ANCHORAGE, Alaska—
CIRI lobbied the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce Monday to throw its support behind its Fire Island wind project and apply pressure to utility companies and the state to move forward. The Native corporation has pumped about $9 million into a plan to build 33 wind turbines on Fire Island to generate electricity.
CIRI began clearing land for construction on the island this year.
The corporation is hoping to use federal stimulus funds to cut construction costs, but to get the money; CIRI must have agreements from utilities to buy the power.
Those contracts must be approved by state regulators by next March.
“There is no better time to do this than now. I will stand here today and give you my personal opinion that there will never be a less expensive wind project of this size in Alaska,” said CIRI Director of Energy Development Suzanne Gibson.
“The problem is, you've got four or five utilities in the rail belt, each with different cost structures, different economics. So you're not just dealing with one question to be solved. You're dealing with multiple questions to be solved and that's CIRI's challenge,” said Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan.
CIRI says it's currently negotiating with utility companies.
Some of the challenges facing the project are technical. Since wind is a variable source of power, it must be integrated with another system.
Utility companies will have to come up with a way to alternate between wind and gas generation.
Proponents of wind power say natural gas production in Cook Inlet is declining and in a few years, utilities will have to import gas to meet Southcentral Alaska's energy needs.
