The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority – AIDEA – , along with Golden Valley Electric and Homer Electric Cooperatives, announced the sale of the Healy Clean Coal Plant Wednesday afternoon.
The state authority, AIDEA, will finance the 50 million dollar sale to G-V-E-A, and Homer Electric will start purchasing half the power the plant produces starting in the year 2014. The plant has sat idle since it was built in 1999. The total cost exceeded 280 million dollars. In 2000, the plant went into a dispute between G-V-E-A and AIDEA and has been in litigation since that time.
At the press conference Wednesday, AIDEA Board chairman, Pat Galvin, said the recent agreement is a win, win, win situation. He denied that the move was politically motivated.
Under the agreement, GVEA will be responsible for the 45 million dollar line of credit provided by AIDEA to finance the restart. Homer Electric will benefit by a power sales agreement with GVEA when they begin to receive power in 2014. HEA chairman, Debbie Debnam, says that the agreement means Homer can meet its goal of diversifying their power sources. No other power cooperative is involved in the deal.
The sale could take a several months to close and the plant might restart within the year. The trial to resolve the current litigation is still scheduled for June 1st. Under the terms of the sale, the parties will postpone pre-trial activities and the trial will be dismissed when the sale is complete.
