‘We do have a problem’: Lawmakers consider immediate steps to solve encroaching energy shortages

‘We do have a problem’: Lawmakers consider immediate steps to solve encroaching energy shortages

With gas line on hold, what long-term solutions are available

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Natural Resources Commissioner John Crowther summed up Alaska’s energy future in just a few words.

“We do have a problem.”

Lawmakers and energy companies have been wracking their brains on how to adequately address a growing concern: energy shortages in the Railbelt as natural gas supply in the Cook Inlet thins. The state’s legislative resources committees held a hearing Thursday afternoon to hear what solutions ENSTAR and state agencies had in mind.

With lawmakers calling the issue a “crisis,” President of ENSTAR John Sims said the company doesn’t have enough gas to prevent brownouts.

“ENSTAR is 18 days short of gas ... and that’s for normal temperatures.”

ENSTAR is one of the state’s oldest energy companies and serves over 136,000 customers.

Sims said he’s hopeful for a warm winter, but there’s no guarantee.

“If the temperature is warm, it will look like I’m fearmongering and I’m crying wolf,” he said. “If it is cold, we’ll all experience the cautions and the concern that the utility has.”

Sims said “the time where we can start asking for a short-term solution that is at a low cost” has passed.

Rep. Donna Mears, D-Anchorage, asked what the state could do to conserve more gas, if even on the consumer level, but Sims said the impact of turning back thermostats or delaying heat could be negligible.

“If you were to go and turn your thermostat, let’s say it was at 75 and you turned it down to 70, what’s the ambient air temperature [outside]? It’s not significantly cold, right?

“The amount of energy that’s required to maintain that thermostat is not as high as if it were 30 degrees outside. The demand that’s being used in the summertime ... changes in the wintertime.”

The conversation for short-term solutions is far from over. In September, Chugach Electric, Hilcorp and HEX will all testify before the resources committees on short-term solutions for the state’s energy gap.

“We’ll hear from Chugach, who has proposed collaborating with ENSTAR related to gas supply,” Senate Resources Chair Cathy Giessel, R-Anchorage, said. “At the end of the day, all of us, the citizens of Alaska, need to decide on what long-term solutions we want to pursue and we’ve got to stay on track with it.”

Chugach Electric sent a letter to Sims on Aug. 17, saying “Chugach offered several potential measures to ENSTAR over the past year that could have helped mitigate the risk of a gas supply shortfall,” but “knowing that ENSTAR is short on gas today, we must be clear that Chugach cannot allow a situation to arise that requires curtailing power deliveries to its members.

“Immediate action is needed to ensure that outcome is avoided.”

Legislation isn’t off the table — something Giessel said was on lawmakers’ minds — but that bills were more likely to spring up during January’s legislative session.

“I don’t think prior to next session you’re going to see anything [but] there are things that the administration can do,” Sen. Forrest Dunbar, D-Anchorage, said. “If there are more ideas about production in the inlet that are fiscally responsible, I think the legislature will take them up.”

Sen. George Rauscher, R-Sutton, said lawmakers should “be advocating for finding a solution.”

A hurdle to making progress? Elections.

“We have elections every two years [and] every four years, we change out a governor,” Giessel said. “If we have a long-term goal ... that continued on through multiple elections, we’re going to solve this energy issue. That’s what the state of Alaska needs to do.”

Long-term options

Many in the room said there was one clear answer for the state’s energy future.

“[The LNG pipeline is] the best long-term solution, and again, the only one that has the potential to reduce the price of energy,” Sims said.

“The gas pipeline cannot help 2026, and it cannot help 2027, and probably not 2029, but the point of that is we need to start developing the long-term plan immediately.”

“My takeaway: let’s build a gas line,” Rauscher said.

The LNG pipeline has been an issue long proposed and debated across the state and was a central theme of the most recent legislative session.

Glenfarne, the major developer of the gas line, says exempting property taxes is the key to making the gas line a reality. Lawmakers appear close to a consensus on the tax portion itself, but an additional provision — to install an income tax on certain oil and gas corporations — has stalled negotiations.

The topic seems prepared for the next legislature and the next governor (current Gov. Mike Dunleavy is term-limited and leaves office in December).

In a statement earlier this week, Glenfarne said it is still committed to “evaluating alternative paths forward.

“Alaska still needs a long-term solution to its energy supply challenge, and we will continue working with Alaska’s leaders and our global construction and LNG offtake partners to find the best path forward,” the statement reads.

While the gas line, many said Thursday, was the answer to long-term, affordable energy, it wasn’t the only answer for altering Alaska’s energy future.

Leading much of the discussion on long-term goals was Curtis Thayer, the CEO and Executive Director of the Alaska Energy Authority, which is an independent corporation branding itself as the “state’s energy office and lead agency for statewide energy policy and program development.”

Thayer, through a PowerPoint, explained the value of investment in four different projects: an expansion to the Bradley Lake Hydroelectric Plant, a 38-mile, high-voltage subsea transmission cable called the Cook Inlet Power Link, upgrades to the Sterling-Soldotna-Quartz Creek transmission corridor that would increase transmission capacity and the Susitna-Watana Hydroelectric Project, which could significantly offset future Cook Inlet natural gas as supply declines.

But even in those options, which Thayer described as “low-hanging fruit,” it could be decades before operation on any of those projects.

That, he argued, places the state’s energy future in the hands of its governor and legislature.

“We don’t have a silver bullet,” he said. “We have some options, and we have positive options, but even our best-case options get us to the 50%, 60% level, not to the 100% that we can,” he added.

See a spelling or grammar error? Report it to web@ktuu.com

Copyright 2026 KTUU. All rights reserved.