Can't they all just get along?

July 15, 2007

By Russell Stigall/Frontiersman

MAT-SU - Gov. Sarah Palin is calling for cooperation and big-picture plans for electric cooperatives along Alaska's Railbelt.

Palin's recent veto of $26.5 million from the Railbelt Energy Fund allotment in the state's 2008 budget to Matanuska Electric Association leaves the local power cooperative in limbo at a time it makes plans for a $350 million power generation initiative. Palin also nixed about $46.5 million in appropriations for Homer Electric Association and Chugach Electric Association.

The funds are waiting on the completion of an upcoming $800,000 Alaska Energy Authority study on Railbelt cooperation.

&#8220Today, the geography, population base and economies of scale in the Railbelt lend themselves to a more big-picture approach as we move forward to face these challenges together,” Palin has said about her veto. &#8220I believe the best solution lies in long-range collective planning for the development of energy projects that will serve the Railbelt region.”

The Unified Systems Operations Project study is expected to find ways Railbelt electric co-ops can better cooperate to meet the demands of the entire Railbelt grid over the next 25 years. The study will begin in October and is expected to be complete by the legislative session in 2008.

MEA planned to use its Railbelt Fund appropriation to upgrade existing lines, add a substation and build a new transmission line from Willow to Talkeetna, MEA General Manager Wayne Carmoney says a letter to Palin.

Also in the works for MEA are two new electric generators the co-op has plans to build in the Mat-Su Valley. Cooperative spokesperson Lorali Carter has said there is too little information yet to know how the Railbelt study could affect the co-op's plan to build 200 megawatts of electric generation.

&#8220We are moving forward and anxiously anticipate the governor's involvement this fall,” she said. &#8220We look forward to her leadership and are excited to see what [AEA's study] will produce.”

The Railbelt fund was started in 1985 to provide financial assistance to electrical projects in Railbelt communities. The Railbelt has six electric utility co-ops. Of these, MEA is the only one without its own generation capacity. Seward has several aging diesel generators for emergency use.

The Railbelt includes Homer Electric Association and Seward Electric Association on the Kenai Peninsula, Chugach Electric Association and Municipal Light and Power in Anchorage, MEA in the Mat-Su Valley and Eagle River/Chugiack and Golden Valley Electric Association in Fairbanks. These Railbelt cooperatives are linked by the high-voltage Intertie power line. GVEA and ML&P and Light have already been appropriated almost $100 million from the Railbelt Energy Fund.

Opportunities for cooperation, big-picture plans and economies of scale could be found in mega-projects like the 330 megawatt hydroelectric project at Lake Chackachamna, the Fire Island Wind Project, or Chugach Electric Association's offer to other Railbelt utilities to co-fund a 260-megawatt gas-fired power plant, which would be twice the size of a plant Chugach could build on its own.

Contact Russell Stigall at 352-2267 or russell.stigall@frontiersman.com.