MEA spars with state over snow loading, subsidies

WASILLA — Images of snow-covered power lines stretching nearly to the ground appearing on local TV commercials recently may not acurately depict the state of the Intertie power lines today, but could be considered emblematic of the long and tired battles over subsidizing Alaska’s electric cooperatives.

The Matanuska Electric Association advertisement features pictures of stretches of line that are part of the Alaska Intertie, a high-voltage line between Willow and Healy. They’re also a decade old, which has some wondering if the ad is an accurate depiction of the current state of the intertie.

Tuckerman Babcock, assistant general manager at MEA, said the photos are the most recent he has and represent a problem, called “snow loading,” which is still an issue. The ads are part of a year’s sponsorship of the Channel 2 News, which cost the utility $185,000. MEA gets to choose which ads to run in its sponsor slot and usually chooses different spots at different times of the year. The Intertie ads have been running since the start of this year, Babcock said, with a break for ads relating to the utility’s annual meeting.

The ads are the same viewers might have seen in previous years. MEA likes to play them most every winter, Babcock said. This year’s version has one exception — a sentence saying the state has a plan to fix the project has been deleted. Babcock said he believes the state doesn’t have a plan.

Jim Strandberg of the Alaska Energy Authority, the state body that owns the lines of the Alaska Intertie, said snow loading could still occur, but the state has addressed the issue and it’s not a problem.

In the early 1990s, the state installed monitors on every 10th power pole, Strandberg said. Those monitors keep tabs on snow accumulating on lines and send warnings to dispatchers at Municipal Light and Power in Anchorage. That dispatch center also has a console that displays snow loading information in nearly real time. In addition, the state has a contract with snowmachiners who head out every time there’s more than two inches of snowfall to make sure the lines aren’t drooping.

In either case, if the lines sag, the utility can immediately start the process of turning off the lines, which takes some time as Fairbanks utilities have to fire up their generators, then get it fixed, Strandberg said.

“The approach is a belt-and-suspenders approach where we’re doubly redundant,” he said. “I think the fact that we will send a snowmachine out anytime there’s an excess amount of snow, in our mind that retains a very good level of reliability.”

That may be true, but monitoring a problem is not the same as fixing it, Babcock said, and MEA is campaigning for a fix. While the state may be able to turn off the line whenever there’s a problem, the line is still there, drooping low enough to potentially decapitate someone. Snowmachiners and mushers in the area are at risk, he said.

And since the only lines susceptible to the problem are in the Mat-Su Valley, he said those at-risk recreationists are likely MEA ratepayers.

“I think the state is just gambling that nobody is going to be killed,” Babcock said. “We are just consistently pointing out that it is something they can solve.”

Strandberg noted that since 1986 when the lines were completed, there’s only been a handful of documented cases where the lines drooped to dangerous levels. Those instances only last as long as the affected span is covered in snow, which is usually a short period of time, he said. Since the monitors went in there has not been an incident such as Babcock said MEA is worried about.

Strandberg said the Intertie Operating Committee has chosen not to fund a project to add inset towers — towers placed between the current towers that would keep the lines from drooping.

“Certainly, if we wanted to avoid the chance of ever having that occur we would put the inset towers in,” Strandberg said. “[But] the decisions have been in the past to make use of this belt and suspenders warning system.”

The Intertie has been a bone of contention between MEA and other utilities. Babcock said the lines really only benefit Golden Valley Electric Association in Fairbanks, which is able to transport in cheap power from Anchorage over the lines, and Chugach Electric Association, which is able to sell power to Golden Valley.

Babcock said MEA has tried numerous strategies to fix the snow loading problem. The cooperative has offered to buy the entire Intertie, with a condition of the sale being that the state fix it before handing it over. MEA has proposed a plan wherein the state use $20 million it appropriated in 2002 to install inset towers rather than spending it to upgrade lines between Willow and Knik-Goose Bay Road to allow higher voltage energy to flow through.

Having met with little success, Babcock said MEA has abandoned those options; however, wrangling over the Intertie isn’t likely to cease.

The project to install higher-voltage line from Willow to Knik-Goose Bay Road would cut off most of the Upper Susitna Valley, Babcock said. The bigger lines won’t connect well with MEA’s lower-voltage system. MEA would have to either upgrade its system or build its own parallel line. The less expensive option would be to build the second line, which would cost the utility $15 million.

When the money to install those higher-voltage lines came to the Alaska Energy Authority from the Legislature, Babcock said initially it had a second component to build MEA’s parallel lines. Then-Gov. Tony Knowles cut that money and every attempt to appropriate that money since has failed, usually dying in the governor’s office.

Babcock said the entire intertie issue seems to be one of the state offering subsidies to everyone but MEA. This year, the Legislature is taking another pass at paying for the parallel lines, Babcock said. As of Thursday it was still in the state’s budget bill, which is due to be discussed today.

“If the state would stop subsidizing the utilities, stop giving grants, I think we would all get along a lot better,” Babcock said. But the way it stands now, “it’s a zero-sum game and the MEA ratepayers have been on the losing end of that for a long time.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiers-man.com or 352-2270.