Cordova Report

I spent Sun through Tues in Cordova, a fishing town at the mouth of the Copper River. They have quite a bit of hydropower, which is dam cool. However, often their load demand does not even fully utilize the hydro plant, so we are examining options for better load management and energy storage, to get more out of the hydro. There is a consortium of 3 national labs, 4 universities, and 2 electric cooperatives all probing their best tools into how best to manage renewable energy generation on islanded microgrids, with the picture to include energy storage, cybersecurity, grid resilience, and active demand management.

The flight to Anchorage was beautiful, with views of Denali and its glaciers:




It was crazy windy the first night. The wind howled and battered the hotel, making the windows and exterior walls shake. I called DL. "Is this normal for Cordova?" He said pretty much. So I went to sleep. The next morning, I repeated my question to my local hosts. They said, it was not exactly abnormal, but not super common either. They got wind storms like that maybe 3-4 times a year. The local paper reported that gusts were clocked at 108 mph. The city Christmas tree snapped in two, and there was damage all over the port. Look at this shipping container! And that is a boat up there... I'm not sure if it had been dry-docked, or it got tossed up there:


Morning in Cordova:


Just prepping the laptop to walk across the road.


Cordova weather:




I felt the need to support a local Eyak artist. Aren't these beautiful? I just love purple. I emailed the artist to let her know that her work was on its way to Fairbanks, where it would be well loved.


The diesel plant was all "diesel off". There was enough dam water to be on 100% hydro power! It was the quietest dam diesel plant I had never been in. They name their big generators after local animals--bear, orca, and wolverine. And they have tlingit icons on them. Here is Bear:


I was very disappointed we had to cancel our dam tour since there had been a dam avalanche blocking the dam road. I really dam well wanted to see them! At least there were dam cams, so I got to see the dam dams, even if only in 2D.


Here is the dam hydro:


They also had some dam funny signs. Like all good humor, these contain a core of absolute truth.

I'm sending this to my students:


This is really the best explanation I have ever seen of these concepts!


And this is just funny!


DL told me to refrain from making dam puns during my presentation. I took his advice and refrained, but then a pun slipped out when I started talking hydrokinetics. I said something about how we are currently testing a hydrokinetic generator that sits in a current and makes current and... ah... a pun just came out and sorry about that and dam and dam I did not avoid a dam pun and so on and so forth. Dignity and I are not well acquainted.