MEA report reveals details

June 15, 2007

By Russell Stigall/Frontiersman

MAT-SU - No more secrets for Matanuska Electric Association. MEA's board of directors acted on an administrative recommendation to release the co-op's much anticipated Integrated Resource Plan.

Available now on MEA's Web site are the 2006 IRP and 2007 update. The plans can be found at www.mea.coop.

&#8220MEA management and board are excited that the IRP is now released,” said MEA spokesperson Lorali Carter.

Not many surprises come in the full 2007 IRP, Carter said. Many of the full report's findings were expressed in a 10-page summary, issued in February.

&#8220The executive summary really provides the meat and potatoes,” Carter said.

Carter said highlights and updates in the 2007 IRP come in the discussion of the potential expense of carbon dioxide emissions, fuel costs and fuel transportation costs, an in-depth inventory of potential renewable energy resources and a more detailed assessment of the cost to build a circulating fluidized bed coal-fired generator in Alaska.

MEA spent $129,000 on its 2006 IRP, Carter said, adding she did not have a figure on the 2007 update.MEA commissioned its 2006 Integrated Resource Plan from the Anchorage branch of the international engineering and consulting firm CH2MHill. The consultants also completed MEA's 2007 update.

The plan spells out MEA's generation needs and options through the year 2044. CH2MHill estimates that MEA would be best served by a 100-megawatt coal-fired generator and a 100-megawatt natural gas turbine generator built in the heart of the Mat-Su Valley by 2015.

&#8220Improved reliability points toward a locally controlled, locally generated power supply,” Carter said.

MEA also decided to add 5 megawatts of renewable energy by 2015.

Currently, MEA purchases wholesale power from Chugach Electric Association. Other than Anchorage's Municipal Light and Power, MEA's member-owners pay the lowest rates in Southcentral Alaska. MEA's contract with Chugach ends Dec. 31, 2014. MEA has given Chugach notice that it will not renew the current contract.

CH2MHILL also examined the cost savings of reduced power demand from its customers. The updated IRP included small, run-of-river hydroelectric projects and a scaled-down version of the Susitna Hydroelectric Project to its wind, geothermal, tidal and hydroelectric to its renewable energy options.

MEA's plan faced considerable criticism during the time the co-op kept it under wraps.

Mark A. Foster and Associates claimed CH2MHill's numbers to be suspect when Foster and his firm conducted an independent review of MEA's summarized Integrated Resource Plan.

&#8220There is a significant chance MEA has underestimated the cost of coal-fired power in its area,” Foster said.

Foster also claims CH2MHILL may have underestimated the cost for MEA to emit or sequester the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Foster based his numbers on estimates by MIT and by CO2 taxes proposed in recent legislation.

CH2MHILL held to its estimate in the 2007 IRP that MEA would pay $9.54 per ton of CO2 created in its coal and gas plants while Foster estimated around three times as much. CH2MHILL's estimate is based on the U.S. Department of Energy's goal to reduce the cost to capture and store CO2 to $10 or less by 2015.

The new plan also clarified one of the coal plant's heavy metal emissions. CH2MHill reports that the CFB coal plant, running at 85 percent capacity, would produce 2.6 pounds of mercury per year. In MEA's summary report, mercury emissions fluctuated from 2.9 to 11 pounds, depending on power output.

MEA's decision to keep the plan from its member-owners was met with skepticism from Valley activist groups, MEA Ratepayers Alliance and Utility Watch. Jim Sykes of Utility Watch said the plan should have been made public months ago, before MEA's board approved it.

&#8220I'm glad they released it, let me make that clear,” Sykes said. &#8220But it came after all the decisions were made. The barn door is open, the horse is well gone.”

Sykes said his organization will team with MEA Ratepayers Alliance to host a Truth About Coal meeting at Palmer High School, 7-9 p.m. June 20 to &#8220get a grasp of this project without MEA's spin on it.”

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