As the borough is working out how best to provide 100% of the power the community would require from diesel generators if and when Tyee Lake goes down, it needs to find a solution to move the electricity out of the diesel plant into the distribution system at peak demand.

Wrangell has five generators that together can produce 11.8 megawatts at full load. But the current linkage at the power plant can deliver only 8 megawatts to the town. During cold spells, demand can rise to about 10 megawatts.

The borough uses four 2-megawatt transformers to step power from the plant to the town.

“I remember, a few years ago, buying three 3-megawatt transformers,” Mayor Patty Gilbert said during discussion of the issue at the Oct. 21 assembly meeting.

Those larger transformers were purchased, but the plant’s internal wiring could not support them. The wire would need to be upgraded to a significantly larger cable, about double in size, which would be costly, heavy and would require outside contractors to install.

Wrangell Light and Power, working with the company Electrical Power Solutions, has a workaround. The plan is to make Unit 1 a standalone diesel unit with its own transformer, separate from the current switchgear. That would keep the borough from having to invest in heavier wiring and additional switches beyond what it currently owns.

By making Unit 1 a standalone unit with its own transformer, it would reduce the load coming from the other generators running together and would raise available generation from 8 to 10.8 megawatts — and possibly to 11 megawatts for short periods under the engines’ overload rating.

“It would really take a lot of things going wrong at once for us to completely lose power,” Superintendent David McHolland said. “But we always want to be prepared just in case.”

McHolland recommended moving ahead with the Unit 1 standalone plan. He said it could be in place by next spring.

“That’s something that we can do mostly in-house,” he said. “But we would need EPS to come out and wire all the controls into place. That would cost around $160,000, which is much cheaper than upgrading the wire and paying to have it installed.”

Overall, McHolland said the borough is well positioned to meet power needs.

“It would definitely be an emergency type of situation if we had to power the whole town with the generators,” he said. “It’s a rare scenario, but we are prepared to deal with it.”

He said the goal is to have Unit 1 operating as a standalone and to complete an overhaul of Unit 3, which is scheduled for spring 2026.

The assembly last month approved a $584,178 contract for a full mechanical overhaul of Unit 3, the third diesel generator to get the treatment since 2022.

“By next winter we’ll have everything in place perfectly,” McHolland said.