Communities in Hawaii & Alaska Change Concepts to Have interaction Residents in Power Transitions

Join every day information updates from CleanTechnica on electronic mail. Or comply with us on Google Information!

When the third cohort of Power Transitions Initiative Partnership Mission (ETIPP) communities was introduced in 2023, the inclusion of Molokai, Hawaii, caught the attention of Bri Gabel, a sustainability coordinator for the Metropolis and Borough of Sitka, Alaska. Sitka was additionally chosen for ETIPP, and Gabel noticed a possibility to infuse some current learnings from Molokai into Sitka’s ETIPP venture.

“I did my undergrad in Hawaii, and so I’ve all the time sort of seemed to Hawaii as inspiration for among the work that I do,” she mentioned. “There are a whole lot of similarities between Alaska and Hawaii … a whole lot of comparable challenges and prices related to having to ship every part in.”

ETIPP combines technical experience from 4 nationwide laboratories with native data from regional associate organizations to assist island and distant communities pursue their vitality resilience targets. Whereas this system, which is managed by the Nationwide Renewable Power Laboratory, has traditionally emphasised constructing connections between researchers, native organizations, and neighborhood members, it additionally gives a spot for communities which might be working to shift towards sustainable vitality techniques to be taught from one another.

Though Molokai and Sitka have totally different renewable vitality targets, they each view neighborhood engagement as a essential component to succeed in these targets.

Molokai entered ETIPP with a Neighborhood Power Resilience Motion Plan (CERAP), which outlines 10 vitality tasks that have already got gone by way of a technique of growing consensus throughout a number of stakeholders and secured neighborhood assist. Sitka, which is embarking on its second spherical of technical help by way of ETIPP, is seeking to choose renewable vitality choices based mostly on an ETIPP evaluation of future forecasted vitality demand.

Molokai has already established some profitable neighborhood engagement practices that Sitka hopes to emulate in its ETIPP venture.

“The work [Molokai had already done] was so just like the work that we’ll be doing with our present ETIPP work,” Gabel mentioned. “It was fascinating to … see the place we might sort of construct off a few of their work or at the least not begin from zero.”

Assembly Neighborhood Members The place They Are To Increase Participation in Power Choice-Making

Sitka first joined ETIPP in 2021 with a concentrate on exploring viable renewable vitality choices and conducting capability planning for future vitality wants. The neighborhood’s newest ETIPP venture will analyze and evaluate future forecasted vitality demand, accounting for elevated masses from heating electrification, electrical transportation, and different decarbonization applied sciences. The outcomes of the evaluation will assist Sitka match beforehand recognized renewable vitality alternatives to fulfill forecasted vitality demand.

In Molokai, constructing on the priorities specified by its CERAP, the island’s ETIPP venture will mannequin and assess the feasibility of photo voltaic vitality, establish renewable vitality sources to assist essential infrastructure, and discover pumped hydropower as an possibility for vitality storage.

After reviewing Molokai’s plan on-line, Gabel’s crew was impressed by not solely the various neighborhood illustration mirrored within the doc but additionally the diploma of vitality training Molokai offered residents through the planning course of. Gabel mentioned Sitka desires to attract closely from Molokai’s strategy of weaving training and engagement collectively in Sitka’s ETIPP venture.

“We actually appreciated that earlier than they even began asking a few of these greater questions, they actually tried to … enhance folks’s vitality literacy in order that they felt knowledgeable and had an understanding of what’s occurring,” she mentioned. “So not simply talking at them, however truly having a dialog.”

Gabel invited Leilani Chow, an vitality sovereignty program coordinator at Sustainable Molokai, to current a few of Molokai’s insights to Sitka’s Accountability Fee. Chow’s presentation highlighted strategies utilized in Molokai to construct neighborhood consensus and participation.

In Molokai, vitality planners began by asking neighborhood members how they wished to take part and what they noticed as obstacles to participation. Once they heard “neighborhood fatigue” was one of many important obstacles to partaking in vitality planning, Chow’s crew created engagement alternatives that had been extra handy for his or her goal individuals.

“We tagged onto different neighborhood occasions. We’d get a sales space and provides folks lemongrass tea and say, ‘Can I decide your mind actual quick about some vitality stuff?’” Chow mentioned. “They might spend 5 to 10 minutes with us after which they may go. They didn’t have to remain in a gathering. We had been actually conscious about retaining it brief and candy.”

Chow mentioned Molokai additionally took cues from neighborhood members about how they most well-liked to be taught extra about vitality and tried settings starting from Zoom conferences to pop-up occasions.

Everybody on Molokai is taken into account a stakeholder whose enter issues, Chow mentioned. However conducting thorough and methodical outreach helped them attain key teams together with first responders, emergency preparedness groups, essential infrastructure operators, conservation teams, and homestead associations.

Though the engagement course of was time-consuming, Chow mentioned the end result was value it.

“The neighborhood is tremendous excited to begin trying into these tasks. It’s simply made a good stronger case for community-led vitality planning, when communities codesign their tasks,” Chow mentioned. “These tasks present much more than simply vitality options; they supply general neighborhood options in a holistic means. [ETIPP has been] letting us lead on the neighborhood course of that we all know has labored for us and that we wish to proceed to strengthen.”

Creating House for Neighborhood Voices To Lead Power Transition Discussions

Again in Sitka, pleasure and momentum are constructing across the neighborhood’s ETIPP venture, as effectively. The researchers and regional companions supporting Sitka’s ETIPP venture traveled to Sitka in December 2023 to raised perceive the neighborhood’s wants and what outcomes Sitka is anticipating from the venture.

“I do like that ETIPP is structured to have technical help specialists and neighborhood engagement specialists,” Gabel mentioned. “[It shows] an understanding that you really want each of these issues to ensure that these things to achieve success.”

There are not any assumptions that “simply because they’re vitality specialists, they know every part they should know,” Gabel mentioned. “The largest problem has been attempting to let the neighborhood know that these specialists are right here to assist, however they’re not simply right here to talk to you—they’re right here to hear.”

Gabel mentioned she has been grateful for the ETIPP crew’s vulnerability as they’ve labored with the neighborhood to finalize the venture’s scope of labor.

“Folks [in Sitka] are very opinionated and anxious about a few of these issues, and so it’s not straightforward to return in right here and let folks primarily grill you about what’s occurring as a result of now we have to essentially construct that belief earlier than we truly get going into a few of this work,” she mentioned. “The crew has been nice, and I’m excited to really get this [ETIPP project] scope finalized and transfer into the following section of this technical help.”

Sitka is utilizing the neighborhood enter from the December 2023 assembly to finalize the main points of its ETIPP venture. And as each ETIPP tasks progress, Gabel mentioned Sitka hopes to return the favor to Molokai.

“I even have [Molokai’s] technique printed out and marked up like loopy,” Gabel mentioned, “and I positively allow them to know that we’d be blissful to speak extra and sort of share some fascinating finds from our preliminary ETIPP work.”

Go to the ETIPP technical help web page to be taught extra about this system and keep tuned concerning the 2024 utility interval.

Courtesy of NREL. By Brooke Van Zandt