Change doesn’t happen on its own. It’s led by dedicated and passionate people who are championing innovative solutions to Alaska’s energy challenges. Alaska Energy Champions is a regular feature spotlighting pioneers of Alaska’s new energy frontier.

Name: David Pelunis-Messier
Title/Role: Tanana Chiefs Conference (TCC) Rural Energy Coordinator; Regional DOE Energy Ambassador
Affiliation: TCC

How did you contribute to the success of Minto’s recent energy efficiency project, and what key takeaways from that project might others in Alaska benefit from?

My role at TCC is to help communities take advantage of opportunities that are out there. So I notified Minto of the DOE Office of Indian Energy Strategic Technical Assistance Response Team (START) opportunity and then worked closely with the Minto Tribal Administrator to get the information for their START application and submit it. At about the same time that we submitted the application, Minto Tribal Council was approached by a local business that was convinced a small biomass system they were selling would help Minto reduce energy consumption at the Lakeview Lodge. The Tribal Council had actually already cut the check for the purchase of the boiler when the START team came up and pointed out that the leaky, inefficient lodge would waste just the same number of British Thermal Units (BTUs) from wood as it would from oil and suggested the Tribe would be better off doing an energy efficiency project. My role during the project was to work with the Tribe, the Interior Regional Housing Authority (IRHA), and the START team to help highlight cost-effective efficiency measures that would save the Tribe money. I helped figure out cost share for the project and also worked with the Tribe on reporting requirements throughout the project. At the same time, I worked with the Tribe to coordinate applications for their Village Energy Efficiency Program (VEEP) and Renewable Energy Fund grants, both of which the Tribe submitted with the momentum they gained under the START Program. My main takeaway was that with the right people on board we can help the community in the right order: planning first, efficiency second, renewable energy third. Now Minto has funding through a separate award for a biomass project and plan to construct it in 2015–2016.

Tell us about your larger role in promoting tribal energy development your region of Alaska.

I work for Tanana Chiefs Conference, a tribal nonprofit that serves 42 federally recognized Tribes in Alaska’s Interior—a region that is 235,000 square miles (about the size of Texas if you cut off the panhandle). This includes about 37 small villages, the majority of which are located off the Alaskan road system and are only accessible by plane, snow machine, or boat. My official title is Rural Energy Coordinator, which means I get to work on just about all things related to energy in Alaska’s Interior—energy efficiency projects, renewable energy projects, diesel efficiency in rural powerhouses—with the focus of reducing the cost of energy. In that role I do a whole range of things to help communities reduce their energy costs and become more sustainable, from grant preparation and reporting to trips out into the field to work hands-on with communities to conducting economic analyses around specific projects.

What drives you to do this work? 

Rural Alaska is one of the most underserved and inaccessible parts of the United States. Access to affordable, reliable energy is still something most communities are struggling to achieve, and to do this they need help from people who know the area, know the technology, and can offer some of the technical assistance that is missing. That’s where people like me come in, and that’s what motivates me to keep working with energy. There’s a huge amount of potential to make rural Alaska more economically viable, and there is strong leadership in rural communities that want to see this happen; oftentimes the leadership just needs help connecting all of the dots with regard to funding and project management to make everything happen. While in school, I studied natural resource management and business. I see energy work as an opportunity to bring the two together. By working with rural energy, we’re making communities more sustainable both economically and environmentally, and in doing so we’re increasing their chances of thriving.

How do you view the current energy challenges and opportunities?

The high cost of energy in Rural Alaska is a huge challenge, but it’s also a huge opportunity. Each year, rural communities that are struggling with economic development challenges also spend hundreds of thousands of dollars—sometimes millions—importing diesel fuel from major hubs throughout Alaska. That represents a large chunk of money that came into the community, and if we can figure out ways to keep that money local, it represents significant potential for economic development—for me, that’s a very exciting prospect. Some of the efficiency projects I’ve led are saving $30,000 to $50,000 a year in various communities’ school districts or Tribal Councils. That’s enough for a full-time staff member, and in the future I’m hopeful that those savings will lead to increased employment. Another key area is in updated building practices. I grew up in New Hampshire, where the standard for construction is 2x6 walls with R-21 insulation. Out in rural Alaska, the standard of building is still 2x6 walls with R-21 insulation. Guess what—it’s a LOT colder here, and energy prices are much higher. TCC along with our sister agency IRHA, have been working with entities like Cold Climate Housing Research Center to increase the standard of building practices. This means we’re making buildings more efficient, so a family, a tribal council, or a municipal government can spend less on fuel or wood and still be able to stay warm. It costs more up front but has huge benefits into the future. TCC’s new efficiency standards call for R-70 walls, R-100 ceilings, and R-50 floors. So things are changing.

What’s your vision for the future of energy in rural Alaska?

One of the jokes about Alaska is that we’re about 5 to10 years behind the Lower 48. I think that distance doubles once you go out to rural Alaska. These are areas that didn’t have electricity or working phones up until the ’70s or ’80s, so there’s a lot of catching up to do. We’re making good strides, but it takes time and a lot of coordination. I think technology is eventually going to help solve the challenges of efficient energy generation and efficient space heating in rural Alaska. We have multi-megawatt solar PV farms in the Lower 48, battery technology is advancing to make energy storage cheaper, and grid management is advancing to help all parts of a system be more connected. Net-zero buildings are also becoming more and more common in the Lower 48 and in Europe. Much of the technology for reducing energy consumption is there; it just needs to be implemented correctly. One of the missing pieces for some communities is a solid utility management structure for taking advantage of all of these innovations and figuring out how to implement them in the most remote areas of the United States. I believe that in the next 10 to 20 years our villages will be able to reduce their reliance on imported diesel by at least 25% if they can take advantage of more of these innovations.

What do you see as being necessary to drive meaningful change?

Easy access to information and better training and workforce development. You can’t manage what you can’t see, and in most of rural Alaska there is a disconnect between the people using energy and the people paying for energy. Sometimes that’s between a utility clerk and a power plant or water plant operator; sometimes it’s between a school maintenance worker and a school system bookkeeper. As better technology becomes available and allows us to see and track energy use more closely, we’ll need better training for maintenance and utility workers to learn how to operate and take full advantage of updated systems. Better training for power plant operators is also going to allow communities to take advantage of more diesel-renewable hybrid generation systems, and that will have a huge benefit in reducing diesel consumption in the years ahead.