Letter to the Community

To Our Neighbors,

As this year winds to a close, we think about the highlights that made this year memorable. The amazing weather we experienced and the resulting effects from the lack of precipitation certainly come to mind. While we are fortunate to be a hydro-based community, precipitation is fuel for hydro projects, and we didn’t get the amount of “fuel” we normally do.  Even though we didn’t need to burn diesel, as many of the other Southeast communities did, the lack of rainfall did increase electric bills. Read more about that in A Rainforest with No Rain, and in the insert describing the Cost of Power Adjustment.

We are proud to have served this community for over 125 years. A continuing goal for us is to engage with our community on energy-related topics. Sometimes the interactions are in person, as described in Power Pledge Challenge, and sometimes we provide the information on our website and via social media – see the write-ups on Outage Updates and our YouTube account. Additionally, this year we started posting a Generation Report on our website, under “The Latest” section on our homepage. The Generation report provides information about reservoir levels, sales to interruptible customers, and other relevant information.

Reliable delivery of safe power is of paramount importance to us. Some of the power outages are caused when birds strike electrified equipment. This year we installed avian protection equipment at Lemon Creek to reduce avian fatalities and resulting outages – find out more in the Greenjacket and Reliability articles.

Did you know that AEL&P operates five hydroelectric projects? We own four of these, and the State of Alaska owns Snettisham – the fifth, and largest plant.  Snettisham is located 44 miles from Juneau and provides about two-thirds of Juneau’s energy in a normal year. More information can be found in Spotlight on Snettisham and Power Supply.

Our oldest hydro facility is the Gold Creek project, which was built in the early 1900s. The Gold Creek flume (wooden waterway), which brings water into the Gold Creek hydro facility, was beginning to show its age. The flume trail – the popular boardwalk trail built over the waterway – was closed for part of the year to allow for the completion of phase one of a two-year reconstruction project.   This rehabilitation will allow for many more years of renewable energy delivery and an improved and safer hiking trail for the community. See Gold Creek Flume Trail update.

While this report doesn’t cover all the exciting projects we’ve worked on this year, we hope that you will enjoy reading these highlights. And, as always, we are here to answer your questions, so please come and visit us or give us a call at 780-2222. You can also reach out at aelp.com. Cheers to a healthy and happy 2020.

Sincerely, 

Read the entire Letter To the Community HERE.

 

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