Alaska Utility to Scrap Coal Power Plant for Wind Farm

(TNS) — An Inside Alaska electrical cooperative is planning to retire one in all its two coal crops and search proposals to construct a large-scale wind farm, whereas additionally upgrading its battery storage system and arising with an settlement to buy extra pure gas-fueled energy from Southcentral Alaska.

On Monday, the board of the Golden Valley Electrical Affiliation — the primary Inside electrical cooperative that serves 100,000 residents in communities from Healy to Fairbanks and Delta Junction — voted to develop a plan to shut one in all its two coal crops positioned in Healy by the tip of 2024.

The board confronted a choice over whether or not to shutter an older coal plant, Healy Unit 1, or add roughly $26 million in air pollution management gear by the tip of 2024, as outlined in a 2012 consent decree with the U.S. Environmental Safety Company.

The board determined so as to add these air pollution controls, however additionally they made a transfer to shut a separate coal plant, the adjoining Healy Unit 2, after a marketing consultant employed by the cooperative stated that might be an economically possible possibility.

In the end, the board authorised a plan to:

• Set up air pollution controls on the cooperative’s older, smaller coal plant, Healy Unit 1.
• Develop a plan for the retirement of the newer, bigger coal plant, Healy Unit 2, by Dec. 31, 2024.
• Solicit proposals for a large-scale wind venture buy settlement in 60 to 90 days.
• Buy and set up a brand new 46-megawatt battery storage system.
• Safe a purchase order settlement with a number of Southcentral utilities, gasoline producers or suppliers for 30 to 50 megawatts of extra power.

“It is actually a imaginative and prescient for the place Golden Valley goes sooner or later,” stated Tom DeLong, the board’s chair.

Monday’s resolution was an enormous change in course for the cooperative, he stated. Whereas it could have appeared stunning to shut the newer of the 2 coal crops, Healy Unit 2 wasn’t practical, whereas DeLong described Unit 1 because the “little plant that would.”

“The choice concerning Unit 2 was unanimous and everybody knew we needed to do it as a result of the economics simply converse for themselves,” DeLong stated.

Healy Unit 2, a $300 million experimental plant constructed by the Alaska Industrial Growth and Export Authority within the ’90s with the U.S. Division of Vitality, “has been plagued with authorized points and operational points,” DeLong stated.

“Unit 2 was a troublesome plant to begin with,” DeLong stated. “It was a tough delivery and a tough childhood and a disgraceful older age.”

At 62 megawatts, Healy Unit 2 is the biggest coal plant within the state, however it would not function at that charge, Golden Valley Electrical spokesperson Meadow Bailey stated. Final 12 months, the plant “averaged a lot decrease manufacturing than it was constructed for,” she stated.

And whereas the cooperative has labored for years to extend its reliability, Healy Unit 2 has needed to come offline for repairs prompting the necessity to substitute its energy with electrical energy from costlier sources like oil, Bailey stated.

Going ahead, many of the electrical energy beforehand generated by the coal plant can be changed with energy from pure gasoline produced in Southcentral Alaska, Bailey stated. And with the long run wind and battery sources, the cooperative is not going to should depend on costly diesel era, Bailey stated.

Previous to the Monday night time assembly, the cooperative’s board, workers and consultants spent 18 months taking a look at their era sources.

In a presentation to the board, marketing consultant Mike Hubbard with the Monetary Engineering Firm offered situations for retiring one, each or neither plant, and what to exchange them with. He stated it was extra financial to retire Healy Unit 2 with much less threat than retiring each. And Hubbard stated including wind energy was useful each environmentally and economically.

A number of folks testified through the assembly, together with representatives from two close by gold mines who stated their power costs have been excessive and that additionally they help decreasing emissions. Some testified in opposition to retiring a plant, together with those that cited concern for the neighborhood of Healy and employment there.

“Simply hold into consideration that not solely is it going to have an effect on the workers on the energy plant, it is also going to in all probability have an effect on the workers on the coal mine, as effectively, as a result of that is fairly a little bit of coal that they might not should be giving to us. That is going to have an effect on all of the contractors, that is gonna have an effect on simply greater than the city of Healy, and I simply need you contemplate that,” stated Christi Killian, who recognized as a management room operator certified to run each Healy Unit 1 and a couple of.

Others additionally spoke in regards to the significance of decreasing carbon emissions and concern over local weather change. A number of folks underscored the significance of jobs and coaching alternatives for these in Healy impacted by the potential closure.

“It is a actually tough resolution to make,” stated Bailey, with Golden Valley Electrical. “We’ve got workers and we’ve a neighborhood that operates round Healy Unit 1 and a couple of. So something that we do this impacts these crops, we acknowledge additionally impacts our workers there and that neighborhood.”

The board additionally instructed Golden Valley Electrical to give attention to alternatives for workers, together with jobs inside the cooperative, extra coaching, ability constructing or different transitional providers, Bailey stated.

Jessica Gerard, government director of the Fairbanks Local weather Motion Coalition, characterised the choice as a “actually massive win for us” as a result of it was not solely a step towards closing a coal plant, but in addition an funding in renewable power manufacturing and storage.

“The people who made this occur, so far as FCAC is anxious, (are) the member homeowners which were engaged with GVEA for years testifying and inspiring their shift to renewable power,” Gerard stated.

It is a consequential resolution for Inside Alaska, stated Philip Wight, an power and environmental historian and assistant professor of historical past and Arctic Research on the College of Alaska Fairbanks. He additionally works with the Alaska Public Curiosity Analysis Group, however stated he did not do any paid formal advocacy on the Healy subject.

Wight stated that always when renewables are introduced on-line, folks suppose they’re going to find yourself paying extra. However the Monday resolution was each a low-cost and low-carbon state of affairs, he stated.

“There was not a tradeoff right here between spending more cash and saving carbon, it was a win-win for each economics and the surroundings,” Wight stated.

And, he stated, it wasn’t only a resolution about one piece of energy era. As a substitute, the cooperative unveiled a number of situations that might diversify energy era away from coal, together with a big new battery and extra wind power, in addition to a purpose to buy energy from Southcentral, which is a step towards integrating energy alongside the Railbelt.

“That is arguably one of the crucial consequential choices GVEA has ever made as an electrical utility,” Wight stated.

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