous reliable service for the future throughout the Railbelt.
The regional resource plan also schedules what, when and where to build based on available fuel and energy supplies and includes renewable energy projects while offering a minimum long-run cost to rate payers.
Transmission projects were chosen to connect new generation and upgrade and rebuild parts of the grid. Of 16 projects, the top five are Soldotna to Quartz Creek, Quartz Creek to University, Douglas to Teeland, Lake Lorraine to Douglas and Soldotna to University.
On the generation side the projects identified are Chugach Electric and ML&P South Anchorage gas plant, the Glacier Fork hydro, Nikiski wind power, Anchorage LM6000, Golden Valley Electric large gas plant, Susitna hydro and landfill generators.
The Legislature asked the Railbelt utilities to come to them with a single message -- which they did. The Legislature asked for a plan -- and they gave it. The population along Alaska's Railbelt is roughly 360,000, with 30,000 businesses. Now let's see what the Legislature does for all these folks who are asking for help facing challenges of monumental proportions.
Joe Griffith is general manager of Matanuska Electrical Association.
By JOE GRIFFITH