In rural Alaska, a village turns to solar and biomass energies to cut diesel and save money

Eric Huntington built his dream cabin nestled in the wilderness of central Alaska, eventually raising two daughters there. But over the years, he learned that living in this quiet, remote village came with a hefty cost.

Every year, the Huntington family spent about $7,000 on diesel to heat the cabin during bone-chilling winters, and a few
years back, a power outage at the town's diesel plant left residents freezing in –45 C. When power finally returned hours later, water pipes had frozen, leaving about two dozen homes without running water for days.

"We just didn't open our door all morning until the lights came back on," said Huntington, a member of the local Louden Tribe.

In Galena, a sprawling village of 400 people on the banks of the Yukon River, a community built around a former military base is shifting to clean energy in an effort to reduce its reliance on expensive, imported diesel. Local leaders say their nearly completed solar farm, along with an existing biomass plant, will boost the town's savings and protect residents from blackouts during extreme weather. The technology has the potential to provide clean backup power in emergencies and improve the power grid's resiliency, all while diversifying the village's energy sources and providing job opportunities for locals.

The projects come at a precarious time for renewable energy transition in the United States. The Trump administration has canceled billions of dollars of clean energy grants in an effort to bolster fossil fuel production, and billions more in investments have been scrapped or delayed this year. So far, the village's federal grants for the solar array haven't been impacted, but local leaders know the risk remains. Whatever the future of public funding, the village is an example of how renewable energies can save costs, boost reliability during extreme weather and create jobs.

Once online, the solar array will ensure that the village's power grid has a backup system, said Tim Kalke, general manager of Sustainable Energy for Galena Alaska — or SEGA — a nonprofit that will operate it. So when the power goes out, it doesn't result in tens of thousands of dollars in repairs, he added, and heat is guaranteed in times of extreme cold.

"You're dealing with life, health and safety," he said.    

A biomass project keeps a bustling school heated

In May, dozens of high school students in navy blue caps and gowns stood with nervous excitement in a locker-brimmed hallway, each waiting their turn to walk through yellow tinsel into a packed auditorium. It was graduation day for Galena Interior Learning Academy.

The school's vocational training courses and cultural offerings attract some 200 students annually from across Alaska, boosting the village's population and energy needs.

Students here can take classes on sustainable energy, aviation, carpentry and much more. But in order to keep it running — especially during long, cold winters — it needs heat.

That's where the biomass project comes in. Every winter since 2016, trees (mostly paper birch) are locally harvested and shredded into wood chips that fuel a large boiler plant on campus, offsetting about 380,000 litres of diesel annually for the school district and the city, said Brad Scotton, a Galena City Council member who also serves on SEGA's board. It's notable as one of the state's first large-scale biomass plants and is the most rural, he added.

Cost savings from using biomass has allowed the Galena City School District to hire certified professionals in trade jobs and do upkeep on campus facilities, said district superintendent Jason R. Johnson in an email.

It's also created a local workforce and a job base the village never used to have.

"It's keeping the money that used to go outside within the community and providing pretty meaningful jobs for people," Scotton said.

A new solar farm to offset more diesel use

In rural areas of Alaska, the costs for many goods can be high, as they must be brought in. Galena burns just under 1.5 million litres of diesel annually to produce electricity, and an energy price hike around 2008 helped the village realize something needed to change. Scotton remembered when a gallon of diesel was $1.64 and then skyrocketed to $4.58 another year. At that wholesale price, the city was paying more than $1.8 million to keep the lights on.

"It was really quite a shock to everybody's system in terms of trying to operate with those elevated costs," said Scotton. "So that really got the community assessing whether or not we could continue business as usual with that reliance."

That's when they started looking for grants to build a solar array.

On an overcast May day, on a field flanked by boreal forests, workers in reflective safety vests slotted rectangular panels on a metal grid. They were working on the nearly-completed, 1.5 megawatt solar farm that will connect to a battery system.

Once in use, the community will be able to turn off its diesel engines and run on 100 per cent clean, renewable energy on sunny summer days, and any excess power will be battery stored for nights, emergencies or heating the local indoor pool. The solar array will allow them to shut off the diesel operation between 800 to 1,000 hours a year, totaling about 380,000 litres.

The solar farm won't necessarily lower people's electricity bills. But like the biomass plant, the hope is that it will stabilize energy costs, allowing those savings to go back into the community, all while providing work opportunities for residents like Aaren Sommer.

Last year, the 19-year old graduated from the academy, where he learned about solar energy. Now he's helping to install the solar array. "That's going to reduce the diesel usage a whole bunch over at the power plant, which is going to help us out," he said.

Tribe members save with energy-efficient homes

In addition to the solar farm and biomass project, the Louden Tribe is building new energy-efficient homes that will help members be less reliant on diesel. Some of the siding used in the homes comes from wood harvested in the area.

In November, the Huntington family moved into a new, stilted house with a solar-compatible roof, 33-centimetre walls and 46 centimetres of insulation to keep the cold at bay. When they lived in the cabin, the $7,000 a year Huntington spent on diesel was a good chunk of his annual income.

The new home's energy-efficient features are already saving them money. The 1,130-litre diesel tank Huntington filled before moving cost him about $2,400. Six months later, he still has unused fuel in the tank.

The Huntingtons are one of eight families the tribe has moved into sustainable homes, and they plan to turn over the keys to three more this year.

Kalke, SEGA's general manager, is often asked what Galena produces. He used to just say education.

"But since 2016 you can say education and wood chips. And soon, solar energy," he said.