MEA to upgrade ‘inadequate and vulnerable’ system

Next time you are driving through town, take a minute to notice the electrical system that surrounds you. It isn’t necessarily pretty (at least that’s what some people tell me). It is a bunch of wires, equipment and steel. But what makes it special is that at the end of each one of those wires is a light. A family. A business. A job.

MEA knows the value electricity brings to your lives and our community’s vitality. It is our job to keep that system healthy and serving our members in the most efficient and dependable way possible. We worry about it, obsess over the details, and lose sleep so you don’t even have to think about it.

By Lower 48 standards, what we do up here is unheard of. Because of our large service area, MEA has a huge amount of infrastructure to build and maintain with few members to cover the costs. Our system crosses extreme terrain and stands up to weather most people have only seen on TV. These factors add to our challenges and ensure we are good stewards of our resources.

We are also keenly aware of how fragile the system is. Alaskans with a pioneering spirit built this system through cooperation and sheer will to bring electricity to each community almost a century ago. Since then it has been inadequately funded and, at times, ignored while the demands of our fast-growing service area continue to escalate.

Our system was built around our old model of a distribution utility where MEA receives a fairly steady and predictable stream of electrons from someone else that we then pay for and distribute to our members.

Starting in 2015, we will be in the business of producing our own power. Now it is our job to ensure that when we feed power into the system, the stream of electrons is just as steady and predictable as before. It is a complicated process and Chugach Electric has done a great job over the years of making it look easy. It is not. Over the past year, as we’ve built our power plant, our staff has been preparing for this challenge and we are up for the task.

MEA is also preparing our system for the task. The stakes are higher because any failure to our system, especially a substation or transmission line, could impact the power plant. The plant is robust enough to handle such events, but it would mean we would all be in the dark for a while as we bring everything back online. Depending on how much power we are generating compared to the other utilities at the time, it could impact the entire Railbelt grid.

Our system is inadequate and vulnerable and that is why we have a plan to fortify it to protect each of you and the entire region. This means adding redundancy, protection and reliability. The most visible examples of this will be upgraded substations and more robust transmission lines. It also will be reflected as a portion of our projected rate increase for 2015.

What we are trying to accomplish isn’t trend-setting or even innovative. It is simply meeting basic reliability standards common in the robust Lower 48 grid, but often missing here in Alaska.

Over the past five years, MEA has sharpened our focus on improving how we deliver power to each of your doorsteps. We can’t continue to operate with our current aging system, especially in light of the growth our service area has seen in the past 20 years. Our members deserve better.

Energy is a critical backbone for community development and economic growth. Our service area has been inundated recently with proposed projects that could create economic benefit for the region. Each, without exception, requires dependable, economical energy as a fundamental key to success.

With our new Eklutna Generation Station power plant coming online early 2015, MEA is transforming the way we serve our members. The people of MEA stand at the other end of our system, connected to each one of you, delivering energy you can trust.

Joe Griffith is the general manager of the Matanuska Electric Association.