For the first time since 1999, utility crews fired up the Healy power plant boiler Thursday, a key step in the process to have the plant at full operation by the end of July.
The Golden Valley Electric Association said the test operations are expected to continue for the next two months. The boiler was fired with oil at first and will produce a small amount of power in June before the transition to coal-fired operations. GVEA says the plant is a key to helping stabilize electric rates because coal has not been subject to the same level of price fluctuations as oil.
The plant operated briefly in 1999 but has remained idle because of a long legal and political dispute between GVEA and state officials. The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority filed a lawsuit in 2005 against the utility. In late 2013, the utility purchased the plant from AIDEA for $44 million.
GVEA said 90 workers are involved with the restart and there will be 30 full-time jobs once the plant is running at full steam.
"The project is on schedule and on budget," Lynn Thompson, vice president of power supply for GVEA, said in a press release.
Modernization work will continue at the plant for the next two years, including the installation of new environmental controls.
The plant, first developed as a way to test a new system to burn waste coal, received a $120 million federal grant in the early 1990s, along with a $25 million grant from the state and $150 million in funding from AIDEA.
A consent decree with the Environmental Protection Agency in 2012 led to the agreement to install emission controls that are expected to cost nearly $100 million.