Alaska Microgrids Offer a Lesson for Global Power
A bipartisan group visited Alaska to look at the impact investments into clean energy can have on rural Arctic communities, reported the Alaska Dispatch News.
The delegation, which included six senators, the U.S. energy secretary and Alaska governor Bill Walker, visited the town of Bethel in southwest Alaska and other small villages to learn about energy-efficient housing and microgrids – local power plants that deliver electricity to remote communities located outside of the range of long-distance power lines.
Lawmakers are debating an energy bill that could reduce waste and invest in clean energy, Climate Home reported.
Alaska’s experience with producing power under challenging conditions could prove useful to other remote regions in the world.
The state and federal governments have invested close to a billion dollars in microgrid technology in Alaska over the past decade, the Alaska Dispatch News reported in another article. Alaska has more than 200 microgrid projects, according to the article.
Energy costs in these communities are enormous, sometimes as much as eight times greater than the national average.
But investments could also help shrink Alaska’s carbon footprint, which stands at 49 tons of CO2 per year per person – the fourth highest in the country, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Diesel fuel meets 90 percent of the state’s energy needs.
Last week, the Department of Energy announced that it would make up to $7 million available to assist indigenous communities to install solar photovoltaic systems in remote villages. In a report released the same day, the Office of Indian Energy said the state’s solar resource was “comparable to that of Germany, which leads the world in solar installations.”
International Project Aims to Study Baffin Bay for 30 years
Arctic researchers from Denmark and Canada announced plans to conduct in-depth monitoring of Baffin Bay – the 1,450km (900 mile) waterway sandwiched between Greenland and northern Canada, reported the Globe and Mail.
The area is undergoing extensive environmental change. The runoff from the melting Greenland ice sheet is flooding the marine environment with freshwater, which could alter ocean currents and the transfer of nutrients between the top and bottom of the ocean.
The scientists envision a 30-year project that could start as early as 2018, so long as funding for the project – estimated at $100 million – can be found, according to the article. That would entail investments from additional international research partners.
The project would use drones to monitor sea ice, cable observatories along the seafloor, and hydrophones to monitor marine mammals. Coastal communities would also play a part in monitoring and would be involved from the start, Louis Fortier, a marine biologist from Laval University and the director of ArcticNet, was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, Iceland made a bid to host the office of the International Arctic Science Committee, reported the Arctic Journal. The nongovernmental organization is currently based in Potsdam, Germany, and has plans to relocate its office. The decision will be made in March, when the IASC meets in Fairbanks during the Arctic Science Summit Week, according to the article.
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Top image: A bipartisan group visited Bethel, Alaska, this week for a field hearing on microgrids. Despite the harsh conditions – as seen here on the outskirts of Nome in Alaska – renewable energy can help provide electricity to the state’s remote communities. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)