OCCP

Unalaska is still pursuing the Makushin Geothermal Project, even after a rocky four years to try to get the project off the ground. Today, the Ounalashka Corp. board of directors plans to meet to discuss ways to move forward, which could include dissolving its partnership with Chena Power, essentially buying them out.

The City of Unalaska is pulling out of the Makushin Geothermal Project, after the city council on Tuesday rejected the new terms requested by the company building the project.

A delegation of Alaska energy officials on Tuesday visited Unalaska, where representatives from the Makushin Geothermal Project made their case for what could prove one of the biggest geothermal projects in Alaska history.

The company aiming to bring geothermal energy to Unalaska plans to pay more than $90 million to an engineering and construction firm to build the volcano-powered project, under a contract announced Jan. 18.Ounalashka Corporation/Chena Power, LLC, the company behind the project, is a joint venture between Unalaska’s Native corporation and Fairbanks-based Chena Power. And while OCCP Project Manager Dave Matthews said they plan to start construction of the plant this coming summer, the company still hasn’t announced that it’s secured any funding.

A power outage caught Unalaskans by surprise Thursday evening when most of the island went dark.According to the island’s acting public utilities director, Steve Tompkins, a failed transformer caused the outage, which occurred around 5:30 p.m. and lasted nearly five hours.“Initial indications were that a unit had tripped offline,” Tompkins said. “And it caused an overload on the other unit, which took itself offline. And it resulted in a near universal outage.”Standard Oil Hill was the only area on the island that didn’t lose power during the first outage, he said.

Ounalashka Corp./Chena Power, LLC (OCCP) will have an extra year to obtain funding for their geothermal power project at Makushin Volcano. The Unalaska…

A decades-long effort to bring geothermal power to Unalaska is finally moving forward. On Thursday, the city signed a 30-year power purchase agreement…