**Title**: Energy in the North - Alec Mesdag
**Date**: November, 12 2025
**Participants**: Amanda Byrd, Alec Mesdag


00;00;00;15 - 00;00;15;07 [Alec Mesdag] that rapid implementation of efficiency was a response to this really, really clear price signals, because we went from, at the time, about $0.10 per kilowatt hour to about $0.55 a kilowatt hour almost overnight.

00;00;15;07 - 00;00;58;22 [Amanda Byrd] This week on energy in the North, I spoke with Alec Mesdag the president and CEO of Alaska Electric Light and Power, the largest utility in Southeast Alaska and the utility that provides power to the Juneau area. The utility runs on 100% hydroelectric power with a hydro generation capacity of 105MW, and their system peak load is just under 90MW. Back in 2008, an avalanche knocked down the transmission lines and destroyed three towers that brought power from the hydro plant to the city and the utility was forced to generate power from backup diesel generators until the transmission lines were restored. I started the conversation with Alec by asking him how that avalanche event impacted the community and the utility.

00;00;58;22 - 00;03;14;07 [Alec Mesdag] Yeah. So that event was, I think, a pretty, you know, defining moment for the utility. And influenced pretty greatly how the community thinks about their electricity supply. So when that avalanche occurred, it was, it was, you know, maybe a 400 year event. It destroyed at least three towers and damaged a few others. The repairs took about six weeks. So during that six week period, the utility was generating with diesel. The time of year that that happened in was in April. So it's fairly warm weather. That's our driest time of year. So people could do things like move their, you know, hang laundry outside on nice days, which is an uncommon thing to be able to do in Juneau. And there was a lot of things that the community did to shift loads, that they would normally supply with electricity to other fuels. So instead of cooking on an electric range, there was a lot of barbecuing and things like that that happened. So during the event, the loads in town dropped almost immediately by 30%, and people started to do things like rapidly implement compact fluorescent light bulbs to replace incandescent bulbs. So it got to the point where you could not buy a CFL in Juneau pretty quickly. So a lot of those persistent efficiency measures also meant that from 2008, it wasn't until I want to say 2017 that that the utility firm Energy sales to customers in Juneau exceeded the pre avalanche levels. It took ten years to get all of those sales back. After that, rapid implementation of efficiency measures after the avalanche and that rapid implementation of efficiency was a response to this really, really clear price signals, because we went from, at the time, about $0.10 per kilowatt hour to about $0.55 a kilowatt hour, almost overnight. And that was about a six week period. So the community spent $9 million on diesel in six weeks during a warm time of year, and which is a which is a big hit for, town that small.

00;03;14;07 - 00;03;18;15 [Amanda Byrd] That's incredible. And it's also like a social experiment.

00;03;18;15 - 00;03;46;01 [Alec Mesdag] Yeah. There's a study that was done by a guy from Juneau, Wayne Leighty, and he was working at UC Davis, I believe, working with Allen Meier, who is, you know an energy efficiency expert. So there's a paper done about it that, kind of describes how that short term event affected ongoing energy sales. It's very it's an interesting read for all the energy nerds out there.

00;03;46;01 - 00;03;59;12 [Amanda Byrd] Alec Medag is the president and CEO of Alaska Electric Light and Power. And I'm Amanda Byrd, chief storyteller for the Alaska Center for Energy and Power. Find this story and more at uaf.edu/acep.