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Discover the heartbeat of Juneau's cultural and community landscape with 'Capital Chat.' This series explores the vibrant world of the community, arts, and dynamic cultural and social events happening in Alaska's Capital City. Tune in to 'Capital Chat' for your essential guide to the pulse of our community, where every story is an adventure and every voice matters.
KINY Juneau. Cliff Doob is here. Good morning. Capital Chad, welcome to it. Nice to have you here today.
Speaker 1:Eight forty one. Juneau Hydropower Inc. Has officially been granted public utility status by the Regulatory Commission of Alaska, And here to talk about it is Duff Mitchell. Duff, welcome back. Good to see you again.
Speaker 2:Well, hey. Thanks for the welcome, Cliff. Good to see you.
Speaker 1:I think we were talking about this, it feels like almost a year ago when when this was a a possibility and you were you were hoping to to get some traction. But tell me what the repercussions of this will be for the folks in Juneau and what the status is.
Speaker 2:Well, I I see I see this as complete benefits. I mean, you know, for some historical background, we've been with Sweetheart Lake hydroelectric project. We first filed the first documents in 02/2009. Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 2:We received a FERC hydropower federal license, giving us over 2,000 acres of federal government acres to develop this hydropower in 2016. Complete EIS, complete environmental studies and whatnot. And we didn't have any opposition. It's a great project. And so henceforward, we needed to get an interconnection and resolution between Southern Juneau where our hydropower is and Kensington, which is our customer or our primary customer on the Northern End.
Speaker 2:And so it's taken this long to get resolved all the interconnection and the transmission. And in doing so, we started thinking, look, we walk like a duck, we quack like a duck, we're a utility. You know, we're not an IPP or an independent power producer. And so we filed for the certificate to serve all the unserved areas of Juneau and filed that application. It was very thorough.
Speaker 2:We had to prove three things: fit, willing, and able, and we hit them all in spades. And we had expert witnesses and went through this for six months. So yeah, this is a remarkable milestone and it's great for us, but it's also really great for each individual in Juneau.
Speaker 1:So how specifically does that affect what's happening here? Because obviously, have the one power company, a, LMP. And and what does that do? Are you in a competitive situation there where you you you are now poised to actually offer a choice? Is that where we're gonna No.
Speaker 2:In some states, have competitive power where you can vote with your pocketbook. Hey, I'm gonna take utility x or utility y. That isn't what we have here. We have service territory. So they nothing that we did infringes on their current service territory.
Speaker 2:So if you're currently a customer of ALMP, you will not become a customer at Juno Hydropower. However, if you're in the outlying areas where there is no electrical service and you're in our service area, you will become a customer of Juno Hydropower.
Speaker 1:Got it.
Speaker 2:Now, where does that benefits add to the ALMP rate payers and shareholders? Well, we pay them fees. Those fees go into and reduce the rate costs of ALMP shareholders. There's potential for mutual aid agreements. So in 2008 to 02/2009, there was shocking avalanches that knocked out the power of Juno and jacked up the prices several fold.
Speaker 2:Our power project is away from those avalanches. We've set up our switching and our control systems where we tie into the Snedeshem that, you know, if asked, we could come to mutual aid with ALNP.
Speaker 1:And when does I I can't imagine the capital cost. So this started back in 02/2009. We're now at 2025. I mean, funding of this and then construction would begin when?
Speaker 2:Well, we're looking at construction now that we've knocked out this. We've already had financing in the wings, and this is a condition precedent. I mean, if you have a customer and you have a great project and you need to connect them with a wire, you need to get that resolved. This certificate and this order does that. So, now we're able to move forward with, the financing packages that we've set up.
Speaker 2:And we're working with, the U. S. Department of Agriculture Rural Utilities Service whose primary mission is to go forth and serve power in quote, unserved areas of America. Well, guess what? We hit that in spades.
Speaker 2:We're serving areas that are unserved by current utilities. And I dare say, there's not too many places in America that still fit that mission for the USDA Rural Utilities Service. And we're also working with ADA and other investors.
Speaker 1:So beyond clean energy, what are the potential economic and job benefits for Juneau in Southeast Alaska?
Speaker 2:Well, they're profound. The benefits include, first and foremost, energy security. When you have additional power systems coming into an isolated grid like we have, it just opens up the portfolio for security. You know, we have the capital here. We have the coast guard here.
Speaker 2:We have to have energy security. And the more is better. It's really, really simple. As you go down there, then you also have grid reliability. We're putting a 20 megawatt battery energy storage system onto the Juno grid.
Speaker 2:Now that's primarily for our customers. But with the right arrangements, with a lightning second, if there's an outage anywhere on that grid and in agreement with ALMP, they could have access to that instantaneous battery that would allow an outage to basically be succumbed or go around instantaneously because that's how the batteries work. We're doing that primarily for Kensington. They need to have backup power. So if something goes on at Snedesham or something hits the line somewhere, even not in our control, but something that maybe happens, we need to have that battery for them for their energy security.
Speaker 2:So so those are energy benefits. When you come to jobs and you come to opportunities in Juneau, we have 40 plus miles of transmission line gonna be built in this city. That is over three per well, just under 3% of the total high voltage lines in Alaska. So that's going to be work for linemen, for IBW, for other folks. You know, we are receiving RUS funding and federal programs.
Speaker 2:So we're going to be employing family wages. These are prevailing wage jobs. These aren't T shirt jobs. They're T shirt shop jobs. These are good paying jobs.
Speaker 2:So the economic benefits are going to filter through our community. And then the other thing is, is because you have now two sister utilities, there's also that mutual aid so that we'll have bucket trucks and other people that can help out and share and come to the aid with the other local utilities.
Speaker 1:Talking to Duff Mitchell about Juno Hydropower Inc. And, the fact that they've been officially granted public utility status by the Regulatory Commission of Alaska. So, we we've talked about a number of benefits, Duff. So when do we start seeing now that this was kind of the trigger, when does all of this start kind of rolling out? What's the timeline to completion?
Speaker 2:Well, the timeline is task driven rather than time driven, but it's on an expedite expedited process now. We see ourselves moving forward as quickly as we can get the loans closed and the regulatory. There's still a few items with this order that we need to resolve. But we're working twelve hour days with the financing and with the programs. So we would like to be in construction early next year, if possible.
Speaker 2:And if the star is completely aligned, we could even be something later this year. But that may be speculative at this point. We have to do a 9,621 foot tunnel, and those tunnels can be drilled during the winter so you don't have to wait for the perfect weather. You do need better weather for the dam, but we can start with the tunnel and keep going.
Speaker 1:If folks are maybe new to Juneau or don't know the location that we're talking about, can you describe that?
Speaker 2:Sure. Know, God doesn't put gold or water in equal spots. So as they would have it, we have this tremendous hydropower resource South Of Juneau, almost to the further southern border of the city and borough of Juneau. It was discovered in '19 was put forward in 1906 as a possible hydropower. Has a power site classification in 1929, which means it's certified as a federal power site for the perpetuity of Americans.
Speaker 2:I mean, this is a world class power site. But that's South Of Juneau. As luck would have it, or as the markets are, our customers on the very northern end of the CBJ. So what does the citizens of Juno get out of it? We get a really great grid that covers the electricity from one end of Juno all the way to the other end of Juno, which now opens up possibilities for land, for development, opens up possibilities for other economics and other opportunities.
Speaker 1:You mentioned Kensington Mine. What's their power source now? Is it diesel? Diesel. Diesel.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And just to put things in perspective for the listeners, Kensington is burning in generally more diesel and producing more power than the city of Skagway and Haines combined. Wow. Yeah. So they're a large voracious consumer of electricity. This also helps Juno's benefits that they don't want to burn diesel.
Speaker 2:They want to be on clean power. And if we provide them the opportunity, secondary benefit is it substantially reduces the greenhouse gas emissions being emitted out of Juneau. And I mean, it's profound.
Speaker 1:Wow. Where can we kind of stay up to date on the progress?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm hoping that we can periodically come in and talk to you with some updates. You know, we've been focused on working hard on this, so we haven't been banging the drums or banging the tambourines. So we'll do a little bit of better job of of keeping folks informed, you know, and and we'll work to improve updates on our website and on our Facebook as necessary.
Speaker 1:Is Because it's it's all of a sudden, boom, it's here. What's been the the community response so far? Because I I know there was conversation early and it was like, like you said, you you put your head down and you guys went to work. But now it's like, okay, it's approved. We're moving.
Speaker 1:It's happening. And what's the response been?
Speaker 2:Well, we've always had defenders and people that see the opportunity. I mean, we have a laundry list of supporters from all the labor, from Department of Labor to elected officials. It's been a profound outpouring that, Hey, thank you for staying, being tenacious, getting this through. We really believe in the benefits that you're bringing our community and the individuals for lowering the cost of power in general for our citizenry. So the outpouring has been very strong.
Speaker 2:And we owe it to them. As a utility, we have an obligation to serve. And so we are there for the public and for the individual you know, ratepayers at Juno. And and, we appreciate all that support, and we we're not gonna let anyone down. We're we're going forward.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Anything else you want the public to know before we wrap up today?
Speaker 2:Well, we do would just like to say thank you so much for, you know, the CBJ letters over the years, the resolutions. We would like to thank all of the supporters, labor groups, the individuals that came in and testified early on. It's been an outpouring of support and we couldn't have done it without that public support. And we also appreciate ALMP for ensuring that we're held to the standards that we need to do rightfully and safely and ensuring that we do the right thing.
Speaker 1:Excellent news. And obviously, yes, please come back and keep us updated so we can pass the word along. And, Duff, congratulations on what's been a decade long project and excited to see what the future holds and when this all begins. Exciting news for Juno.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Cliff. It is exciting.