Tanana Chiefs Conference – 2016 Project

NOTE: Project pages are being updated regularly to reflect changes, if any; however, some of the information may be dated.

Summary

Tanana Chiefs Conference (TCC) represents the 42 federally recognized tribes spread across the mostly roadless Interior Region of Alaska and manages self-governance, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), and health and social service programs for Interior communities. Through this project, TCC will expand and build on the solid foundation of work that the existing energy program has laid through the creation of the Interior Athabascan Energy Capacity Building Network (IAECBN). The IAECBN will be a network of village-based energy champions across the Interior Region and will establish quarterly teleconferences and annual in-person meetings. The greatest impacts of the IAECBN will be to develop a solid list of realistic, community-supported energy projects that have the backing of the tribes and will produce tangible results.

While TCC was not officially formed until 1962, the history of the organization dates back to 1915. Its mission statement is: “Tanana Chiefs Conference provides a unified voice in advancing sovereign tribal governments through the promotion of physical and mental wellness, education, socioeconomic development, and culture of the Interior Alaska Native people.” The organization represents 7% of the federally recognized tribes in the United States and derives its authority to act on behalf of and for the benefit of member tribes through a tribal self-governance compact. Each tribe elects an individual to represent their tribe at the annual meeting held in Fairbanks, the third week of each March.

The TCC Rural Energy department has one staff member with the responsibility and goal of reducing the cost of energy in an area nearly the size of Texas with fewer miles of road than Rhode Island. The large distances are further complicated by the small and sparse energy load. All but one of TCC’s Interior communities are electrified, with 100% imported diesel (there are small grid-tied solar photovoltaic (PV) systems in more than a dozen villages), and the average instantaneous load in all of TCC’s villages combined would barely reach 5 megawatts (MW) with a peak load of barely 10 MW. To complicate matters further, eight of the villages are fly-in-only for fuel and are serviced by DC6 aircraft, which stopped production in 1958. This project will allow TCC to hire an additional energy staff member who will work under the existing Rural Energy Coordinator to expand the current program reach and create the proposed IAECBN.

Since 2012, the TCC energy program has brought more than $2.2 million worth of grants and contract funds into the Interior to support energy projects; 95% of funds have gone directly to rural communities, resulting in projects with annual savings of $300,000. IAECBN has the capacity to grow the annual number of energy projects in the Interior exponentially under the leadership of a trained, experienced energy manager and network created under this project. 

The goal of the IAECBN is to provide an opportunity to develop human capacity within the tribes. The goals and objectives of this project are as follows:

1. Establish regular quarterly meetings for Interior Energy Champions and Stakeholders
   1. Create at least one subcommittee for rural utilities to assist with management and coordination
   2. Create one subcommittee for rural housing/building projects to establish efficiency standards
2. Create and provide a clearinghouse of information—to be located on the TCC website—on energy projects and develop or aggregate easily digestible user-friendly case studies on energy projects around the Interior.
3. Work with our partners to develop Community Energy Action Plans for each interested Interior community (minimum of eight over the next 5 years), outlining real and tangible steps a community can take to become more sustainable and to increase its level of energy security
4. Create at least four 10-minute informational videos on significant energy projects in the Interior
5. Build and develop human capacity within the region’s villages to further the implementation of projects related to energy efficiency, renewable energy, and utility management and coordination
   1. As a priority, work first with resources in the community to accomplish this effort (such as Indian General Assistance Program grants workers, utility clerks, and city managers) before seeking grants
   2. Make presentations to each tribal council involved in the IAECBN at a regularly scheduled council meeting—minimum 1 per year (42 presentations per year)
6. Develop specific and detailed Interior-Alaskan rural building codes and energy use intensity for new construction of public and residential buildings.

In establishing the IAECBN through this project, TCC’s expanded staff will increase its capacity to coordinate energy solutions among participating Indian Tribes. Project activities will build on each other from year to year, start slow, and grow over time as the capacity of the IAECBN specialist grows. Each year the IAECBN specialist will be responsible for organizing the IAECBN meetings and leading the subcommittees. He or she will also be responsible for highlighting TCC-tribal projects through the creation of informational films by the TCC communications videographer and case studies on rural energy projects and the creation of a clearinghouse of data on the TCC website.

Tanana Chiefs Conference region covers an area of 235,000 square miles in Interior Alaska’s Arctic and sub-Arctic regions, which is equal to about 37% of the entire state, and just slightly smaller than the state of Texas. The region comprises six subregions: Lower Yukon Subregion, Upper Kuskokwim Subregion, Upper Tanana Subregion, Yukon Flats Subregion, Yukon Koyukuk Subregion, and Yukon Tanana Subregion. Within the six subregions are 39 villages and 42 federally recognized tribes.

The project is complete. For additional details, see the final report and project status reports.

The project was competitively selected under the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Indian Energy’s Fiscal Year 2015 funding opportunity announcement “Establishment of an Inter-tribal Technical Assistance Energy Providers Network” (DE-FOA-0001453) and started in September 2016.