Batteries at Tyee facility to be replaced

The Southeast Alaska Power Agency Board approved $97,750 to replace the backup battery bank at the Tyee Lake hydro facility at a regular board meeting last Thursday.

Early last month, Petersburg and Wrangell were providing their own power for about a week while the Tyee Lake Hydro facility was offline for annual maintenance. During the maintenance period, SEAPA conducted a battery capacity discharge test of the hydro project's nickel-cadmium batteries. Three hours into the test, one of the batteries began to decay. Another battery also began decaying after eight hours of testing. The batteries...