Anchorage Daily News

WASILLA -- Palmer-based Matanuska Electric Association has its own ideas for building a new power plant.

"We are the fastest-growing area of the state, and we're the only major area that is completely dependent on imported power," said Lorali Carter, spokeswoman for the Palmer-based electric company.

MEA is the biggest customer of Anchorage-based Chugach Electric Association, which on Friday announced plans to join with two other Southcentral power companies on a project to build a huge new plant near the Anchorage airport.

MEA serves roughly 43,000 members between Eagle River and Mile 171 Parks Highway.

For the past year, MEA has worked on its own generation plans to break away from its reliance on Chugach.

Last year, MEA announced plans to build two 100-megawatt power plants. One plant, fired by coal, would provide primary power with a second, backup plant fueled by natural gas.

Critics immediately attacked the plan for a coal plant, saying coal might be cheap fuel but emissions caps and taxes being discussed by Congress would soon make it costly. Meanwhile, Mat-Su Borough Assembly members enacted a law regulating power plants within the borough.

Citing that law and a global demand for coal-fired generation equipment that could delay the project, MEA board members in December shelved plans for the coal plant. The utility plans to proceed with a natural gas plant and is working to repeal the borough power plant law.

Also in December, Carter said Friday, MEA invited Chugach to abandon plans for a new Anchorage power plant and instead buy power from MEA when its new plant goes online in 2015. Carter said Chugach responded with an invitation to MEA to partner in its Anchorage project.

Carter said it's not clear whether the proposed utility partnership would affect MEA plans for local power generation. The Legislature or state utility regulators could force MEA to participate, or MEA could join on its own. Whatever happens, Carter said, MEA wants its own source of power.

Find Daily News reporter Rindi White online at adn.com/contact/rwhite or call her in Wasilla at 907-352-6709.

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