The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
North of 60 Mining News - January 17, 2025
Due to shortages of natural gas and hydroelectricity, Golden Valley Electric Association is increasing output at its Healy power plants near Usibelli Coal Mines operations.
Large mills for grinding rock at Fort Knox, the largest consumer of electricity in Alaska.
While the idea of rolling blackouts during the cold and dark days of an Interior Alaska winter is less than ideal, Golden Valley Electric Association (GVEA) cautioned its customers in Fairbanks and the surrounding area to be prepared for such a scenario. To help keep the lights on and the furnaces running, Alaska mines are adding coal to the fires on the supply side of the equation and preparing to lighten the load on the demand side.
In a Jan. 13 letter, GVEA cautioned its customers that it is operating without a safety net when it comes to meeting energy demands, and an event that took additional supplies offline could force the utility to initiate a "load shed program."
"This program, if ever needed, would consist of relatively short power disruptions that rotate throughout the communities we serve to reduce demand to match supply and maintain grid reliability," GVEA cautioned in its letter. "Disruptions would be between 30 minutes and one hour in duration."
Though such a rolling blackout across the GVEA grid in Interior Alaska is a "worse case scenario," a shortage of gas from Cook Inlet and being cut off from Bradley Lake Hydropower during the winter months is putting enough strain on the energy supply and demand mix that the cooperative feels it prudent to warn customers of the potential to trigger the controlled load shedding program.
"GVEA is not alone in this situation. The other Railbelt electric utilities are facing similar challenges with natural gas, requiring everyone to consider their resource adequacy and alternatives," said GVEA President and CEO Travis Million.
The Cook Inlet gas shortage is dealing a double blow to GVEA's energy strategy.
First off, the Alaska gas shortfall means that Southcentral utilities are not generating excess electricity. GVEA has traditionally been able to purchase electricity from Chugach Electric Association, Matanuska Electric Association, or Homer Electric Association to help meet customer demands. However, the Interior Alaska cooperative has not been able to purchase power from these Alaska Railbelt utilities since last February.
Secondly, the gas shortage has resulted in the termination of a contract to purchase natural gas GVEA uses to generate 20 megawatts of power.
Making the energy mix tighter, another 20 MW of electricity that is normally delivered from the Bradley Lake hydropower plant on the Kenai Peninsula is currently not available due to construction.
While removing this important source of clean and affordable electricity during the high-use Alaska winter months is inconvenient, federal law dictates that the construction takes place when the ground is frozen for access and to minimize the impact on migratory bird areas. The bad news for GVEA and its customers is that this winter shutdown for Bradley Lake construction is expected to be an annual event for the next seven to 10 years.
While GVEA still has plenty of energy to meet its customers' needs, the natural gas and hydroelectricity shortage removes its safety net.
"At this time, we do not anticipate disruptions, and we aim to keep it that way," said Million.
Large mills for grinding rock at Fort Knox, the largest consumer of electricity in Alaska.
To keep the lights on for everyone in Interior Alaska, GVEA is leaning on increased output from its coal-fired power plants at the mouth of Usibelli Coal Mines operations in Healy, Alaska.
Usibelli delivers coal to GVEA's two Healy power plants, capable of generating a combined 57 MW of electricity, plus three other Interior Alaska power plants capable of generating another 70 MW of electricity.
GVEA is also squeezing more power out of its diesel power generators.
If the scenario arose where the power cooperative's supply could not meet energy demands, GVEA would first work with its large industrial customers to lighten the load before initiating a load shed program.
GVEA's largest customer, Kinross Gold Corp.'s Fort Knox Mine north of Fairbanks, told Mining News that they have been in talks with the utility and are willing and able to help out should the worst-case scenario arise.
"Fort Knox, as the state's largest consumer of electricity, would be one of the first to reduce usage," Kinross Alaska External Affairs Manager Meadow Riedel said. " We are prepared to do this if needed; the anticipated duration of these outages would have very minimal impact to our operation, and we have back-up generators in place that can keep systems from freezing up in the event of a long than expected outage."
She said Kinross Alaska has been meeting with GVEA for years on reliability, sourcing, and costs of the electricity being delivered to Fort Knox and the rest of the utility's Interior Alaska customers.
GVEA says it is working to implement "a strategic generation plan that seeks to further diversify generation, making investments to continue to improve the reliability of our existing units and seeking funding for future generation, among others."
"Close coordination and frequent communication between GVEA and Fort Knox are essential," said Riedel.
For now, adding more Usibelli coal to the fire and Fort Knox's ability to reduce demand should a worst-case scenario arise provides a second safety net for GVEA and its customers.
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
Reader Comments(0)