The deadline to vote is a Golden Valley Electric Association board and by-law election is Tuesday. Reducing the cost of energy is the top priority among five candidates seeking election to two seats on the GVEA board.

Golden Valley Electric Association members will be paying less for electricity, beginning Saturday.

Golden Valley Electric Association chief executive John Burns will retire next month, and the co-op’s board has selected chief operating officer Travis Million as the new CEO. Million says he intends to pick up where his predecessor left off in navigating Golden Valley’s transition to more cost-efficient and environmentally friendly ways of generating and transmitting electricity.

The federal Department of Energy has awarded a half-million-dollar grant to help the Fairbanks-based Cold Climate Housing Research Center develop energy-efficient housing for low- to-middle income people around the Interior.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation has no plans to clean up the site where a cargo plane crashed and burned near Fairbanks last month. The agency says tests show the fire consumed nearly all of the 4,700 gallons of fuel on board.

University of Alaska Fairbanks researchers will partner with Galena residents on a Yukon River hydroelectric project.

The Pentagon may move ahead this summer on a proposal to build a small self-contained nuclear power plant on Eielson Air Force Base. A senior Air Force official updated state lawmakers on the project last week.

The Tanana Chiefs Conference is helping Interior villages replace some of their diesel fuel-generated electricity with power generated by solar panels.

A team of specialists with the Army Corps of Engineers and a contractor has completed another round of work in preparation for resuming a decommissioning and dismantling project on the old mothballed SM-1A nuclear power plant at Fort Greely.

Golden Valley Electric Association customers’ monthly bill will increase by an average of $29, starting Friday, due to a Fuel and Purchased Power rate hike caused largely by the loss of access to cheaper natural gas-generated electricity.