WASILLA - It’s too early to say what will replace coal in Matanuska Electric Association’s future generation plans, MEA spokeswoman Lorali Carter said Tuesday.
The company has lots of information about potential sources of power on hand, she said. Some of that information will be discussed Thursday at an MEA board of directors retreat.
The retreat, being held at MEA headquarters in Palmer, is not open to the public, Carter said.
“The board is privy to more information than the general membership is,” Carter said.
MEA spent $160,000 on two advisory votes this year trying to gauge its membership’s sentiment on plans to build two new 100-megawatt power plants. One plant, fired by coal would provide the base power loads; a gas-fired plant would provide for peak demands.
A memo MEA general manager Wayne Carmony sent to board members Friday announced plans by co-op administrators to shelve plans for the coal-fired generation for at least five years.
The final decision rests with the board, Carter said. Carmony, in his memo, said he planned to ask the board to amend its long-range power plans at its Dec. 11 meeting. He will present alternatives to building a coal plant at that time, he wrote.
“I don’t know what those alternatives will be,” Carter said.
She said she expects that information will be discussed in open session.
The electric cooperative announced last year its plans to generate its own power. A long-term power supply contract with Chugach Electric ends in December 2014 and MEA plans to generate its own power after that date.
The move to delay building the plant came after months of criticism from groups opposed to a coal plant in the Valley. It also followed six weeks after the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly passed a law regulating development of any power plant larger than 50 megawatts in the borough.
Carter said the cooperative was never bound to coal. It presented the least-expensive option for power, she said.
“Nobody here is totally bought and sold with coal. There are options out there and the factors change on a daily basis. You can’t just make a decision and blindly move forward,” Carter said.
Growing demand in China, India and other countries for inexpensive power has driven up the cost to build coal-fired generation plants by nearly 40 percent, Carter said.
“Given that spike in prices, it seems like an unstable time to make decisions,” she said.
Enthusiasm for the project was high in the summer among national and international firms courted by MEA to build and operate a coal-fired plant, she said. But then came borough regulation, and interest among those firms waned, Carter said.
“Their lack of interest is in part due to the borough’s ordinance. We’ve said for months that it’s going to make it more expensive,” Carter said.
MEA has repeatedly called the borough law too strict, in part because it requires expensive, detailed design information at the time application is made for a borough permit.
“There’s so much risk involved when you don’t know if the borough is even going to grant the ordinance,” Carter said. “When you look at the economies of scale for the great amount of regulation here, and then complete uncertainty, the borough’s ordinance presents far too much risk.”
MEA Ratepayers Alliance board president Tim Leach and Jim Sykes, leader of UtilityWatch, applauded the decision to reconsider the coal plant.
“We certainly thank MEA for doing this. This is really a step in the right direction,” Leach said. “I think it’s the first step on a long path towards more sustainable energy in the future.”
Leach and Sykes both live off the grid, relying largely on renewable resources for energy. Carter said MEA is investigating small, renewable energy projects, such as using methane from the Anchorage landfill as a power source.
But renewable energy sources will not be counted on for base power loads, she said.
“There are not opportunities out there that are affordable and will provide base load,” Carter said.
MEA is pressing ahead with its plans to build a natural gas plant, but Sykes and Leach say that’s OK.
“I don’t think that people were opposed to natural gas generation. It probably does make sense to do natural gas generation in cooperation with other utilities,” said Sykes. “It wouldn’t be as big a concern.”
“MEA ratepayers and many people in the Valley feel the fossil fuel natural gas is a lot better bridge fuel to use as we develop our renewable resources,” Leach said.
Find Daily News reporter Rindi White online at www.adn.com/contact/rwhite or call 352-6709.
