At their regular board meeting last week in Ketchikan, Southeast Alaska Power Agency (SEAPA) approved rebates to member utilities, discussed the progress of the Swan Lake expansion project and approved the Whitman Lake True Up Agreement.
Though rebates to member utilities were approves, the amount Wrangell will receive is still being worked out.
“We don’t really know at this point,” said Sharon Thompson, executive assistant at SEAPA. Typically, the amount is equivalent to a half cent per kilowatt hour and is based on each community’s consumption for the year.
“Ketchikan naturally gets a higher percentage because they use more, followed by Petersburg and Wrangell,” explained Clay Hammer, an alternate on the board and electrical superintendent of Wrangell Municipal Light and Power. “In a nutshell, it all depends on how much of the SEAPA resource we each use.”
During the discussion, board secretary/treasurer Andy Donato pointed out that SEAPA saw record revenues last year, with 183 million kilowatt hours produced for its client communities.
“That’s the highest in our history,” he told the board.
Donato went on to say “it would be interesting” to the power company’s customers if the rebates were gotten rid of on a record-breaking year.
In passing the rebate, the board voted to make clear that this may be the last communities can count on for the foreseeable future. It almost was not distributed this year either, as a matter of tightening belts for the upcoming expansion projects like the raising of Swan Lake’s dam.
The Swan Lake Reservoir expansion project is SEAPA’s top priority for this year’s legislative funding round according to SEAPA CEO Trey Acteson.
“We have successfully acquired $3.898 million to date and will be seeking an additional $2.76 million (from the state),” Acetson said in his CEO report.
The expansion will raise the top of the dam at Swan Lake by about 14 feet which will increase the capacity of the reservoir by nearly 25 percent.
SEAPA is the wholesale power provider for Ketchikan, Petersburg and Wrangell, and of those member utilities Ketchikan is most in need of additional power at this time.
“It’ll (additional energy) be used initially to reduce Ketchikan’s dependence on diesel fuel,” Joe Nelson, superintendent of Petersburg Municipial Power and Light said.
The additional energy created from the Swan Lake expansion still won’t be enough to entirely wean Ketchikan off diesel. To that end the Whitman Lake hydroelectric project has been in the works for about a decade, Nelson said, to help service Ketchikan’s power needs.
All member utilities, including Ketchikan,
have a long-term power sales agreement (PSA) with SEAPA. The PSA requires SEAPA to sell and
member utilities to purchase all available power from the Swan Lake and Tyee Lake projects. With the Whitman power project coming on line,
a true-up agreement is needed to “allow SEAPA and its member utilities to cover the cost of
any possible displaced sales resulting from Whitman Lake’s operation,” according to meeting documents.
The Whitman True Up Agreement was passed as an ordinance by the City of Ketchikan Aug. 21 and approved by the SEAPA board at its meeting last week.
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