Power up

(All photos by Tom Schulman.  Thank you, Tom.)

Thursday, Feb. 7, I showed up at Chugach Electric, my former workplace. Why would I do that? Part of it is because I go in to pay my health insurance premium (secondary insurance after Medicare) and I usually visit with a few former co-workers since they were my work family for years.

This time I was also there for a few special reasons. I am on the Chugach Nominating Committee, my second year. This is one of three annual meeting committees that are charged with looking and interviewing prospective board candidates, overseeing the election process and reviewing potential bylaw changes. These committees are necessary for a successful election. During many of my working years I was the staff liaison for the Nominating and Election committees and was also charged with recruiting members for all three committees.

Now I'm just a committee member, a volunteer. Partly I'm doing this because so often there are not enough volunteers and partly I'm doing this because as a member, and part owner of Chugach, it is my duty to volunteer to an organization that I own a small piece of. (Yep, ended it with a preposition.)

All geared up.  Safety everything.  I felt like a penguin I had so many clothes on.

The great hook for this meeting was that the committees had been offered a tour of the $369 million SPP (Southcentral Power Project), that Chugach took control of at 11:59 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 31, 22 months after the start of construction. The SPP became operational way ahead of its scheduled June tranfer date.

The Southcentral Power Project, SPP.  Up and running.

Safety first, always.  We were geared up in safety gear and had our safety briefing prior to being taken into the plant.

I'd worked at Chugach when this project was not even a thought in someone's head. Then it became a thought, a design, a purchase, a construction project, a groundbreaking. I had also been on a tour while it was still under construction. While it is not 100 percent complete, it is mostly, and is now operating, and owned by Chugach (70 percent) and Municipal Light & Power (30 percent).

Power control for the plant.  One dispatcher can operate it but the norm will be to have two on duty.

Had to have a photo inside the plant.

The inside is so clean, and there's not a lot of noise like there is at the older plants.   

The SPP is a sight to see. It operates using only about three-quarters of the fuel that the older natural gas-fired units use. It has three natural gas-fired turbines and also has a steam unit that uses the exhaust of the gas turbines to make steam, producing electricity at no additional fuel cost … read very economical.

The steam unit is an efficient use of exhaust from other units ... and the electricity from it is basically free.  Well, except for the cost of the unit.  But it's very economical to use steam units. 

The plant is also set up to be efficient for its workers, and one of the coolest things is you can drive a semi through from one end of the other of the building, making it more efficient and safe to load huge pieces of equipment that need to go in and out of the building. The plant is also quite colorful, with pipes for various things being color-coded … purple, blue, yellow and more.

The color-coding is quite amazing as if there is a problem with something it can immediately be identified due to the color of the pipe or equipment. 

I'm glad I got to go on this tour, twice, once while under construction and once when mostly completed. It was an amazing project, and the largest Chugach has done in years.