Togiak Natives Limited – 2019 Project

NOTE: Project pages are being updated regularly to reflect changes, if any; however, some of the information may be dated.

Summary

The Togiak Heat Recovery Project will use excess heat from the existing power plant to heat three end-user community buildings: the water treatment plant, city office, and “old school" community activity building containing the community's library and a garage.

Currently, the end-user buildings are heated by oil boilers, which use a total 13,691 gallons of diesel heating oil per year. The heat recovery system is expected to offset 100% of the heating oil required by these buildings, thereby saving an estimated $77,080 per year, or more than $2.3 million over the life of the project.

Togiak is at the head of Togiak Bay 67 miles west of Dillingham and has a population of about 800, 86.5% of which is Alaska Native or American Indian. Togiak, like much of rural Alaska, faces high energy costs and low per-capita income, which creates a difficult environment to fund the operations and maintenance of public infrastructure.

Adding to this, the electrical generation efficiency of the diesel generator operating the power plant varies between 30% and 45%. Two‐thirds of the energy potential of fuel consumed to generate electricity is unused. Using waste energy to heat nearby facilities is an effective and proven method to nearly double the useful energy content of each gallon of fuel, freeing up limited municipal funds for other critical public goods, services, and infrastructure.

Togiak Natives Limited (TNL) is an Alaska Native village corporation established under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act with original landholdings that encompass the total site area of this project. These landholdings have been deeded to the city of Togiak, one of three project partners. TNL manages land and resources in and around Togiak for the benefit of its shareholders, which consist of 955 residents and tribal members of Togiak. TNL’s long-term vision is to reduce the water plant, city office, and old school building’s operating costs, ultimately helping keep access to clean water and community infrastructure affordable for all residents.

The community of Togiak began looking into heat recovery as an option to achieve this goal nearly a decade ago. In 2010, a feasibility study examined and quantified the benefit. In 2017, an updated feasibility study was completed based on more recent data and figures, This heat recovery project will construct a system based on designs completed in March 2019.

This Togiak Heat Recovery Project, led by TNL in partnership with the city of Togiak and ANTHC, will construct a heat recovery system based on designs completed in March 2019. The heat recovery system will use excess heat from the AVEC power plant to heat three end-user community buildings: the water treatment plant, city office, and old school community activity building containing the community’s library and a garage. These community buildings are within a 500-foot radius of the AVEC power plant, offering an excellent opportunity to capture a maximum amount of waste heat from the plant for hydronic heating. The recovered heat will be transferred by glycol via insulated arctic piping, below grade, to the end users. 

The system will use hot engine coolant piped through brazed plate heat exchangers for each genset at the AVEC power plant. Heat will be transferred from the engine coolant to a recovered heat loop through the heat exchangers. The recovered waste heat will then be pumped through arctic pipe and transferred to the end-user facilities’ heating systems. Each end user’s heating system will be tied into the recovered heat loop using a brazed plate heat exchanger. Key components of this heat recovery system include: 1) power plant integration, 2) heat transfer medium, 3) transfer piping, 4) end-user integration, and 5) additional controls.

Currently the end-user buildings are heated by oil boilers, which use a total of approximately 13,691 gallons of diesel heating oil per year. At the current cost of $5.63 per gallon of diesel, this adds up to $77,080.33 in annual heating costs. This heat recovery system is expected to offset 100% of the heating oil required by the end-user buildings. A heat sales agreement will be developed for the city of Togiak to purchase the recovered heat from the AVEC power plant at a rate of 30% of the cost of diesel oil used by the power plant. This means that in addition to the 100% oil use offset in the end-user facilities, the city of Togiak will also experience an annual savings of approximately $53,956.23, which amounts to about 70% annual operating cost reduction.

Togiak is located at the head of Togiak Bay, 67 miles west of Dillingham and 391 miles from Anchorage. The community is accessible only by air or sea and is not connected to a road system or major power grid.

The project was competitively selected under the Office of Indian Energy's Fiscal Year 2018 funding opportunity announcement “Energy Infrastructure Deployment on Tribal Lands - 2019” (DE-FOA-0002032) and started in October 2019.

The project is complete. View the final report for more information.