C
M
Y
K
Peninsula Clarion, Friday, May 30, 2014
River turbine to be tested at Alaska Village of Igiugig By DAN JOLING Associated Press
ANCHORAGE — A company that hopes to build underwater river turbines as a clean power alternative to diesel in Alaska villages has unveiled a prototype due to be tested in July. Ocean Renewable Power Co., based in Portland, Maine, showed off its RivGen Power System on Wednesday in Anchorage. The device built with backing from the Alaska Energy Authority and the Denali Commission will be installed in July on the bottom of the Kvichak River to generate power for Igiugig, a community of 50 about 250 miles southwest of Anchorage. The device is a scaled-down version of turbines the company has built for harnessing tidal power. “The good news is, sustainable river energy has now arrived in Alaska,” said Christopher Sauer, ORPC chief executive officer. The turbine is 40 feet wide and has two sets of 15-foot blades. Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell said it reminded him of a farm thresher. In a river flowing at 6 knots, the blades will turn at 49 revolutions per minute. Company of-
C
M
Y
K
ficials estimate it will provide up to half of Igiugig’s electricity. The unveiling in Anchorage was appropriate, Sauer said. He spoke at a 2007 Arctic Energy Conference about his company’s devices that harness tidal power. “People came up to use and said, ‘Can’t you make this smaller? Would it work in river?” Sauer said. AlexAnna Salmon, president of the Igiugig Village Council, said heating oil sells for $7.53 per gallon in her village and the cost of commercial power is $1 per kilowatt hour. “We are welcoming the hydrokinetic system with open arms and open minds,” she said. The turbine will be barged from Homer. It will be fitted to a pontoon support structure fabricated in Alaska that will float the turbine into position in the river. When in place, the pontoons will be filled with water to lower the turbine to the river floor. The company has permits to operate the turbine through September. A crucial part of its review will be how well it hooks into the village power grid and its effects on fish. At least three underwater cameras will monitor fish movements in the crystal-clear Kvichak River, which flows from Lake Minchumina at the village.
Larger fish tend to sense a turbine’s presence and avoid the blades, said Doug Johnson, the company’s director of business development. Small fish swim through it, he said. The company calls testing at Igiugig a crucial step in commercializing the technology. Ocean Renewable will take what’s learned and incorporate it into a revised design, Sauer said. The company’s biggest challenge is raising capital, he said. With cheap natural gas, people say there’s no immediate need to invest in renewables. “If we can raise the money, I would say in two years, we’ll be in production,” he said. He estimated a 25KW unit installed would cost a village about $500,000. “The capital seems a little high, but free fuel costs,” Sauer said.
. . . Suit Continued from page A-1
Whether or not there are remaining issues of material fact was the focus of much of the testimony at Thursday’s hearing. State Department of Law Assistant Attorney General Mike Mitchell said that it’s up to CIFF to prove that the state erred in its management last summer, and has not done so. “The evidence shows that the department did not throw the plans out the window,” Mitchell said. Mitchell noted that Guidi had ruled against the preliminary injunction, and said that during testimony last summer, there was no discussion of missing facts, or the need for more information about the management that was occurring. Bruce Weyhrauch, who represented CIFF, reiterated that organization’s position that ADFG strayed from the management plans and made allocative deci-
C
M
Y
K
sions without the authority to do so, calling the 2013 decisions “willfull mismanagement.” Weyhrauch has asked that CIFF be able to go through discovery and get further information about how 2013 management decisions were made before the judge decides whether or not ADFG was in the right. Guidi asked why CIFF thought there was enough evidence last summer, but no longer did, and Weyhrauch responded that the injunction had a different standard than summary judgment, and the issues were somewhat different. The two sides also discussed this winter’s Board of Fisheries Upper Cook Inlet meeting, which occurred during two weeks in January and February. Mitchell said that CIFF had not gone to the board with its complaints over how ADFG managed in 2013, although the board would be the correct way to address the issue, he said. He also noted that the board made significant changes to the management plans this year. CIFF president John Mc-
A-9
Combs, however, did submit numerous proposals to the Board of Fisheries seeking management plan changes, and the CIFF members who attended the hearing all attended the BOF meeting as well, citing 2013 management in their public testimony and discussions with board members. Weyhrauch said that ADFG’s comment in its reply brief that if CIFF had raised the issue with the BOF, the board would have dismissed it, did not paint a picture of the board that was open to the public or impartial. If Guidi does not rule in support of the state’s motion for summary judgement, the legal process will continue with a period for discovery. According to the current plan, that would be followed by a five-day trial tentatively scheduled for the first week of November. No one has requested a jury trial, so the case would likely be decided by the judge. Molly Dischner can be reached at molly.dischner@ alaskajournal.com.