Taking back the power, hydroelectrically

VICTORIA BARBER

February 22, 2008 at 12:01PM AKST

Now that the price of diesel has climbed above $3 per gallon and brought catastrophic energy bills into the homes of rural Alaska residents, communities throughout the Bush are considering the alternative. That is, of course, alternative energy.

But while an $800 heating bill would turn anyone’s stomach, many towns continue to choke it down rather than face the enormous up-front expense of installing the panels, dams, pipes, power lines, turbines and other infrastructure needed to harness the "free" energy of nature’s elements.

City managers and council members considering whether to take the geo-tidal-solar-hydro plunge might do well to examine the story of King Cove, a small fishing town on the Alaska Peninsula.

King Cove, population 800, bit the infrastructure-cost bullet and installed its own hydroelectric facility 14 years ago, in 1994 when diesel was still 75 cents per gallon. Now that price has tripled, the Delta Creek hydroelectric facility supplies more than half of the 4 million kilowatt hours that the city uses in a year.

King Cove Mayor Ernest Weiss wasn’t the head of local governance when the decision came down to build the facility, but he says that he’s glad the city decided to go for it.

"This city is reaping the benefits of decisions that were made then," Weiss said.

Residents of King Cove pay 24 cents per kilowatt-hour for their power – a rate that still classifies King Cove as a "high energy cost rural community" according to the standards of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. However, it’s a lot less than residents pay in another fishing town nearby, Dutch Harbor, where the rate is 38 cents per hour.

"Our city’s forefathers were forward thinking enough to say ‘this is a good idea.’ They took a gamble but it sure paid off," Weiss said.

The "gamble" was on a $1.9 million loan. The city has managed the debt by charging residents the same rate whether their energy is coming from the creek or a drum of diesel.

In the summer, the hydroelectric facility is so productive that the city shuts down its diesel generators altogether. While customers continue to pay their rate, the creek runs through the turbine at no charge and the profit generated can pay down the infrastructure loan and cover the operations of the facility and its upkeep – including the replacement of a $120,000 turbine every decade or so.

But the power did not always run smoothly. Gary Hennigh coordinated the initial plans for Delta Creek in his first year as King Cove city manager in 1989 and has overseen its development since. He said that learning to manage the hydroelectric facility had a steep learning curve.

"Mother Nature has a lot of idiosyncrasies," Hennigh said. "That first year, there were a lot of times I thought we’d might have made a big mistake."

The facility uses "run of the river" technology to turn Delta Creek’s current into electricity. Low barriers partially dam the water flow, which once forced over falls down a 400-foot pipe called a penstock. Water pushed through the penstock rushes through a turbine, which creates energy through a generator.

Hennigh said that in their first winter they didn’t know to shut down the facility when temperatures dropped. Then water running down the penstock pipe froze and created "the biggest freaking snow-cone you’ve ever seen."

"It took a couple days with backhoes and shovels to get (the ice) out," Hennigh said. "But we learned by experience to shut it down."

Hennigh said that even through the difficulties of the first year, the community gave its full support to the enterprise.

"There is just something about the average person in King Cove that says – hey, we’re willing to take on new ideas and do what we can to help ourselves," Hennigh said. "They never said to stop and so we kept going, and accomplished what we have ’85 I don’t think they’ve ever looked back."

Now that the city has worked the kinks out of its favorite power source, it wants more. King Cove recently issued a press release announcing a second hydroelectric facility on Waterfall Creek, which feasibility studies predict will supply another 1.4 million kilowatt hours. This combined with the existing facility’s output would generate 80 percent of the town’s annual needs.

In the summer this would be more power than the town can use, and Hennigh said that they hope to sell some of it to Peter Pan, which operates a large cannery in the area.

"Our community lives from the strength of the renewable resource of fish, and we if we can use a renewable resource to create our power, that’s seems to be something about that that makes good sense to me and the people of King Cove," Hennigh said.

Victoria Barber can be reached at (907) 342-2424 or toll free at (800) 770-9830, ext. 424.