On Dec. 21, 2021, Connie Hulbert, President of Alaska Electric Light and Power, responded to a letter from Renewable Juneau asking about AEL&P’s role as a private, regulated utility providing power to the residents and businesses of Juneau. Renewable Juneau, as a nonprofit organization, is delighted that she clearly stated support of the Juneau Renewable Energy Strategy. We look forward to working with AEL&P to ensure that 80% of Juneau’s energy comes from renewable resources as outlined in the JRES.<\/p>\n
AEL&P has long been a strong supporter of clean energy in the capital city and has taken many steps to help us move toward this goal.<\/p>\n
Hulbert stated that AEL&P:<\/p>\n
— Provides information to the CBJ on their energy consumption.<\/p>\n
— Assists and collaborates with many CBJ departments, including the Juneau Commission on Sustainability, related to energy use in CBJ buildings.<\/p>\n
— Supported grants for six electric buses, the first of which is currently moving residents around town using clean, renewable energy.<\/p>\n
— Provided shore power, 20 years ago, to the Franklin St. dock using an innovative approach.<\/p>\n
The members of Renewable Juneau particularly appreciate that AEL&P:<\/p>\n
— Helped form the nonprofit entity, Alaska Heat Smart, and that AEL&P’s Director of Energy Services sits on the board.<\/p>\n
— Took the initiative to establish electric vehicle charging rates to encourage EV purchases in Juneau, and played a significant role in installing EV charging stations around town making EV transportation more accessible and viable.<\/p>\n
— Identified two undeveloped hydropower resources at Sheep Creek and Lake Dorothy (Phase II) for Juneau that can help Juneau achieve the ambitious goals of the Juneau Renewable Energy Strategy.<\/p>\n
We also encourage AEL&P to engage in new and continued efforts that will bring Juneau closer to its goal prior to 2045. Renewable Juneau is poised to work with AEL&P, CBJ, and the residents and businesses of Juneau to offer the following additional actions now, or soon:<\/p>\n
— Offer incentives for residents and businesses to improve energy efficiency and convert space heating to heat pumps from both resistance and oil heating sources.<\/p>\n
— Offer On-bill financing to Juneau customers to financially help ease their transition from fossil fuel systems to renewable energy systems.<\/p>\n
— Support further development of shore power now so that all cruise ships can soon plug in while docked in downtown Juneau, thereby minimizing local air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.<\/p>\n
— Work with the CBJ to offer community engagement and planning sessions to ensure citizens are more knowledgeable and engaged in accomplishing the CBJ goal of 80 % renewable energy use.<\/p>\n
— Support economic development by ensuring that cruise ships, local mines and future businesses have firm renewable power to operate in a clean and environmentally sound manner.<\/p>\n
We thank AEL&P for being a good neighbor in Juneau and look forward to more opportunities to continue our partnership with them in providing Juneau with adequate and sustainable renewable energy supplies.<\/p>\n
• John Neary is a 40-year resident of Juneau and a board member of Renewable Juneau, a non-profit that advocates for more use of renewable energy in Juneau.<\/em> Columns, My Turns and Letters to the Editor represent the view of the author, not the view of the Juneau Empire. Have something to say? Here’s how to submit a My Turn or letter.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We thank AEL&P for being a good neighbor in Juneau <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":80816,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":8,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-80815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80815","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\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80815"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=80815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}