Kodiak Electric Association (KEA) received a national award for the Pillar Mountain Wind Project last week in Atlanta, Ga.

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) honored KEA with the 2009 Wind Cooperative of the Year Award, a nine-year-old award that recognizes pioneers and leaders in wind power.

KEA president and CEO Darron Scott traveled to Atlanta with board chairman Cliff Davidson to accept the award.

In a statement Scott thanked Kodiak for its support of the project.

“Our community took ownership and extreme pride in the Pillar Mountain Wind Project, and this award will make that pride swell,” he said. “The City of Kodiak, the state, and KEA board and employees share the credit for making the project happen.”

He also thanked manufacturer General Electric and consultant Tetratech for their work on the project.

The Pillar Mountain Project was not the first wind farm in Alaska, but with three 1.5-megawatt turbines, it is a substantially larger project than anything in the state.

The three turbines produce about 9 percent of KEA’s power, and are supposed to annually save more than 800,000 gallons of diesel fuel. Together, with Terror Lake Dam, the co-op produces about 89 percent of its energy through renewable sources.

KEA plans to be 95 percent renewable by 2020.

In its application for the award KEA highlighted the role of the project in breaking barriers for other Alaska communities to move toward large-scale wind projects.

Convincing a major turbine manufacturer to supply turbines to Alaska proved one major obstacle.

So was construction.

Installing the turbines required a crane bigger than anything available in the state. The crane and the turbine parts had to be barged in from the Lower 48. The road up Pillar Mountain was expanded to accommodate the equipment.

KEA’s application also mentioned the cooperative’s promotion of the turbines. A Discovery Channel documentary and an Alaska Airlines Magazine feature about Pillar Mountain are in progress. The project has also been featured in publications including petroleum News and Climate Wire.

KEA is the second Alaska cooperative to win the wind cooperative of the year award. The Alaska Village Electric Cooperative, which built three smaller turbines in Toksook Bay also received the award.

Kodiak is among about a dozen Alaska communities that the Alaska Energy Authority lists as partially wind-powered. The current list includes Chevak, Delta Junction, Hooper Bay, Kasigluk, Kotzebue, Nome, Saint Paul Island, Savoonga, Selawik, Toksook Bay and Wales

Construction for a major 30-megawatt project on Fire Island West of Anchorage is expected in the next year. The project plans 20 turbines.

Mirror writer Sam Friedman can be reached via e-mail at sfriedman@kodaikdailymirror.com.