HomeMy WebLinkAboutAlaska Intertie Fact Sheet 04-2018-AKIALASKA ENERGY AUTHORITY
WWW.AKENERGYAUTHORITY.ORG
REDUCING THE COST
OF ENERGY IN ALASKA
FOR MORE INFO
CONTACT:
Kirk Warren
Railbelt Projects Director
KWARREN@AIDEA.ORG
907.771.3072
QUICK FACTS
ALASKA INTERTIE
AEA-owned
transmission
line
Connecting
Fairbanks
utilities with
southern
utilities
Factoid about
annual
savings to
GVEA
ratepayers
CURRENT STATUS
The Alaska Intertie transmits Bradley Lake and economy power north into the Golden
Valley Electric Association (GVEA) system. The economy power is generated by Chugach
Electric Association (CEA), Matanuska Electric Association (MEA), and Municipal Light and
Power (ML&P). Although power generally flows north, the line is available for GVEA to
transfer energy south if an emergency situation finds the Cook Inlet region short of electric
power.
At the direction of the Alaska Legislature the Alaska Regulatory Commission concluded an
evaluation of the existing Railbelt transmission network in June 2015. This evaluation
resulted in five recommendations designed to aggregate the existing transmission assets in
a manner that will allow economic dispatch of power in the Railbelt. Under this concept,
electric load in the Railbelt would be served by the least cost source of power available at
any given time. In order to facilitate this goal, the RCA directed the IMC to revisit the
operating and reliability standards to determine if a uniform set of rules can be agreed
upon by all of the Railbelt utilities and AEA. The operating committee has met with HEA
(non-participant) to reconcile the IMC reliability standards and HEA’s reliability standards
with the goal of adopting a uniform set of standards for the Railbelt. That reconciled single
set of standards is being presented to the IMC in April 2018.
PROGRAM OVERVIEW
The Alaska Intertie transmission line is a 170-mile long, 345kV transmission line between
Willow and Healy that is owned by AEA and operates at 138 kV. The Intertie interconnects
GVEA, the regulated utility that serves areas north of the Alaska Range, with southcentral
Alaska utilities. Although the Alaska Intertie allows resources north and south of the range
to be shared to improve reliability, the GVEA storage battery and generation resources
have been used to send emergency power south to minimize catastrophic network wide
outages.
Constructed in the mid-1980s with $124 million in State of Alaska appropriations, this AEA-
owned asset is associated with no debt. The project includes transmission towers and
conductors, transformers at the Healy, Teeland, and Douglas Substations, and system
stability devices at three locations that are necessary to allow the Railbelt utilities to remain
interconnected.
There are significant cost savings resulting from the exchange of economy energy and
sharing of reserve generation capacity between the Anchorage and Fairbanks load centers.
Once estimated to be $17 million in annual monetary benefit, GVEA ratepayers achieved
savings in excess of $52 million in 2012.
GOVERANCE AND UTILITY PARTICIPATION
The operation of the Intertie is governed by the Alaska Intertie Agreement, entered into in
1985 and amended in 1991, 2011, and 2014. The parties to this agreement are AEA, GVEA,
ML&P, Chugach Electric and MEA. Each of these entities also has a seat on the Intertie
Management Committee, which has responsibility for operating and managing the Alaska
Intertie.
APRIL 2018