The minds behind Juneau Hydroelectric Inc. are in hot water – and that\u2019s just the way they want it.<\/p>\n
At a session of the Juneau Innovation Summit today in Centennial Hall, the backers of the Sweetheart Lake Hydroelectric Project will unveil their plan to bring clean, cheap heat to downtown Juneau. If it sounds too good to be true, they say they\u2019re not just talking about it – they\u2019re putting up their own money to make it happen without the help from the state or City and Borough of Juneau.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think we\u2019re on to something here,\u201d said Duff Mitchell, managing director of Juneau Hydropower. \u201cWe\u2019re not asking for sales tax abatements, we\u2019re not asking for property tax abatements, we\u2019re not asking for anything for this. We\u2019re basing this on the good old American way where you borrow the money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Juneau Hydropower is the company behind the Sweetheart Lake Hydroelectric Project, a 19.8-megawatt dam and powerhouse planned for a site about 20 miles southeast of Juneau. The project has been in the works for years and is almost finished with federal permitting, but questions have persisted about the need and market for the project\u2019s electricity.<\/p>\n
Last year\u2019s announcement that Juneau Hydropower had partnered with Coeur Alaska Inc. on a subsidiary to build a high-voltage power line to Kensington Gold Mine resolved part of the mystery. Kensington burns diesel fuel to generate about 10 megawatts of electricity for the mine.<\/p>\n
Kensington would consume about half of Sweetheart\u2019s power production, and until Mitchell and company CEO Keith Comstock revealed their plans Monday, the destination of the power plant\u2019s remaining electricity was unclear.<\/p>\n
Speaking to the Empire from their offices in the Kootznoowoo building beneath Canton House, Comstock and Mitchell said they envision a $25 million \u201cdistrict heating\u201d plant and infrastructure similar to that of some European cities.<\/p>\n
The pair are pursuing a low-interest federal clean-energy loan to pay for the effort, but if that doesn\u2019t come through, they\u2019ll turn to the investment market.<\/p>\n
The plant would generate heat in a fashion not unlike a reverse refrigerator. If you have a hard time envisioning that, hold your hand over your refrigerator\u2019s heat exhaust vent. Instead of using air (as in your refrigerator or a home heat pump), the plant would take in water from Gastineau Channel, and remove the heat from the water. That heat would be passed through a network of hot water pipes that connect to the existing boilers of homes and businesses.<\/p>\n
Similar systems are already working at NOAA\u2019s Ted Stevens marine lab in Auke Bay, the Seward SeaLife Center, and in cities across northern Europe.<\/p>\n
Owners of buildings connected to the new system wouldn\u2019t have to change their heating systems; they\u2019d continue to use their own boilers, but the hot water would come from a central source instead of burning oil locally.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re looking for a solution where the costs of conversion were as close to zero as possible,\u201d Comstock said.<\/p>\n
The central plant won\u2019t be selling water; it\u2019ll be selling heat, a legal distinction meaning that it won\u2019t fall under state regulations governing utilities.<\/p>\n
The hot-water network will be small to begin with – the cost of insulated piping is a limiting factor, the pair said – but it can grow as demand does.<\/p>\n
Connecting a home to the central heating network would cost a few hundred dollars to a thousand, Mitchell said, and added that connecting a large building like the State Office Building would cost in the \u201ctens of thousands\u201d of dollars.<\/p>\n
In exchange for converting, the pair are pledging cheaper, more reliable heat, and the cost of installation may be factored into a customer\u2019s monthly bill.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven at current oil prices, I believe I will be competitive,\u201d Comstock said, and because he expects oil prices to rise in the future, the system makes sense.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the part that got me excited about the project because it\u2019s sustainable in the long term, and cheap energy means jobs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The formal unveiling of the central heating project will take place at 10:30 a.m. today in Centennial Hall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The minds behind Juneau Hydroelectric Inc. are in hot water – and that\u2019s just the way they want it. At a session of the Juneau Innovation Summit today in Centennial Hall, the backers of the Sweetheart Lake Hydroelectric Project will unveil their plan to bring clean, cheap heat to downtown Juneau. If it sounds too […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-18673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18673\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18673"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=18673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}