Alaskan rural energy projects reviewed for $16M in USDA funds

Dive Brief:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture-Rural Development has selected nine energy project grant applications to move to the final stage of review, with funding contingent on a successful environmental review and meeting the terms of a grant agreement.
The grant proposals were submitted last year to the agency's High Energy Cost Grant program, which aims to lower costs in areas with household energy bills exceeding 275% of the national average.
One of the largest proposals comes from Alaska Power & Telephone Co., which has requested $3 million to construct a 1.8 MW twin-turbine wind project and a 10-mile transmission line to connect five villages now receiving all of their power from diesel generation.

Dive Insight:

High energy costs can be a crippling factor in rural parts of Alaska, and the federal government has initiated several programs which aim to reduce bills in far-flung areas of the country's largest state.

“Alaska has extraordinarily high costs for energy, especially in rural areas, and this funding will help lower these expenses,” USDA-RD Alaska State Director Jim Nordlund said in a statement. “These projects advance the Obama Administration’s ‘all-of-the-above’ energy strategy to make domestic energy use and production affordable and self-sustaining.”

If the nine projects pass environmental review, USDA will award $16 million in funding through its High Energy Cost Grant program, with the funds used to acquire, construct, extend, upgrade or improve energy generation, transmission or distribution facilities. Rural energy prices can skyrocket due to a number of factors, including high fuel prices, limited availability of energy sources, climate conditions and inefficiency housing stock.

In addition to Alaska Power & Telephone's wind generation project, the proposals include:

Alaska Village Electric Co-Op seeks $3 million to build a 16.1-mile, three-phase overhead power line and to upgrade four miles of single-phase distribution line. The overhead power line will connect a wind farm in development at Pitka’s Point.
The city of Pilot Point has proposed installing and integrating a 100 kW wind turbine and 16 electric thermal stoves, and requested more than $800,000 to pay for shipping costs.
The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium requested almost $700,000 to install solar photovoltaic arrays to reduce the operating costs of community water treatment facilities.
NANA Regional Corp. is seeing more than $1.6 million to install a battery and grid-forming converter to incorporate wind and solar photovoltaics and build capacity.
In New Koliganek Village Council, $2.2 million will go to replace an small, older diesel electric generation power plant in the village of Koliganek.
And the Naterkaq Light Plant needs almost $3 million to install three 95 KW wind turbines, supervisory control and data acquisition equipment, a 300 KW load-balancing boiler, and 20 electric thermal storage devices.

The application deadline was in December, with grants open to retail or power supply providers serving rural areas, including state and local governments, federally recognized tribes, non-profit organizations and businesses.