HomeMy WebLinkAbout06102019 City Council Laydown - ARTEC Report `4° " /; y Count ; 1 e y Al? v,'n Q 4 ,A
/ )- I2 C7E C xet , is f
6/3/19
Honorable Seward City Council Members
5/16/19 ARCTEC Meeting Report
First item of business;board accepted Kevin Dunham as the second Director from the City of
Seward.
The second topic was a short memorial to my father,Willard with a moment of silence and a few
stories and tributes from the board members. The board also voted to send the Alaska Senate a
letter urging that they pass SB 100, a resolution naming the new AVTEC residence building in
honor of Willard E. Dunham.
Next we went into executive session to discuss the MOU,(memorandum of understanding),
between all six Railbelt Utilities to formally create a Railbelt Reliability Council, (RRC). This
should not be confused with the Transco, (Alaska Railbelt Transmission,ART),that has already
been filed with the Regulatory Commission of Alaska, (RCA).
In general,the RRC will be a board composed of the six Railbelt Utilities, several large electric
companies,some stakeholders with interests in the power system,and the Regulatory
Commission of Alaska.
The history of the RRC began when Fairbanks became tied to the Anchorage,Mat-Su, Kenai
Peninsula power system in 1986. The power producing companies at that time did not have any
formal rules on how to control power flows that linked them over long tie lines. The rest of the
United States and Canada had been under Federal Electrical Regulatory Commission, (FERC),
rules since around the 1940's. CEA, GVEA and AML&P developed and implemented standard
operating rules based on the FERC rules,and called them the Railbelt Reliability Standards.
In 2014 and 2015 respectively, Homer Electric and Matanuska Electric ended their long-term all-
power requirement contracts with CEA, and began to produce most of their own power, and to
also control their own generation that was connected to the Railbelt Grid. Not being signatory to
the Railbelt Reliability Standards,they had some different ideas about how the rules work.
In short, you cannot control a power system unless every generation source and transmission line
is controlled under identical rules. After several long discussions and some lawsuits between
some of the utilities,the Alaska legislature has decided to step in and introduce the mandate that
all interconnected power companies will be under a common set of rules. 2019 House Bill 151
and Senate Bill 123 both require these rules be adopted by 7/1/2020.
At this time,CEA,GVEA,MEA and SES are all in favor of,have signed a previous version and
are ready to sign the current MOU. The other board members familiar with the current HEA and
AML&P management personnel are confident the HEA Board and the Anchorage Borough
Assembly will sign it in the near future. It will be submitted to the RCA and hopefully will be
fully implemented and the RRC will be a functional oversight entity to protect the Alaska bulk
power system, and have the teeth to force each company to comply to their rules.
The next ARCTEC Board meeting is scheduled for July 19.
Please feel free to ask for any clarifications or additional information.
Respectfully submitted by,
Kevin Dunham
(907)748-4449