Vote leaves power plant project uncertain

PALMER — With the rough treatment its attempt to repeal a Mat-Su Borough power plant regulation ordinance got at the polls this past week, Matanuska Electric Association officials aren’t optimistic their plans to build local generation can remain on schedule.

“With those regulations in place, building a natural gas power plant in the Mat-Su Borough in time to meet our power supply obligations of Jan. 1, 2015 is unrealistic,” utility spokeswoman Lorali Carter said Friday.

MEA has maintained the ordinance, which requires anyone wanting to build a power plant that would generate 50 megawatts or more of power in the Borough to first obtain a permit, is unnecessary, expensive, would delay building a plant and introduces too much uncertainty to the process.

The Borough has said that its regulations do not mandate MEA or anyone else to submit any information the state doesn’t already require and delays obtaining a Borough permit would be minimal.

The ordinance was enacted in August 2007 amid public outcry over MEA’s stated plans to build a coal-fired power plant in the Valley. The utility had planned to build two 100-megawatt plants, one fired by coal and the other by natural gas. The gas plant is moving ahead, while plans for the coal plant were eventually shelved. MEA cited rising costs of materials to build the plant and the Borough’s ordinance as reasons for tabling the coal plant.

MEA’s ballot initiative to repeal the Borough’s regulations failed 4,311 votes to 3,429 Tuesday, according to unofficial vote tallies.

Carter said potential delays and uncertainty MEA has about the permitting process may now have the utility rethinking whether it will build a natural gas power plant in the Valley. The ordinance is vague about what needs to go into an application for a power plant permit, she said.

“If you can find anywhere in that ordinance that lays out what a completed application is, let me know,” Carter said.

MEA board member Janet Kincaid said the utility also has other uncertainties to deal with as it attempts to move forward with more local electricity generation.

“We don’t really have a governor,” she said. “We don’t know what’s going to happen with the new legislative session.”

Those may seem like concerns a few steps removed from local electrical cooperatives, but in a state where a good deal of funding for utilities comes from the Legislature and where Gov. Sarah Palin has expressed support for cooperation among the various utilities, what happens in Juneau could have a profound impact on power generation, she said.

Add in a recent study from the Railbelt Electrical Grid Authority that says utilities in the Railbelt should join together as one larger organization and speculation about a future large-scale hydroelectric project somewhere in Southcentral Alaska, and Kincaid said it’s tough to say what MEA should do at this point.

Peter Burchell, another board member, said he hopes something positive can come out of the conflict — that the Borough can sit down with MEA and hammer out some amendments to the ordinance and arrive at a compromise.

“I always believe that,” Burchell said. “But I’m the blind optimist that really feels that if you get rational people together, get their egos out of it, you can solve most problems.”

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