{"id":21308,"date":"2017-01-13T09:03:11","date_gmt":"2017-01-13T17:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/energy-fund-manager-talks-renewables-at-chamber-luncheon\/"},"modified":"2017-01-13T09:03:11","modified_gmt":"2017-01-13T17:03:11","slug":"energy-fund-manager-talks-renewables-at-chamber-luncheon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/energy-fund-manager-talks-renewables-at-chamber-luncheon\/","title":{"rendered":"Energy Fund manager talks renewables at Chamber luncheon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Juneau sources all of its electricity from renewable hydroelectric power, but that doesn\u2019t mean the city can\u2019t benefit from emerging energy technology.<\/p>\n

Just ask Josh Craft, program manager with the Alaska Energy Authority\u2019s Emerging Energy Technology Fund. Craft, who heads EETF grant program \u2014 aimed at promoting fresh ideas to lower Alaska\u2019s energy costs \u2014 spoke at Thursday\u2019s Juneau Chamber of Commerce Luncheon.<\/p>\n

From air-source heat pumps, flywheel energy storage, innovative exhaust designs and a \u201chydrokinetic device\u201d \u2014 a submersible machine that harvests hydropower from river flows \u2014 the EETF has awarded more than $15 million to test energy innovations in Alaska\u2019s unique climate.<\/p>\n

Twenty of the 21 projects the EETF has funded, concepts all untested in Alaska, would potentially benefit Southeast, according to Alaska Energy Authority outreach manager Katie Conway. <\/p>\n

But before Craft got to talk about any emerging technologies, he had an important point to make.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first thing we consider is always energy efficiency. The kilowatt-hour you don\u2019t use is the cheapest one, so energy efficiency is always the first thing a community should look to,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Many of the EETF\u2019s projects focus on wind power, a readily-available resource in much of diesel-dependant rural Alaska. Running off hydropower, Southeast doesn\u2019t have a much of a need for cheaper electricity, its energy issues have more to do with reliability: Juneau\u2019s electrical grid is what Craft called a \u201cmicrogrid,\u201d a standalone system without a cheap, reliable backup.<\/p>\n

\u201cA microgrid is basically any grid in Alaska,\u201d Craft said. \u201cIt\u2019s a small portion of an electrical grid which stands alone or can breakaway from a main grid.\u201d<\/p>\n

When microgrids break down, sometimes due to natural disaster, electricity users have to find other options \u2014 in Juneau\u2019s case, by firing up downtown-based generators burning costly diesel fuel.<\/p>\n

Because of Alaska\u2019s dependence on microgrids, Craft and the EETF focused their most recent round of funding on improving Alaska\u2019s more than 200 standalone systems, helping them become more stable on their own.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re trying to do, is that since every grid in Alaska is a microgrid, how do we improve the efficiency, the reliability and resiliency of our microgrids,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

According to a story by Alaska Public Media, 78 percent of people in Juneau use oil to heat their homes. That number that could fall if one EETF technology proves viable.<\/p>\n

In winter of 2014-2015, the Cold Climate Housing Resource Center began testing an innovative \u201cair-source heat pump\u201d which could offset some of Juneau\u2019s fossil fuel usage by making electric heating an even cheaper option.<\/p>\n

The CCHRC is developing the heating option to be compatible with a popular Southeast technology, what\u2019s called \u201chyrdonic baseboard heating\u201d \u2014 the 6-inch tall metal baseboards that click when heating up.<\/p>\n

Air-source heat pumps currently on the market don\u2019t work with hydronic baseboard heating as it requires a substantially-hotter water supply than the pumps are designed to provide.<\/p>\n

So the CCHRC partnered with Alaska Electric Light and Power to design air-source heat pumps which provide the correct temperature of water.<\/p>\n

Potential for heat pump applications in Southeast is \u201cquite high,\u201d according to Conway and a \u201cvery good technology\u201d for the region, in Craft\u2019s words. Results for the CCHRC study are available at cchrc.org.<\/p>\n

Establishing renewable energy technology in Alaska could become much harder in the near future. The 39 projects proposed to the Renewable Energy Fund \u2014 the EETF\u2019s counterpart for established alternative energy tech \u2014 went unfunded by the Alaska legislature last year. <\/p>\n

Because the REF doesn\u2019t expect the legislature to fund 2017\u2019s proposals, they aren\u2019t currently accepting proposals.<\/p>\n

The EETF has approved two proposals for their third round of funding totalling $500,000 in grants, half of which was funded by a competitively awarded federal grant.<\/p>\n

One of the projects will seek to improve microgrid technology. The other will demonstrate the viability of a \u201cgasification\u201d power source, a combined heat and power unit capable of producing 40-kW of electicity along with 100-kW of heat.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Contact reporter Kevin Gullufsen at 523-2228 or kevin.gullufsen@juneauempire.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Juneau sources all of its electricity from renewable hydroelectric power, but that doesn\u2019t mean the city can\u2019t benefit from emerging energy technology. Just ask Josh Craft, program manager with the Alaska Energy Authority\u2019s Emerging Energy Technology Fund. Craft, who heads EETF grant program \u2014 aimed at promoting fresh ideas to lower Alaska\u2019s energy costs \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"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-21308","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\/21308","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\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21308\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21308"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=21308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}