Governor’s alternative energy agenda would move state toward goal of 80 percent goal for renewable power

Gov. Mike Dunleavy has embraced an aggressive alternative energy agenda with several bills introduced last year and one of the potentially most far-reaching of the proposals, to set renewable energy portfolio standards for electric utilities, just recently introduced.

SB 179, the Senate version of the renewable portfolio standards bill, was up for its first hearing in Senate Labor and Commerce last week.

Alaska now has renewable energy “goals” set in 2010 that include 50 percent renewable by 2025, but SB 172 would put teeth into this because the benchmarks will be set as requirements by the RCA.

Another important bill introduced last year, and now pending in both the House and Senate Finance Committees, would establish a so-called “green bank” within the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority that would facilitate commercial lending for energy conservation projects including in residential homes. This is in HB 170 and SB 123.

Dunleavy has other energy bills pending too, including a proposal to enhance geothermal development and most recently to remove state regulatory roadblocks on new-technology microreactors after they are approved by the federal government. Nuclear is not ordinarily considered a “green” energy source but that is changing.

It has been given that classification in Europe because there are no harmful emissions to the air. The microreactor bills are HB 299 and SB 177.

Meanwhile, SB 172, which sets minimum renewable energy standards for electric utilities, was up for its first hearing last Thursday in the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee.

The mandatory standards to be met are similar to those required in 30 states and two U.S. territories. Standards would be enforced by the Regulatory Commission of Alaska, or RCA, according to Curtis Thayer, executive director of the Alaska Energy Authority.

Dunleavy wants utilities to make firm commitments to achieve 30 percent of power supplied by renewables statewide by 2030 and 80 percent by 2040.

Thirty percent by 2030 is quite doable, Thayer told the Senate committee, because the state is basically at 27 percent now with existing hydro and wind power.

However, the legislators asked how 80 percent can be achieved in the next 18 years. There are a lot of other ways it could be done, Thayer said. Before introducing SB 172 the governor consulted with the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, or NREL, who had developed a plan as to how 80 percent can be achieved.

Construction of the long-planned Susitna hydro project would be a big step and would get the state from 27 percent to 58 percent. Expansion of the existing Bradley Lake hydro project near Homer would also help, and a project to do that is being considered. Bradley Lake now supplies 10 percent of the Southcentral-Interior “railbelt” needs and an expansion could increase that to 16 percent to 17 percent.

However, upgrades of transmission lines are needed to efficiently move expanded Bradley Lake or renewable power from Susitna, for that matter.

Bradley Lake now provides about 18 percent of power needs in Interior Alaska but the “line loss” of power transported over aged transmission lines results in costs of $500,000 per year to consumers along the railbelt, Thayer told the committee.

Utilities have yet to weigh in on this bill. A similar house bill, HB 301, is in the House Energy Committee and has not yet had a hearing.

Meanwhile, legislators are very interested in the new-technology advanced microreactors and there are proposals for siting the facilities in Alaska, a 5 megawatt unit is proposed for Eielson Air Force Base and a larger unit in Valdez by Copper Valley Electric Assoc.

However, it will be several years before one can be built because companies must still obtain licenses for the technology from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, University of Alaska scientists told the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee Thursday. The cost of the power is still unknown.

Right now Bradley Lake hydro is the cheapest in the state at 4 cents/kilowatt hour followed by natural gas at 7 cents to 9 cents/ kilowatt hour. Fire Island wind power is generated for 9.7 cents/ kilowatt hour, the Alaska Energy Authority told the Senate committee.