Puvurnaq Power Company

PO Box 5009

Kongiganak, AK 99545

Office Location: Between the United Utility building and the old Qemirtalek Store downtown Kongiganak

Email: kongppc6@gmail.com

Pururnaq Power's History in Brief

The idea of harnessing the wind to generate electricity was first realized by a wind study conducted and started by power plant manager Harvey Paul back in 2004. He collected 1 year’s worth of wind data and started filling out grants to fund a Wind Farm project. Without wind data and feasibility studies, requests for funds from Federal Programs were not successful. In the year 2007, Harvey Paul and his board members traveled to Juneau, Alaska to meet with legislators. They had with them resolutions of support from the Board of Directors, the Traditional Council, and other entities such as the local village corporation and school system. They also had to be knowledgeable of what they were asking for, backed up with a business plan, blueprints, and cost projections. This was a successful trip to the Alaska capital because they were given an allocation of start-up funds from the State of Alaska treasury supported by legislators.

Harvey Paul cautions that you need to know who you hire and have the support of upper management. Even though they have not reached the goal to reduce costs as low as .40 cents per kWh, the positives outweigh the negatives when measuring success. It created jobs such as wind-mill technicians and power plant operators. The Puvurnaq Power Company in Kongiganak is fully independent and locally owned without reliance on outside organizations such as AVEC. The project created a regional cooperative known as Chaninik Wind Group representing a handful of neighboring villages that address power and electrical needs with shared resources. Some of the challenges were that it was a “Learn as you go process” as there was no other expertise to go by with a high turn-over rate of employees.

Fast forward to more current dates, you will find additional progress reports and slides provided by Puvurnaq's current manager, Roderick Phillip, and IES. More technologies have been added to the Wind Turbine project since its beginnings, such as a total of 5 (five) 95 kW Windmatic wind turbines, Electric Thermal Storage devices, Community-wide Smart Metering, Smart Grid Control, and Lithium-Ion Battery Storage installed in 2018. 

In the following web-page, you will also find YouTube videos created by Amanda Byrd of Alaska Center for Energy and Power UAF.