(For prior week's news, please visit the ACEP This Week Archive)

Gwen Holdmann (ACEP Director), Max Frey (ACEP Program Assistant), and Desneige Hallbert (ACEP Intern) will be traveling to Nome with Jack Hebert and Aaron Cooke (both from CCHRC) to lead several stakeholder and community meetings regarding the Pilgrim Geothermal Assessment Project.

The primary focus of the trip is to disseminate results to local stakeholders in Nome and Teller. The purpose of the Pilgrim Geothermal Assessment project has been to test an innovative exploration technique developed by the GI for low and moderate temperature geothermal systems, and to see if the resource could be developed to support power export to Nome and other potential regional users. 

Initial findings support a potential 2MW power generation project similar to the one at Chena Hot Springs, but an additional drilling program will be required to confirm this estimate. The land owner, Unaatuq LLC, a consortium of 7 regional non-profits and native corporations, has entered into a preliminary agreement to develop the resource should it be capable of generating 2MW. 

Funding for a second round of drilling is pending. In addition to power export, the owners are interested in developing the site for local use, including greenhouses and bathing facilities

For more information on the Pilgrim Geothermal Assessment Project go to:
http://energy-alaska.wikidot.com/pilgrim-hot-springs

ACEP Director Gwen Holdmann will be in Anchorage at the end of this week meeting with Alaska-based companies as part of an ACEP initiative to define the potential global market for Alaskan energy solutions. 

Alaska is quickly becoming a leader in the deployment of high contribution renewable systems on remote, islanded electric grids. As an outcome of developing and improving these systems for Alaska applications, a niche industry has emerged for Alaskan companies and support organizations like ACEP with technical expertise that may be relevant to a global market.

ACEP is in the process of evaluating the market opportunities for similar, islanded microgrid systems and identifying current expertise, capacity and advantages of Alaska–based organizations. Our hope is that once this potential is defined, we can work in collaboration with other Alaskans to capitalize on these opportunities and allow each of us to bring our solutions and expertise to a larger market.

In the short term, ACEP is also using this process to pinpoint any industry road blocks or accelerants that might make sense for our team to tackle in our research agenda.

If your organization would like to be a part of this conversation, contact Business Director Julie Estey at julie.estey@alaska.edu.

ACEP’s Biomass Coordinator, Amanda Byrd and ACEP Intern, Fiche Ferreira Goncalves will be traveling to Yakutat this week to conduct biomass testing. This fieldwork involves aging trees within different harvest areas (harvests were conducted between 15 and 80 years ago) by non-lethal methods, and measuring the diameter and height of the trees to establish a growth rate specific to Yakutat and to determine an adequate age for harvesting for biomass energy based on size.

The City and Borough of Yakutat was awarded $22,000 from the USDA National Forest Foundation's Community Capacity and Land Stewardship Program. The grant is specific to the Tongass National Forest and will be used to create a Yakutat Growth Index (YGI) on areas previously harvested for wood on land owned by various entities on the Yakutat Forelands.  The YGI will work towards estimating a harvest rotation interval for Sitka Spruce and Western Hemlock, as well as other trees species that may have returned after harvest. A final report with biomass accumulation by age will be developed for this area.

For more information on ACEP’s Biomass projects go to:
http://energy-alaska.wikidot.com/projects

On Fridays from 12:00 – 1:00, ACEP staff and interns participate in a brown bag lunch and learn. If you are interested in attending this lecture, contact Marcia Cassino at (907) 474-5402.