It’s been two months since Dan Menth became the president and chief executive officer of Kodiak Electric Association. He said since then, he’s been focused on a variety of projects, including hiring new staff.
Bringing new employees to the island has been a challenge for many businesses across various sectors in the Kodiak community due to a lack of affordable housing and other factors.
“We’re in a pretty good spot right now, fully staffed with around 36 folks. Other than currently just interviewing for a couple of lineman positions, we’re in pretty good shape,” Menth said.
Menth has been with the local power provider for 17 years and formerly was the director of finance prior to taking the head job. His predecessor, Darron Scott, is still with KEA on a part-time basis to help out with specific projects.
During Scott’s tenure the utility built up its renewable energy production to almost 100%, through projects such as the Terror Lake Hydroelectric plant and putting wind turbines on Pillar Mountain.
But more recently, KEA had to institute its first rate increase in decades back in April. To offset rising costs this year, the association has been pursuing options like Renewable Energy Certificates [RECs], which is kind of like a credit system for power generated by renewable resources. Menth said so far the utility provider has sold two for a total of between $80,000-$85,000, once the final payment for the second REC is made.
“The ones that we’ve sold so far are for, call it the historical RECs, 2019 through 2021. And we just had another one come in [Aug. 26-30], the sale was finalized. We haven’t been paid for it yet, but that will be around the $35,000 mark," Menth explained. "So it all helps."
Aside from selling certificates, KEA is starting to look at rolling out new wind turbines over the long term.
But in the short term, the utility provider is now leasing land from the City of Kodiak to put up a meteorological tower.
“Just getting preliminary information, data on wind strength, direction and that would be potentially for a future wind site. But at this point it’s just getting the information together," he stated.
Menth said the tower could be set up in October to take wind measurements for a potential new turbine site on Pillar Mountain, separate from where the current six turbines are located.
