NOTICE OF UTILITY APPLICATION
The REGULATORY COMMISSION OF ALASKA (Commission) hereby gives notice that on April 1, 2019, Chugach Electric Association, Inc. (Chugach), Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN) No. 8, filed an application to expand its service area under CPCN No. 8, to include the service area of the Municipality of Anchorage d/b/a Municipal Light and Power (ML&P), CPCN No. 121. Chugach also filed a petition requesting the necessary approvals to acquire most of ML&P’s assets. Docket No. U-19-020 was open to address these matters.
Chugach has agreed to purchase most of the assets of ML&P from the Municipality of Anchorage. Chugach states that the purpose of the acquisition is to achieve economies of scale that can reasonably be expected to result in net savings in excess of $200 million over the next 40 years for electric power consumers of the resulting combined entity. In conjunction with its application, Chugach also filed a petition for regulatory approvals needed to finalize the acquisition. Specifically, Chugach has requested (1) advance assurance of recovery of certain costs in future rates; (2) approval of agreements assigning Beluga River Unit fuel costs and payment-in-lieu-of-tax costs between the Chugach and ML&P legacy customer service territories; (3) approval of a power purchase agreement for ML&P’s generation output from the Eklutna Hydroelectric Project; and (4) approval to defer and amortize certain transaction costs over 30 years.
No motions for waiver or petitions for confidentially were filed with Chugach’s application. The Commission has not assessed the completeness of the application. The Commission may determine whether the application is complete by April 26, 2019.
A person who proposes to file an application to furnish the same, or substantially the same, service or facility to essentially the same service area, in whole or in part, thus creating the potential for mutually exclusive applications must file a notice of intent to file a competing application by May 13, 2019. The person must then file the competing application by July 11, 2019. If no notice of intent to file a competing application is filed by May 13, 2019, the Commission will proceed to grant or deny Chugach’s application to amend its certificate in accordance with the applicable provisions of AS 42.05.221 – 42.05.281
You may obtain information about this application by contacting Arthur Miller, Senior Vice President of Regulatory and External Affairs at Chugach Electric Association, Inc., 5601 Electron Drive, Anchorage, AK 99503; phone:
(907) 762-4758. The complete filing is also available for inspection at the Commission's office at 701 West Eighth Avenue, Suite 300, Anchorage, AK 99501; phone: (907) 276-6222. You may also view the filing at the Commission's website at http://rca.alaska.gov by typing Docket No. "U-19-020" in the Find a Matter search box.
To comment on this filing, please file your comments by 5:00 p.m., May 13, 2019, at the Commission's address above or via our website at:
http://rca.alaska.gov/RCAWeb/WhatsNew/PublicNoticesComments.aspx.
Please reference Docket No. U-19-020, and include a statement that you have filed a copy of the comments with Chugach at the address given above.
Individuals or groups of people with disabilities who require special accommodations, auxiliary aids or service, or alternative communication formats, please contact Valerie Fletcher-Mitchell at (907) 276-6222; toll free
(800) 390-2782, or TTY/Alaska Relay: 7-1-1 or (800) 770-8973, or send a request by email to rca.mail@alaska.gov by May 3, 2019.
DATED at Anchorage, Alaska, this 12th day of April, 2019.
REGULATORY COMMISSION OF ALASKA
Stephen McAlpine
Chairman