It is almost May and elections for members of the Chugach Board of Directors are the next event for local voters.  There are four openings this year, with a single Board member, Janet Reiser up for reelection.  Like most recent Chugach Board elections, we will be hearing a lot from the union money laundering operation that calls itself the Chugach Reliability Group about their favorite topics (for the campaign) of reliability and renewables.

Chugach Electric is currently looking at three renewable energy projects.  These include the proposed Susitna – Watana dam, the Ormat Mount Spurr geothermal project, and the CIRI Fire Island wind farm.  One of the things that members of the Board need to do is to fairly consider the various projects so that Chugach can move from a primary reliance on Cook Inlet natural gas to something else.

As this election has the potential to put a working majority on the Board for the next three years, perhaps we ought to look at what the current Chugach Reliability Group funded and supported Board majority has done over the last year.  Have they spent our money wisely or have they wasted it?

First thing you need to do is the math:  Susitna hydroelectric is 10-15 years out with a total generation in the 400-600MW range.  Funding will be entirely the State of Alaska or AIDEA bonding.  Total cost is in the $4-6 billion range for 50 years of energy.  Mount Spurr geothermal proposes operations by 2016 with a total generation in the 50-100 MW range.  It is privately funded for the most part.  There is a request for state funds for around $80 million to hook it into the grid.  Finally, we have CIRI’s Fire Island wind farm.  It is 2-4 years out (though we have been talking about it for the last four years) with a maximum generation of 45 MW.  Total capital cost is in the vicinity of $160 million with an additional $25 million of public money to hook it into the grid.

This is not precisely an apples to apples comparison, but it does give an order of magnitude description of the relative sizes of the various projects.  It is important to note that neither Susitna nor Mount Spurr require any integration costs.  Nor are they variable outputs, as they both will be able to provide continuous stable and reliable power on a 24/7 basis.

Wind is problem from a reliability and integration standpoint, as it is highly variable in output.  And this variability requires some sort of instantly available storage or generation capability to smooth out the variable power so that it does not negatively impact the system.  This is the basis of integration costs.  The big sticking point between CIRI and the Rail Belt utilities is who bears those integration costs – CIRI or the utilities.

Additionally, wind rarely produces electricity at its rated capacity.  In a two-year long study of all installed wind generation in Great Britain sponsored by the John Muir Trust, they found that average output of all wind nationwide was only 24% of rated output.  You can find the report here:  http://www.jmt.org/assets/pdf/wind-report.pdf

If Fire Island performs as well as all wind generation in Great Britain, we can expect to get just under 11 MW on average off Fire Island, making this a very small project with not a great upside for Chugach members.

So how has the Chugach Board spent our money over the last year?  One would expect them to maximize their support of Susitna, as it is the largest and most promising of all three projects.  Yet their costs have been mainly in-house staff time.  Support for Mount Spurr has been much the same.  On the other hand, the Board has directed and supported with our utility dollars over $510,000 from April 2010 through April 2011 negotiating and engineering Fire Island wind project with CIRI.

If it were me, I would ask the various candidates what they would pursue and why.  What sorts of new generation projects will be supported over the next three years?  What is so important about Fire Island so that the current Board Majority believes it must be supported at the expense of the other two projects?  Why does an outfit that prides itself (and calls itself) the Chugach Reliability Group support candidates pushing a notoriously unreliable and expensive renewable generation technique – wind  - at the expense of other more robust and more reliable generation?

It is your money and your vote.  But I’d ask the question, for if the Chugach Reliability Group candidates win a working majority this time around, we will see Fire Island and along with it less reliable electricity and higher rates.  But at least we will be “renewable.”

###

flickr photo credit: AnnieGreenSprings