The 8.5-megawatt Houston Solar Farm, photographed on Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2023. A new solar farm planned on the Kenai Peninsula will be five times larger, with a 45-megawatt capacity. (Loren Holmes / ADN)
A renewable energy company has signed an agreement with a Homer utility that opens the door for the construction of what will become Alaska’s largest solar farm by a significant amount, people involved in the project say.
The solar farm, once it’s up and running, will also be a small step toward reducing the need in Southcentral Alaska for the Cook Inlet natural gas that could begin running short as early as next year, they say.
Jenn Miller, with Renewable IPP, says the new solar farm will be built near Puppy Dog Lake in Nikiski on the Kenai Peninsula.
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With 45 megawatts of capacity, it will nearly triple the solar energy output in Alaska, counting both rooftop solar and existing solar farms, she said.
[Texas-based company says it’s in ‘advanced discussions’ with Alaska utilities on plan to import natural gas to Southcentral]
It will provide power for about 9,000 homes on the Peninsula, and will be more than five times larger than Renewable IPP’s project in Houston. That solar farm launched last year, at 8.5 megawatts, making it the state’s largest for now.
“There will be over 60,000 solar panels and it will be across 300 acres,” she said.
The board of the Homer Electric Association unanimously agreed this week to buy the solar farm’s power, the utility announced in a statement. That sets the stage for the project to soon seek approval from the Regulatory Commission of Alaska, Miller said.
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The solar farm could begin operating in late 2027, Miller said.
It will double the renewable power produced by the utility, to 24% of its overall generation, said Keriann Baker, the utility’s chief strategy officer.
Along with new plans by the utility to replace a gas-generation unit with a more efficient turbine, the solar farm will reduce the natural gas used by Homer Electric by more than 15%, Baker said. The new gas turbine could also be up and running as early as late 2027.
The utility’s reduced dependence on natural gas will help conserve Cook Inlet natural gas needed across Southcentral Alaska, she said.
Enstar, the gas utility for the region, has warned that local supplies of gas from the aging Cook Inlet basin could begin falling short sometime next year. The looming shortfall has sent utilities scrambling to support new renewable projects. They’re also looking at importing natural gas to Alaska, a move that’s expected to sharply boost electric and heating prices.
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“Any gas that we can leave in the existing supply … is more gas for others to use,” Baker said.
Baker said the deal will allow Homer Electric to purchase solar power from the project for less than the cost of natural gas today. The price will be fixed for decades, benefiting ratepayers by reducing dependence on gas that can fluctuate in price, she said.
“For us, it’s a no-brainer,” she said of the utility.
Renewable IPP and Homer Electric have been working on the project for about three years, Miller said.
She said the project will sit on land owned by the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority, under a long-term lease.
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Miller declined to provide the estimated project cost, but it will be in the tens of millions of dollars, she said.
The project will be privately financed with support from CleanCapital, a New-York based company that owns solar projects across the U.S., including the solar farm in Houston, Alaska, she said.
A $2 million renewable energy grant from the Alaska Energy Authority, a state agency, will help lower project costs, she said.
“Our mission is to diversify the Alaska generation mix, and we want to do it in a way that suppresses prices,” Miller said. “These larger and larger projects are the vehicle to allow us to do that.”
Dr. Pam Tuomi examines the eye of a deceased fin whale during a necropsy performed in Seward, Alaska, on June 20, 2026. (NOAA Fisheries Permit #24359, Kaiti Grant / Alaska SeaLife Center)
The recent strike and killing of a pregnant fin whale by a cruise ship in the Gulf of Alaska tragically highlights decades of inaction by the federal government and shipping industry to enact reasonable measures to reduce this risk. Such whale protection measures include vessel speed reductions, or VSRs, to 10 knots or less and bow watches posted in designated whale habitat. A voluntary vessel speed reduction off California has reportedly reduced ship-whale strikes by half, while also reducing underwater noise, fuel use and harmful stack emissions.
While technological options to detect and avoid whales, such as thermal imaging infrared cameras, forward-looking sonar, sonic pingers and passive acoustic monitoring, are useful, the best way to reduce the risk of ship-whale strikes is slower speed and a posted bow watch.
Similar to speed limits for cars in school zones when children are present, ship speed reductions give both a ship crew and whales more time to detect each other and avoid a collision. They also reduce the risk of more serious or fatal injuries if a collision occurs.
We know that the number of whales actually observed killed by ships is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of total mortalities. To be detected, usually a struck whale must remain pinned across the bow of a ship and carried into port. Studies have estimated that whale mortalities unobserved offshore compared with those observed are anywhere from 7-to-1 to 25-to-1. Given the thousands of whales and ships overlapping in Alaska waters each year, it is more than likely that hundreds of whales have been struck and killed here.
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It is important for the public to know the record of failure by government and industry to reduce this risk.
Beginning in 2009, I proposed to the incoming Obama administration that it enact greater protections for Unimak Pass in the eastern Aleutians and Bering Strait, including ship-whale strike reduction measures. I reiterated this specific ship-whale strike reduction request in 2013, 2018, 2021 and 2022. Each time, the federal administration declined to act.
Additionally, in 2022, I proposed directly to the Prince William Sound tanker owners that they enact voluntary speed reductions to reduce the risk of whale strikes. These huge oil tankers steam year-round directly across the paths of hundreds of whales. In June 2009, the Exxon tanker Kodiak entered Valdez with a dead humpback whale stuck on its bow.
I then proposed to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the PWS Regional Citizens Advisory Council that they press the tanker owners to adopt voluntary whale protection measures.
NOAA convened an informative technical workshop on the issue but declined to take any action, presenting a flawed assessment of the risk. In response to a formal scientific integrity complaint I filed with the agency, the NOAA National Appeals Office directed its Alaska staff to provide a supplemental assessment of the ship-whale strike risk in PWS that corrected some, but not all, of its previous flawed assessment. The agency continued to decline to take any action.
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In July 2024, the PWSRCAC sent a letter to tanker owners asking them to consider adopting a speed reduction in PWS, which the tanker owners declined the following month, saying they would only “follow the guidance, direction, and regulations provided by NOAA/NMFS on this matter.”
In March 2023, two organizations I am associated with, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and The Ocean Foundation, submitted a proposed rulemaking to NOAA asking the agency to adopt a nationwide protocol to reduce whale strikes by ships
The petition proposes that the agency designate critical whale safety zones in all U.S. waters in which ships would be required to slow to 10 knots during the day, 8 knots in low visibility, such as nighttime, fog or heavy weather, and post bow watches to detect whales ahead. Neither the Biden nor the Trump administration responded to the petition, the latter saying earlier this year only that “NMFS is still considering the 2023 petition.”
After two suspected ship strikes on whales in Icy Strait in August 2024, I urged the Cruise Lines International Association with its 59 member companies, to adopt voluntary speed reductions and other whale-strike reduction measures in critical Alaska whale habitats. The cruise ship association ignored the request.
Again in February of this year, I urged the Cruise Lines International Association and NOAA to enter into a memorandum of agreement specifically to reduce the risk of whale strikes this summer in Alaska. In a Feb. 20 email, the cruise association responded: “In addition to specialized training for crew, cruise lines have agreed to the voluntary slowdown of vessels in sensitive areas or when marine life is observed/present. Cruise lines also use methods and technologies such as bow-positioned observers and online monitoring and reporting apps to carefully navigate in ways that are respectful and protective of marine mammals.”
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When I pressed them for details on these vague, questionable assertions and reiterated our proposed memorandum of agreement between the Cruise Lines International Association and NOAA, the cruise association went silent. Later that month, NOAA’s Alaska regional director responded to the proposal: “Here in Alaska, we continue to engage with the cruise industry to reduce the risk of vessel strikes (e.g., encouraging the use of Whale Alert). Due to reduced capacity we’re quite limited in our ability to do more proactive work with the cruise industry at this time.”
After the fin whale was struck and killed by the Ovation of the Seas in the Gulf of Alaska last month, I again pressed NOAA and the Cruise Lines International Association to enter into a memorandum of agreement to reduce such risk, suggesting that important whale safety zones in Alaska waters that need strategic vessel speed reductions include at least Icy Strait, Prince William Sound, Resurrection Bay/Kenai Fjords, Unimak Pass and Bering Strait.
The cruise association has yet to respond, and NOAA’s regional director said simply that they are reviewing the situation and potential next steps.
Tragically, there is still no commitment by the shipping industry or government to address this issue in Alaska. While these same ship owners participate in voluntary whale-strike reduction measures elsewhere, they refuse to do so here in Alaska.
As these ship owners remain unwilling to remedy this voluntarily in Alaska, it is time that NOAA adopt our 2023 proposed rulemaking requiring them to reduce this risk to whales here in Alaska and across the nation.
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Alaska whales, who share their ocean home with us terrestrial primates on ships, deserve nothing less.
Rick Steiner is a marine conservation biologist in Anchorage, former marine professor at the University of Alaska and board chair of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
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Alaska agreed to settle with the Interior Department on Monday over a Biden-era plan aimed at restricting drilling and leasing, a deal that could expand the state’s oil and gas development.
The state and the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority in consolidated cases agreed to drop the suit if Interior offered a written admission that its approval of the Biden-era plan was flawed and violated the 2017 Tax Act.
The 2024 plan included restrictions such as protecting more than 1 million acres of coastal plains. According to the proposed agreement, that move eliminated interest in a Jan. 6, 2025 …
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Kei trucks and other K-class vehicles are now road legal in the state of Alaska following the passage of SB 239.
The small Japanese import vehicles have drawn a following among owners who say the compact trucks and vans can handle more than their size suggests.
Since kei trucks are imported vehicles that do not meet federal motor vehicle safety standards, they must be at least 25 years old to be brought into the country, per the Imported Vehicle Safety Compliance Act of 1988.
Chris Blankenship drives a 1995 Suzuki Carry and has owned it for about two years after buying it from a previous owner in Tok.
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“You don’t need a full-size American truck to do a lot of stuff,” Blankenship said.
He uses the truck for everything from groceries to camping.
“You can do so much with them. I have mine with a cargo carrier on it, the GoPros, the Starlink. I have a truck bed tent for it too,” Blankenship said.
Before SB 239 was passed, Alaska did not align with the federal 25-year import rule.
“Over the decades before, SB 239 came along, folks that would import them thinking that the state would follow the federal 25-year law,” Blankenship said.
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While the vehicles could be imported, they couldn’t be registered.
“But before the bill was passed and signed into law, the state of Alaska says, ‘no, you can’t do it,’” he said.
SB 239 was passed last June, aligning Alaska with the federal law and allowing kei trucks that meet the age requirement to be registered as fully road legal.
Blankenship bought his truck in-state and does not have the original import form needed to register it under the new law. To obtain the paperwork, he must take the vehicle out of the state into Canada and back.
“And they’ll check it over, look at the paperwork and do their stamp and go, welcome to the U.S.,” he said.
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He is also looking for others in the same situation.
“I’m trying to find out who’s all in the same boat. Because maybe we can drive up there and do them all at once,” Blankenship said.
Prior to the law change, Blankenship’s truck was registered as an all-purpose vehicle, similar to an ATV, allowing for “limited on-road operation,” according to the Alaska DMV.
“It says up to the discretion of law enforcement if they want to pull you over and give you a ticket, tow it, whatever. But I’ve had so many different law enforcement at the city, state and federal — they’re like, ‘we love these things.’ I’ve had folks say, ‘Hey, can I buy it? Can you find one?’” Blankenship said.
Owners say the trucks draw attention from other drivers as well.
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“Folks will look at you, they will grin, they will laugh, they’ll say cute truck, they will ask about it,” Blankenship said.
Blankenship said his F350 with a plow has largely been replaced by the kei truck in his daily routine.
“It’s just a really fun truck to drive. My 2000 F350 that has the big plow on it — that stays parked like 99% of the time now, and I drive this,” he said.
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