Report peers into Alaska’s energy future

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (KTVF) - Alaska’s energy future beckons wind, solar and something else — that was one of the major takeaways from research conducted through the Alaska Center for Energy and Power, with results presented Thursday in Anchorage.

The study examined four different paths to model Alaska’s energy future through the year 2050, painting a picture of a decarbonized Railbelt colored with strokes of economic optimization.

“Wind and solar ended up being pretty consistently the cheapest sources of energy,” contributing author Jeremy VanderMeer said during the presentation.

One of the four paths they explored, called “business as usual,” assumes Railbelt utilities continue collecting and transmitting power pretty much as they do now.

Renewables deliver about 11% of total energy to the grid in that scenario, while the projected capital investment comes in at $2.3 billion.

The other three scenarios put low- to no-carbon energy inputs at the center of Railbelt energy generation.

Wind and solar are the cornerstones for each of them, while the third renewable energy contributor is the biggest variable in the researcher’s models and include major power contributions from tidal (WST), hydro (WSH) and nuclear (WSN) sources.

WST predictions have the Railbelt reaching 70% renewable energy generation at a capital cost of approximately $7.7 billion by 2050; WSH is 88% for $11.8 billion; and WSN is 96% for $10.1 billion.

Break the scenarios down into megawatt hours, and “when you go to the low-carbon scenarios, they all feature this fundamental shift of paying for fuel over to paying for paying off capital investment,” contributing author Steve Colt said.

Because renewable energy sources are subject to the whims of nature, much of the study also focused on how to best integrate infrastructure to equal out the generation and transmission of low-carbon power across time, something of particular importance for the Railbelt.

“The stability challenges are more pronounced when you’re on an islanded or remote grid. The variability is also more challenging to maintain because we can’t lean on our neighbor when the wind drops off or the solar drops off,” contributing author Derek Stenclik pointed out.

Giant batteries, like the one Golden Valley Electric Association uses, are a step in the direction of a stable grid, because the systems can store power generated during renewables peak production to be transmitted later.

Yet the researchers were also excited about an emerging technology, coined “Grid Forming-Inverters,” or GFMs.

The novel software captures the best of already-existing methods. It takes the quick stabilizing response times of synchronous machines (SMs) and the long-range energy stabilizing abilities of Grid-Following Inverters (GFIs), then combines them.

“Each of them have a strength, and if you can pull the best of both worlds and wrap them into a new product, that’s what we’re calling Grid-Forming Inverter technology,” contributing author Matthew Richwine said.

Richwine said the technology has been deployed successfully in major energy projects worldwide, though not yet in Alaska.

“While there’s not a large installed fleet of it, it is operating on real systems and keeping the lights on for real-paying customers,” he said.

The full report can be found on Alaska Center for Energy and Power’s website.

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