Site Evaluation Study

Burns & McDonnell completed a site evaluation study for Chugach Electric Association of Anchorage, Alaska. Chugach, a former REA cooperative, serves retail customers in the south Anchorage area and wholesale customers across much of south-central Alaska. The study area included the Anchorage bowl areas down the Kenai peninsula.

The first phase of the project involved collection of data relative to the candidate sites. Included in this was a field reconnaissance of the sites to obtain first-hand knowledge about each one.

Criteria was developed for evaluation of the candidate sites, along with weighting factors which reflected the relative importance of each of these factors. These criteria included environmental, social, engineering and economic factors. Information relative to these criteria was collected for each candidate site. From this information, relative scores were assigned to each potential site for each criterion. These scores and weights were combined to yield a weighted total score for each site.