As members of electric co-ops, we have extraordinary power to shape our energy system. As Alaskans, we have extraordinary reasons to elect better leadership: complacent co-op directors are sleepwalking us into a costly and stagnant future.
Between next month and April 2026, Homer Electric Association will rely on what is practically a Potemkin village of a gas supply contract – a propped-up, two-dimensional facade with no building behind it. The best deal HEA could get after losing its Hilcorp contract a year ago was a one-year agreement with ENSTAR, which now faces its own challenges supplying gas for HEA. HEA’s new agreement with ENSTAR may look like a gas contract, but our supplier doesn’t actually know where the supply is. Nor does this interruptible contract have any consequences should ENSTAR fail to deliver.
Two of the five Regulatory Commissioners took the unusual step of dissenting from the state’s approval of this contract, with the objection that all ENSTAR ratepayers will share the cost of the expensive spot market gas needed to cover HEA’s needs. Approval came with the condition that HEA explain the implications to members and file a plan for handling power outages if gas doesn’t materialize.
Even as a long-foreseen gas crisis becomes unignorable reality, HEA relies on natural gas for 86% of our power. Our only significant non-gas generation, the Bradley Lake hydroelectric plant, was built by the state in the ’90s. HEA’s only significant renewable increase since then came in 2020, when the state finished the Battle Creek addition to Bradley Lake. HEA did reduce gas needed for backup power thanks to the battery system it built in 2022. But a battery isn’t generation. The sources of our power have barely shifted in 30 years.
In December 2023, the board voted 6-3 to ditch HEA’s only public-facing, measurable, and time-bound commitment to changing our generation. This was the extremely ambitious goal of 50% renewable power by the end of 2025. Though we were unlikely to hit it, we’re now on track to end 2025 with no change in generation mix. When it comes to how we get our power, the HEA board majority has largely decided not to decide. Last year they spent less effort pressing for generation solutions than on hunting for far-fetched excuses to restrict net metering, the program that lets HEA members invest in conserving energy with grid-tied home solar.
In the absence of a public goal, HEA’s decisions have been driven by a 2022-2025 strategic plan drafted by the board in closed sessions. The only public information HEA has given about the plan’s contents is a tri-fold brochure listing generalities such as “innovative energy solutions” and “energy resource diversification,” free of commitments to anything specific. Keeping some details of the plan confidential may be justified. But contrast that brochure with the 48-page Integrated Resource Plan that Chugach Electric Association shared with its members, specifying the new generation it intends to build and when.
Two incumbents who voted to end the renewable goal are now up for re-election — Wayne Ogle and HEA board president Dan Furlong. Erin McKitrrick voted to keep it.
Furlong, in his video statement, describes the strategic plan as “bold and aggressive.” Since they’re not showing it to us, we’ll have to take his word for it. Ogle says HEA is “on the right track.” Is a utility on the right track when it’s forced to plan for scheduled power outages due to unreliable fuel supply? Whatever you call it, that’s the track we’re on.
HEA is expecting a 7% reduction in gas need in 2028, after it replaces an old turbine in Nikiski with a newer model. This is a smart move, but earns few points for proactive decision-making – the old turbine needed replaced anyway. Further progress will require tougher decisions.
HEA will need an engaged board if there’s to be any future for the proposed Puppy Dog Lake solar farm in Nikiski. The privately developed project, which could meet up to 12% of HEA’s needs, is in limbo after the New York-based Clean Capital pulled its investment.
With a more active board, there’d be no reason for our co-op’s future to be steered by the priorities of New York financiers. HEA can and should initiate its own renewable projects, and should consider participating in developer-led projects like Puppy Dog Lake as a partner and investor, not merely a customer. The solar farm may still be viable and beneficial with greater HEA participation.
There’s also HEA’s lethargic search for a 30 megawatt wind farm site on the Kenai Peninsula. HEA only started on the first step, collecting a year’s worth of wind data, in the second half of 2024, after sitting on a nearly unspent $833 million state grant since late 2022. We’ve delayed our wind prospecting because of rising labor and equipment costs. Labor and equipment are unlikely to get cheaper any time soon. And in our current situation, we’re paying a high cost for lost time.