15 participants of the Arctic Remote Energy Networks Academy program gather in Kotzebue last week. group traveled to Alaska to learn more about local renewable projects and energy solutions. - Photo by Amanda Byrd
Energy professionals from Alaska, Canada and Greenland explore the Kptzebue Electric Asociation wind and solar site outside of town last week. - Carolyn Loeffler
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Energy professionals from Alaska, Greenland and Canada visited Kotzebue last week to learn about local wind and solar projects.
The Arctic Remote Energy Networks Academy program aims to bring together energy professionals from across the circumpolar North to share knowledge and build community resilience and energy sustainability. This year, the program had 15 participants - half of them indigenous - who visited Kotzebue to look at northern energy projects.
"They were from all over, you know: from the interior, from Greenland, Lower 48 and university," Martin Shroyer with Kotzebue Electric Association said. "It went good."
"The cohort connected really well," Alaska coordinator Carolyn Loeffler said. "It was really fun moving around (Chukchi) campus with them or driving them around because everyone was talking shop; everyone was talking energy - everyone was talking projects, even in their downtime, so that was really fun to hear."
After starting the trip on July 16 in Fairbanks, on Wednesday, the group came to Kotzebue - the community that has been integrating wind turbines since 1990 and has several decades' worth of experience working with renewable energy.
"The whole reason we wanted to bring this cohort to Kotzebue is that they've been able to achieve really high-penetration wind systems," Loeffler said. "It's a highly relevant example of a community with a diesel powerhouse, who have been able to successfully integrate wind and solar into that microgrid and really offsets a lot of those diesel expenses. Obviously, with a recent spike in the cost of fuel, those savings are even more dramatic."
The group visited Kotzebue Electric Association's diesel plant, as well as solar and wind farms outside of town.
"We just explained to them what we've done in the years and showed them some data as to the wind and solar," Shroyer said.
Matt Bergen, project engineer with Kotzebue Electric Association, explained to the group how by integrating renewable energy the Kotzebue community was able to offset some of the financial costs associated with oil. Earlier this spring, Bergen told Arctic Sounder that the average rate of using renewable energy for Kotzebue throughout the year is between 20 and 25%, but when the wind and solar farms are working at full capacity, they can be generating about 75% of the power needed for the town.
"This summer, one day we (got) up to 95%. That's when the wind was perfect, and no clouds," Shroyer said. "Using renewables, it cuts down on the amount of diesel we burn. We average anywhere from 200,000 to 250,000 gallons in savings of burning less diesel."
Another stop for the ARENA group was the Chukchi campus where they use a container-based hydroponic garden - an outdoor area with potatoes, lettuce and cabbage; a native food garden with traditionally gathered and eaten plants from the tundra; and a hydroponic growing system to produce greens, tomatoes and other salad material. The growing system uses a repurposed shipping container with a heat pump, grow lights, solar panels and a growing medium
"Using alternative energy in the hydroponics growing system, we are able to enhance food security by providing a sustainable energy source for year-round controlled growing," university officials said in the project description.
The cohort also learned about the ongoing project to find devices to measure how much heating fuel people use in a month in Alaska to "understand how much heating fuel the average household uses, and how that's linked with temperature, environments, communities, local costs, supply chain - the whole deal," Loeffler said.
"One of the biggest barriers to understanding the cost of heating fuel in Alaska is that there's no metering for using the fuel," she said. "Once we can quantify this problem in greater detail then we can start working toward better solutions and driving those costs down."
The trip to Northwest Alaska was cut short when several members of the group tested positive for the COVID-19 virus, but the program coordinators were aware of the danger, conducted tests early and responded to the situation quickly, sending everyone home as soon as possible.
Later this year, the cohort is also planning a visit to Iceland in October and to Yukon Territory in Canada in January.
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