Campus research: Clean energy trailblazers

POSTED ON Dec 01, 2023

According to Fort Lewis College, 32% of Navajo Nation households lack electricity due to geographical isolation, utility barriers, cost, and a complex regulatory process.

The disproportionate inequity in Native American communities can be attributed to many of these factors.

The Inflation Reduction Act 2022 has allocated 272.5 million dollars for climate and energy investments in Native American tribes. However, most tribes lack the expertise to utilize this funding and develop their clean energy infrastructure independently.

Earlier this year, Laurie Williams, a physics and engineering professor at Fort Lewis College, won a $100,000 prize from the U.S. Department of Energy for a rural clean energy project.

This funding has been a boost for the Fort Lewis College Village Aid Project (VAP) Solar Initiative. The VAP Solar Initiative, a 501(c) Fort Lewis College organization, works with undergraduate students to design and install off-grid photovoltaic systems.

The Navajo Nation Solar Initiative team is a partnership between Fort Lewis College students and faculty, grant management expertise, and off-grid system subject matter experts.

The team aims to partner with communities in the Navajo Nation to address critical energy needs.

In partnership with the Shonto Chapter, the Navajo Nation Solar Initiative team is developing a community home site assessment database. The database will include home locations, electric transmission lines, electrification status, home readiness for electric service, homesite lease status, and interest in electric service.

This database will help the Navajo Nation Solar Initiative identify homes that are suitable for off-grid solar photovoltaic systems.

The VAP Solar Initiative will assist Shonto families without homesite leases, and therefore not eligible for utility services with Navajo Tribal Utility Authority.

“With the Energizing Rural Communities prize, the NNSI [Navajo Nation Solar Initiative] team will work with Navajo Nation Chapters in building the capacity to plan, build, own, operate, and maintain off-grid PV systems for homes without electric grid access,” said Williams. “From my work with the VAP Solar Initiative, we’ve found that one significant barrier is the lack of comprehensive knowledge within the Chapter related to homes with and without electricity access, or the factors that preclude a home from obtaining electricity when available,” Williams said.

Williams is one of 67 winners in the first phase of the Energizing Rural Communities Prize challenge and is eligible to compete in phase two to win an additional $200,000.

The $100,000 prize is part of phase one of the $15 million Energizing Rural Communities Prize challenge.

The competition is aimed at helping individuals and organizations develop partnership plans or innovative financing strategies to help rural or remote communities improve their energy systems and advance clean energy demonstration projects.

Other awardees include entrepreneurs, university faculty and student groups, community organizations, tribal and local governments, financial institutions, industry professionals, and others with ideas to help organize or finance a clean energy demonstration project in a rural or remote area.

The prize challenge is part of the $1 billion Energy Improvements in Rural or Remote Areas Program, created by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations.

The ERA Program supports projects that improve the resilience, reliability, safety, availability, and environmental performance of energy systems in rural or remote areas of the U.S. with populations of no more than 10,000 people.

In related news, Fort Lewis College Professor Janine Fitzgerald created the All Our Kin Collective this year to help address the loss of Indigenous languages in students’ communities and help them understand a crucial part of their identities.