Snettisham line repaired, Juneau back on Hydro Power

JUNEAU, Alaska — Alaska Electric Light and Power fired up diesel generators over the weekend when the utility lost all power from a hydroelectric project that supplies 70 percent of the utility's power.


The utility is now getting 60 percent of its power from diesel and the rest from several other hydroelectric projects that are now running at full capacity, the Juneau Empire reported . That's about $10,000 worth of diesel fuel per hour, said Scott Willis, power generation engineer for Alaska Electric Light and Power.


The cost of diesel will be recovered through normal quarterly cost of power adjustments to begin in January, so customers won't see an immediate charge on their bill, Willis said.


"It is still too early to tell exactly what that COPA charge will be," Willis said, but an estimate will be provided early next week.


The power went out on Thursday morning when two anchors holding wires that support a transmission tower broke, causing it to lean against a neighboring tower. The incident knocked out all power from the Snettisham Hydroelectric Project, which supplies about 70 percent of the utility's energy.


Power has been restored to all of the utility's 16,000 customers, and diesel generators are capable of powering all of Juneau when needed. Repairs will take three to seven days, Willis said. Officials are unsure exactly why the cables snapped but they don't believe it was related to avalanche activity, he said.


Damage to a transmission line allowed for a short circuit that took out power for about an hour in some neighborhoods on Thanksgiving morning before backup generators were fired-up to keep the holiday lights on.


“The line crew got a break in the weather and went after the job today,” said Scott Willis, of Alaska Electric Light & Power, said Saturday. “The completed repairs to the line and Snettisham power was restored to town around 2:30 p.m. (Saturday). The last diesel generator was shut off about 20 minutes later. Our system is back to normal, we are back to 100 percent hydro power, and our interruptible customers, Greens Creek and the dual-fuel customers are back in service.”


The utility is still calculating the cost of burning diesel.


“On Monday we’ll get an estimate of how much we spent for diesel fuel during this outage and how that will affect rates in January,” Willis said.