Brown Bag Lunch Discusses Electricity Costs in Rural Alaska Communities

ACEP will host a brown bag lunch with Ralph Townsend, director of the University of Alaska Anchorage’s Institute of Social and Economic Research. Townsend will present results from a report titled “Determinants of the Cost of Electricity Service in PCE Eligible Communities.” The paper was written by Mark Foster in collaboration with Townsend.

The brown bag lunch will be held from 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. March 20 in the Design Theater on the fourth floor of UAF’s Engineering Learning and Innovation Facility.

The report, prepared for the Alaska Energy Authority, assesses how electricity generation costs in communities that participate in the state’s Power Cost Equalization program are potentially affected by three factors not related to the differences in electricity generation costs. Those three factors are the organizational structures of utilities, postage stamp rate design and managerial information available on energy subsidy programs.

Fuel storage in Kongiganak. Photo by Amanda Byrd/ACEP.