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North America / Commercial & demonstration

Kodiak Alaska Microgrid

Current status, energy mix, organizations, suppliers, equipment, controls, reported specifications, and project updates—with source-level citations.

CoverageDetailed public record
Named organizations4
System facts25
Sources reviewed13
Evidence reviewed2026-07-20

Kodiak's 'microgrid' is the islanded Kodiak Electric Association utility grid, not a single 75 MW facility. Its core resources are the approximately 34 MW Terror Lake hydro plant, six 1.5 MW GE wind turbines, a 3 MW lithium-ion battery system upgraded in 2017, two 1 MW ABB flywheels, and multiple diesel plants retained for backup. KEA generated more than 99% renewable electricity in 2023; a regional current profile gives 99.8%, while KEA's member handbook describes the typical mix as approximately 81% hydro, 18% wind, and 1% diesel.

Research status
Operational. KEA's 2023 annual report says the cooperative generated more than 99% of its power from renewables and delivered another safe, reliable year. The cooperative raised rates 12.5% on April 1, 2024 after roughly 30 years without an increase, citing inflation, sharply higher equipment costs, lower fish-processing sales, and debt—not technical failure of the hybrid grid. Public sources reviewed do not provide a newer full-year generation mix, storage state of health, or unit-by-unit availability through July 2026.
Historical classification
Community
Reported capacity
75,000 kW
Coordinates
57.79000, -152.40722
Evidence note: “Every company” cannot be proven from public material alone. This page lists every organization found in the recovered record and reviewed sources, preserves unknown roles, and explicitly marks undisclosed controller or equipment details.
Report missing evidenceResearch methodology

Project delivery

Who was involved in Kodiak Alaska Microgrid?

4 publicly identified organizations. Where a recovered source named a participant without explaining its work, the role remains explicitly unspecified.

Organization

ABB

Supplier of two 1 MW PowerStore flywheels and the networked MGC600 decentralized microgrid-control platform. [8][9]

Organization

General Electric

Manufacturer of the six 1.5 MW Pillar Mountain wind turbines. [11][10]

Organization

Kodiak Electric Association

Member-owned utility, system owner/operator, and developer of the hydro-wind-storage-diesel resource portfolio. [3][4][10]

Organization

Xtreme Power / Younicos

Xtreme Power supplied the original advanced lead-acid BESS; Younicos, which acquired the technology, replaced the battery racks with lithium-ion batteries and commissioned the 3 MW upgrade in 2017. [12][13]

System evidence

Energy mix, capacity, and specifications

Values can describe different project phases, generation sources, storage systems, or other components. Source citations are attached to each figure so discrepancies remain visible.

KW Wind
9000 [1]
KW Gas/Diesel
33000 [1]
KW Hydro
5000 [1]
Storage
5/2 MW/MWH [1]
2023 renewable performance
More than 99% renewable generation in KEA's annual report; a current Kodiak Area Native Association profile reports 99.8% for 2023 [4][5]
Approximate resource mix
About 81% hydroelectric, 18% wind, and 1% diesel in KEA's April 2024 member handbook. This is an approximate member-information mix, not a replacement for the separately reported 2023 99.8% result. [3]
Terror Lake hydroelectric capacity
33.6 MW in Alaska's 2021 grid inventory and 34 MW nameplate in NOAA's October 2024 project profile; three approximately 11.25 MW units. Older 28 MW descriptions reflect a different historical/available-capacity boundary, not the current nameplate. [7][6][8]
Wind capacity
9 MW total from six GE 1.5 MW turbines on Pillar Mountain [11][8]
Battery storage
3 MW. The original 2012 advanced lead-acid system was 750 kWh according to IRENA, not the 2 MWh repeated in some secondary accounts. Younicos replaced the lead-acid racks with lithium-ion batteries in 2017 but did not disclose the upgraded energy capacity in its commissioning release. [12][13][7]
Flywheel storage
2 MW total from two 1 MW ABB PowerStore units [8][9]
Diesel backup inventory
37.2 MW in Alaska Energy Data Gateway's 2021 inventory: Kodiak 18.3 MW, Nyman's 10 MW, Swampy Acres 8.4 MW, and Port Lions 0.5 MW. This dated inventory is more specific than the legacy 33 MW aggregate. [7]

Controls and hardware

Equipment and controller details

Manufacturer and model are shown only when a source names them. Generic descriptions are not converted into guessed product assignments.

01

Hydroelectric generation

Model not publicly disclosed

Terror Lake has three approximately 11.25 MW turbine-generators and reservoir storage that can absorb excess wind by reducing hydro output. NOAA estimates about 135 GWh annual generation and says the project supplies roughly 80-85% of Kodiak's electricity. [6][8]

02

Wind turbines

General Electric

Six 1.5 MW units, 9 MW total. Three were added in 2012 to the original three-turbine installation. [11][10]

03

Battery energy storage

Younicos

The current 3 MW system uses lithium-ion batteries installed in 2017 as a replacement for Xtreme Power's original advanced lead-acid racks. Public commissioning material does not publish current MWh, cell supplier, rack model, or current degradation. [13]

04

Flywheel energy storage

ABB — PowerStore

Two 1 MW flywheels respond to rapid frequency and voltage excursions, integrate the port's large electric crane, and reduce high-frequency cycling stress on the battery system. [8][9]

05

Microgrid controls

ABB — MGC600

Networked distributed controllers coordinate resources peer-to-peer rather than through one single controller. [8]

Technical record

Architecture, performance, and project updates

Concise technical facts, milestones, operating results, and later developments. Dated notes distinguish historical design claims from current evidence.

  • Management

    The Kodiak microgrid is an islanded grid, meaning there is no interconnection with any outside grid. [1]

  • Storage

    Kodiak’s 3 MW (2 MWh) gel lead-acid battery contributes to the stability of the system, and KEA recently added two 1 MW flywheel systems. [1]

  • Storage

    The flywheel will take over some of the workload from the battery, which currently charges and discharges around 1,000 times each day. [1]

  • Storage

    The pairing of multiple types of storage that operate on different time scales effectively matches system needs, especially when variable renewable penetration is high. [1]

  • Storage division of labor

    The flywheels handle microsecond-scale changes and the crane's sharp load swings, allowing the battery to respond over longer seconds-to-minutes intervals; hydro governors and reservoir storage provide slower balancing and bulk renewable energy. [8]

  • Battery phase correction

    The often-cited 3 MW/2 MWh advanced lead-acid description is not supported by IRENA's detailed case study, which gives 3 MW/750 kWh. More importantly, that chemistry was retired: Younicos commissioned a 3 MW lithium-ion replacement in November 2017 without publishing its MWh rating. [12][13]

  • Reliability

    APEC's 2023 review reports no major reliability events caused by high renewable penetration, and KEA's 2023 annual report describes continued safe and reliable operation. Neither provides standardized outage indices or unit-availability data. [8][4]

  • Economics update

    KEA paid down more than $8 million of debt in 2023 but implemented a 12.5% rate increase in April 2024 after roughly three decades without an increase. The utility attributed the change to inflation, equipment costs, debt service, and reduced fish-processing demand, not to diesel-price exposure returning as the dominant cost. [4][5]

  • Open evidence gaps

    No public post-2023 full-year mix, diesel gallons, curtailment, BESS state of health, round-trip efficiency, flywheel availability, outage indices, or realized annual storage savings through July 2026 was located. [4][7]

Provenance

13 sources

Primary owner, government, university, supplier, and engineering sources are preferred. Archived references preserve claims whose original pages moved or disappeared.

  1. [1]
    Recovered Microgrid Projects record

    Internet Archive · Archived source · captured 2021-04-20

  2. [2]
    Renewable Microgrids Report from Rocky Mountain Institute

    rmi.org · Archived source · captured 2021-04-20

  3. [3]
    Kodiak Electric Association Member Handbook

    Kodiak Electric Association · Primary source

  4. [4]
  5. [5]
    Energy Infrastructure on the Kodiak Road System

    Kodiak Area Native Association · Primary source

  6. [6]
    Terror Lake

    National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration · Primary source

  7. [7]
    Kodiak Grid Power Generation

    Alaska Energy Data Gateway, University of Alaska Fairbanks · Primary source

  8. [8]
  9. [9]
  10. [10]
    Power Generation Technician Position Description

    Kodiak Electric Association · Primary source

  11. [11]
    Winds of Change: Report by KEA President/CEO Darron Scott

    Kodiak Electric Association · Primary source

  12. [12]
  13. [13]

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