Wrangell will switch on its diesel generators Tuesday morning to conserve its supply of hydropower.
Wrangell’s Municipal Light and Power usually switch to diesel for maintenance in the summer. But, this effort is to conserve energy coming from the Southeast Alaska Power Agency’s Tyee Lake plant. Tyee supplies power to Wrangell and Petersburg, and Ketchikan when needed.
Due to a dryer fall and winter, the Tyee and Swan lakes are not expected to produce as much power as usual. So, the three communities are bearing some of the burden during this winter, when energy consumption is at its height.
KRBD recently reported that SEAPA oversold some of Tyee’s supply to Ketchikan. Now Ketchikan is running partly on diesel and paying back for its use of the Tyee supply.
The generators will run from only 6:00 AM to 9:000 AM in hopes to save two megawatts of energy. Petersburg did the same thing yesterday.
