Cook Inlet Powerlink has $270M raised but still needs about $142M to meet DOE deadline

Curtis Thayer, executive director of the Alaska Energy Authority, updated the House Energy Committee on the Cook Inlet Powerlink, a high-voltage direct‑current subsea transmission project. Thayer told the committee the project cost estimate is about $413 million and that AEA currently has roughly $270 million raised — including a $206.5 million Department of Energy (DOE) grant, a $50 million AEA bond and $14.2 million in state funds.

Thayer said AEA needs approximately $142 million more to fully fund the project. He emphasized a timing constraint tied to the DOE award: the grant “goes away in 2032,” so the project must be placed in service by that date to secure the award. The Powerlink plan includes about 80 miles of cabling (two cables in parallel) with both subsea and onshore routing; preliminary engineering, environmental routing, permitting and procurement are underway.

On financing, Thayer said some low-cost financing doors are more limited for the Powerlink than for Bradley Lake — for example, Powerlink does not qualify for tax-exempt bonds, and some DOE financing tools are legally unavailable for a project that already received a DOE grant. He said the agency has been working with bond counsel and public-finance advisors and expects to continue seeking a capital stack to close the $142 million gap.

The committee asked about the likely rate impact and where remaining finance would come from; Thayer said AEA will return with scenario analysis showing cost per kilowatt under different credit and finance outcomes. He noted that DOE has asked for “line of sight” on future funding and that AEA already holds the majority of needed funds in hand.