Donna Vukich, NEA |
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Residents of Bristol Bay Borough, a community of 1,000 in southwest Alaska, pay 34.5 cents per kWh for electricity, more than three times the national average. But that’s a bargain in the Bristol Bay area. Twenty-five miles to the south, the 350 residents of Egegik pay close to 70 cents pre kWh.
Prices are sky high because both communities burn diesel fuel to generate power, an unsustainable situation, according to Donna Vukich, general manager of Naknek Electric Association. Electricity costs, in fact, are crippling the Bristol Bay salmon fishery, the area’s economic engine.
Vukich, whose husband works as a fisherman, has outlined an ambitious plan to reduce retail electricity prices “by at least 70 percent” in Naknek, South Naknek, King Salmon, Egegik, and 21 other villages, including Dillingham, the other “big town” on the bay. She proposes to replace dozens of isolated diesel generators with central station geothermal power, a renewable resource.
Three shallow test holes were drilled last winter near Naknek, and this summer the electric co-op will complete seismic tests on two that “showed fairly good numbers.”
The next step, Vukich explains, will be to drill deeper holes that tap the geothermal reservoir. To stay on schedule, drilling rigs have to be brought up the Naknek River by the end of September, when the ice season starts.
Construction of the a 25-MW geothermal power plant, 425 miles of transmission line, and 17 or 18 substations could begin as early as next winter, with a 2009-10 completion date. The first phase will serve the Naknek area, Dillingham and four or five villages.
How to cover the project’s estimated price tag of $200 million? “We’re looking at various avenues of financing, including Alaska state funding and Federal Utilities Services loans,” says Vukich.
Vukich adds that all of the utility planning took place with the fishery in mind. Cheaper electricity would allow canneries in Naknek to expand and add at least two more species, herring and halibut, while extending the processing season from two months to four.
“What we’re trying to do is get our region back to the economic viability we sustained up until 1997,” she observes.
Reprinted from RE Magazine (July 2007)