The Kenai Peninsula’s largest energy cooperative wants to try and save a Nikiski solar farm that stalled earlier this year. Homer Electric Association’s Board of Directors gave its CEO permission to help finance the project during a meeting earlier this week.
“If we’re successful, HEA will own it, they’ll develop it, they’ll manage it, and our members will benefit from it,” said Board President Dan Furlong.
He says the cooperative hasn’t actually bought anything – yet. But, they want to.
If it’s built, the Puppy Dog Lake project would be Alaska’s largest solar farm. The proposed project site is just under 700 acres in Nikiski. As designed, solar panels would cover less than half that acreage.
Furlong says the cooperative was in talks with the project developer for years before signing an agreement last summer. HEA would have been the solar farm’s sole customer. The 45-megawatt solar farm would cover more than a tenth of the cooperative’s annual energy demand and double how much energy HEA gets from renewable sources.
But earlier this year, the project had a setback. A combination of adverse economic conditions and uncertainty over the future of federal solar investment tax credits threw the project into limbo. The project’s investor, Clean Capital LLC, withdrew its permit application from state regulators in February.
Furlong says that was a blow.
“We were, as a board, extremely disappointed. Because we worked very hard, very hard to get that contract, and were really hopeful that we could add that renewable source to our portfolio and so on and put down pressure on the rates,” he said.
Furlong couldn’t say how much money the board authorized for a bid. But if the cooperative’s bid is successful, he expects construction on the farm to happen “pretty rapidly.” The money for the bid will come from an existing grant awarded to an HEA subsidiary.
The CEO of the project’s initial developer, Renewable IPP, declined to comment on the project status Thursday.
