No more gas-generated power, transmission line work, possible GVEA power failure could bring 'load-shedding'
Golden Valley Electric Association announced Monday that the utility may have to resort to briefly shutting off power to customers during winter if it encounters a worst-case scenario.
Golden Valley spokesperson Ashley Bradish says the co-op doesn’t really expect it’ll have to subject its members to blackouts that would last up to an hour. It just wants to advise members about the possibility out of an abundance of caution.
“We're not anticipating any disruptions, not anticipating having to initiate this program,” she said. “It's really just about preparedness, about transparency -- making sure that members kind of know what is going on and that the potential, while unlikely, exists.”
Golden Valley CEO Travis Million reiterated that the co-op is just being upfront with its members about why it has put together a plan to deal with the problem, if it ever came to pass.
“We just want to ensure the membership that this is just a proactive thing,” he said. “We want to get out in front to communicate this information. We really don't see that this is a definitive thing. It's actually a very low probability that we'll get into a situation to where we would have to curtail whatsoever.”
Bradish said Golden Valley issued the advisory because co-op officials recently learned that work on a project to upgrade a high-voltage transmission line on the Kenai Peninsula is under way. She says that’ll periodically result in loss of an important source of electricity for GVEA.
“I believe it was toward the end of last year, late fall, that that was really confirmed,” she said.
'Southern intertie' upgrades
The transmission line connects the Bradley Lake Hydroelectric Project with the Railbelt grid that in turn connects with Golden Valley’s system. Bradish said the upgrades will be done along a portion of the line referred to as the southern intertie that runs between Soldotna and Anchorage.
She said said co-op officials also recently learned that the work will have to be done during the winter.
“There's two reasons. Number one, the area that the construction is being done in -- the ground has to be frozen. It's kind of a swampy area. And then the second reason is because it's in a migratory bird area. So, by law, the construction has to be done during this season.”
That means the work will have to be done at a time when Golden Valley’s electricity demand is at its highest, because it’s winter, and co-op members are heating their homes and businesses. A Golden Valley news release says the work will be done during the first quarter of the calendar year for the next seven to 10 years. The news release says the critical work just began.
Upgrade project now underway
“It started I believe on January 7th,” she said.
Bradish said the unavailability of Bradley Lake power during those months, along with the loss of natural gas-generated electricity from utilities in Southcentral, could leave Golden Valley unable to generate enough power for its members during those winter months. If at the same time, the co-op had problems with its power plants. That possibility led co-op officials to develop a so-called “load-shedding” program.
“It's really in these worst-case scenarios that this could come up, that we lose multiple large generation units unexpectedly, that this program could have to be put in place.”
Load-shedding typically involves a utility cutting back distribution of electricity, resulting in blackouts. Bradish says those outages would occur throughout the Golden Valley system, one area at a time, except critical services like hospitals and emergency services.
“It would be systematic, controlled outages, so it would rotate throughout GVEA service territory, essentially until we could bring back on enough generation to, to meet that demand.”
Kinross, Pogo mines would 'back off energy consumption'
Golden Valley would not shut off power to its biggest industrial customers: the Kinross
Fort Knox Mine and Northern Star’s Pogo Mine. But Million says they’ve agreed to reduce operations.
“They're willing to work with us to back off their energy consumption, if we got into a situation like this,” he said.
Million says Golden Valley’s load-shedding plan serves as another reminder that the state must find a solution to the loss of natural gas-generated electricity. He likened it to the situation utilities in Anchorage and the Mat-Su Valley faced during a cold snap last February.
“They were asking their members to start looking at curtailing some of the natural gas they were using for heat and electricity,” he said. “And in fact, there was a point in time where we were exporting energy from Fairbanks down south to help supplement and help them out.”
Bradish says Golden Valley sent out emails to its members Monday morning advising them about the possibility of load-shedding if the co-op ran into all those problems at once. She urged co-op members who have questions or concerns about the program to contact Golden Valley.
Editor's note: This story has been updated.
