Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Energy announced $125 million in funds for five rural Alaska energy projects. The largest share, about $54.8 million, will go to the Northwest Arctic for a giant renewable energy effort affecting the entire borough.
Together, Regional Native Corporation NANA and the Northwest Arctic Borough plan to contribute another $10 million to the project, which aims to bring solar arrays, heat pumps, and transmission lines to the region.
“We are pretty much spearheading the change of what all the Alaska communities need to do,” said Ingemar Mathiasson, energy manager for the Northwest Arctic Borough. “It'll be the biggest project we have done, and everybody's looking forward to it.”
Mathiasson called the borough’s renewable energy plan, now 15 years in the making, a “success story” in energy sovereignty for rural Alaska.
Mathiasson said he’s excited about the arrival of the new heat pumps, which will dramatically cut residents' heating fuel consumption. The community of Ambler already received their heat pumps through a separate 2021 program.
Communities already with solar plants, like Shungnak, Noatak, Buckland and Deering will see their energy output double. Once the communities’ solar arrays are set up, Mathiasson said all households in the villages will receive heat pumps.
“The household can save up to $1,500 or $2,000 per year going electric, since the heat pumps are three times more effective than a Toyo,” Mathiasson said. “The key to all that is that we want to have solar arrays and batteries in place, so that the batteries will take up the excess power.”
According to Mathiason, the renewable energy improvements will save the region millions per year. The borough plans to help communities through administration and funds to set up independent power producers. Basically, an entity like a village tribe would own the power plant and all the energy it produces. The Alaska Village Energy Cooperative would then reimburse the independent power producer for the diesel it didn’t use.
Mathiasson said money generated could be spent on community needs like education or infrastructure. The community of Shungnak has already earned over $100,000 from this model. When the new solar arrays and heat pumps come into the picture, Mathiasson said the profits could be even higher.
For some of the villages up the Kobuk River, where diesel fuel is more than $10 per gallon -- it could mean savings of hundreds of thousand dollars per year in offset fuel.
Another project the grant would fund is intertie lines between Shungnak, Kobuk and eventually Ambler. This could help build out a future hydroelectric project that Mathiasson said would almost completely power those communities with renewable energy.
The DOE grant funds will also help build a large energy storage battery in Kotzebue. The battery would provide uninterrupted power for hours to the city's more than 3,000 residents, if the diesel generation plant goes offline.
“This is major. This is like a nuclear bomb, a good nuclear bomb, if there is such a thing,” said borough assembly member Craig McConnell. “We need to keep as much of this $55 million in our region as possible for years of jobs and savings for residents, especially in the villages.”
Mathiasson said the borough and their partners hope to finalize all the grant paperwork in the next month and begin working on the projects as soon as possible. Mathiasson said that the project will likely take about four years to complete.
