HEA Candidate Questions: Erik Hendrickson
With the HEA board of directors election underway until May 5, the Alaska Energy Transparency Project is asking each candidate how they see the cooperative’s future and what part they intend to play in it.
Here are answers from District One Candidate Erik Hendrickson, running to represent Kenai, Nikiski, and parts of Soldotna (find HEA’s district map here).
Hendrickson is the kitchen manager of the Sterling Senior Center and serves as president of his neighborhood’s home builders association, an affiliate of the nonprofit Rural CAP. He ran unsuccessfully for the HEA board in 2020. His candidate profile can be found here.
Erik Hendrickson — from his HEA candidate profile
Questionnaire
Q: Why do you want to be an HEA board member?
During the last few years I have become interested in constructing a mobile battery pack which has led to learning more about electricity overall. I became especially interested in how our local power is produced and delivered to us the consumers and how the flow of electrons might be reversed turning consumers in to producers. Now I'm interested in producing and storing my own electricity and electrifying my life with e-bikes, heat pumps, EVs, and batteries. I feel like this is my chance to make it easier for everyone to do likewise.
Q: Are there any particular projects or ideas you would champion as a board member? Are there any you would oppose?
I would like to promote widespread adoption of home scale energy production and storage. So I would support things like expanding net metering and on bill financing.
Q: If elected you will serve a three year term. If re-elected in the future, you could serve on the board for up to 9 years. What challenges and opportunities will HEA face in the next three years, and in the next nine? Ideally, what do you want HEA to be like three years from now? Nine years from now?
3 Years
I think that reaching the 50% renewable goal by 2025 is going to take a lot of work and will require many different sources or electricity such as offshore wind, grid scale solar, pumped hydro storage, and hopefully consumer based generation. Getting those projects started is going to be a big task in the next three years.
9 Years
Ideally in the next nine years we will have helped a large portion of members electrify their lives. This will enable us to do things such as have virtual power plants that use stored energy from homes to supply peak power when needed. My hope is that when people start to realize that they can get paid for this service it will spur adoption of home-based energy storage solutions.
Q: The price of natural gas fuel typically makes up about a third of an HEA member’s bill, production and transmission costs are usually another third, and distribution costs about a quarter. Of the factors that drive HEA’s rates, which are under the board’s control? What are your plans for managing them?
From my understanding the board doesn't have much control over the day to day of HEA — it’s more of the over arching goals and ideas for implementation. We are locked in to a contract with a single bidder for natural gas so that can't really change right now. What we can do is secure cheaper sources of renewable energy so we are in a position to say no when the gas company asks for a rate increase at the end of the contract. I am not in favor of automating people out of a job. The people who work at HEA live here locally and their money circulates, stimulating our local economy.
Q: HEA is currently meeting its power generation needs. What reasons, if any, justify the construction of new generation or the premature retirement of existing generation?
The price of natural gas seems to fluctuate a lot. If we keep with the current status quo we are exposing ourselves to those fluctuations. With renewable the price seems to keep falling and now it's some of the cheapest electricity out there. I don't like that we effectively have a monopoly going on with local gas supply which was being subsidized by the state so we are effectively paying twice.
Q: What approach should HEA take to Railbelt-wide cooperation? What potential problems or opportunities exist for HEA in the ongoing process of forming an Electrical Reliability Organization? What would you see as an ideal outcome for HEA’s participation in an ERO? What is an undesirable outcome?
Alaska is an isolated state filled with member owned co-ops. I don't see why we shouldn't cooperate with each other. We are all Alaskans. If everyone agreed to do away with wheeling tariffs we could all pool our generation capacity and there would be a bigger market for renewable electricity. However I don't want to see the electric coops give up our distribution networks if we have to keep the liabilities for them.
Q: How would you have voted on these recent HEA board decisions? Why?
Contracting with Tesla for a Battery Energy Storage System
Yes. I think that having a grid scale battery is an effective way of having a 2nd source of energy online 24/7 without leaving another turbine spinning. Also it will help us smooth out the generation from renewable.
Participating in the Battle Creek expansion of Bradley Lake hydro project
Yes. More power from nature! A 10% increase of water in Bradley Lake is quite a bit and has the ability to create 37,000 megawatts hours of energy annually. A no-brainer if you ask me.
Selling the Soldotna-to-Quartz Creek transmission line to the Alaska Energy Authority
Yes. The line connecting Bradley Lake to the rest of the Railbelt has been a choke point for a long time. It was once described to me as a really long extension cord. I'm hoping for a more robust replacement in the future.
Setting the goal of meeting 50% of HEA’s energy needs with renewables by 2025
Yes. I think it's a big goal but definitely achievable with the right leadership. I think it will help us get away from our dependence on gas and help diversify our local economy.
