The Southeast Alaska Power Agency plans to begin an eight-day process July 1 of removing a damaged submarine electrical cable and replacing it with a new line between Woronkofski and Vank islands, SEAPA CEO Trey Acteson told the Petersburg borough assembly May 17.
Crews will lay about 3.5 miles of new cable. The manufacturing and installation of the cable is estimated to cost about $13.4 million, Acteson said
SEAPA board member Bob Lynn told the assembly at an earlier meeting that the regional power agency would likely need to raise its rates to cover the cost of the project. He had estimated it could add half a cent per kilowatt hour to electrical rates in Wrangell and Petersburg. That would equate to a 4% or 5% rate increase on the power charge on bills.
The damaged cable is one of four submarine cables that connect the SEAPA terminals between Woronkofski and Vank islands to provide Petersburg with power from the Tyee Lake hydroelectric project on the mainland, as the power moves to Wrangell and on to Petersburg.
Three of the cables are needed to transfer power, while the fourth is backup. Without a fourth cable for that stretch of the power grid, Petersburg would have to rely on diesel generation and the borough’s Blind Slough hydro project for electricity if one of the other three cables were to become damaged.
The cable will be shipped to Vancouver,British Columbia, from Japan where it was manufactured by Sumitomo. When the new cable arrives in Canada, it will be shipped up to Southeast on a specialty cable-laying barge that will be equipped with a GPS system to accurately set the cable, Acteson said.
At a SEAPA board meeting earlier this year, board members discussed selling bonds as a way to pay for the replacement cable.
SEAPA’s current rate to Petersburg, Wrangell and Ketchikan has been 6.8 cents per kilowatt hour for more than 23 years. If rates did increase to cover the replacement project, ratepayers across all three communities would see the increase.
Acteson. SEAPA has applied for a grant from the state but won’t know whether it will receive the money until sometime in the future.
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