Alaska Excursions, recently rebranded as Alaska X, is one of only a handful of businesses in Dyea but isn’t connected to the grid.
In order to power their gift shop, cafe, and tour facilities, the company’s owner Robert Murphy relies on a diesel generator.
At the bottom of the pipe, the water will be squeezed into 1-inch jets to increase the concentration of the flow so it will hit that turbine at a pressure of 160 pounds per square inch and generate 60 kilowatts of electricity.
It’s not just the buildings that Murphy is hoping to power with this new hydroelectric source, it’s all of the vehicles that transport guests and staff around the mountainous terrain daily.
In the future, he hopes to be able to work with the municipality of Skagway to provide power to a vehicle charging station in Dyea for his transport busses and the general public.
“We could be burning these diesel generators for 50 years, and have two or three of them for the money that it costs us to do this.