Randy Manion: Good morning, everybody, we'll be starting here just shortly.
[Silence from 0:00:10 to 0:00:50]
Okay. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today on our webinar on "Powering Your Community with Tribal Energy." My name is Randy Manion; I'll be your webinar chair. I'm Western Area Power Administration's Renewable Resource Program Manager.
Let's go over some event details before we get started. Today's webinar is being recorded and will be made available on DOE's Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs website, along with copies of today's PowerPoint presentations in about one week. Everyone will receive a post-webinar e-mail with a link to the page where the slides and recording are located. Because we are recording this webinar all phones have been muted for this purpose. We will answer your written questions at the end of all of the presentations. However, you can submit a written question at any time by clicking on the question button located in the webinar control box on your screen and typing your question.
We'll try to keep the webinar to no more than two hours. This webinar is sponsored by two U.S. Department of Energy offices: Western Area Power Administration and the Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs. The Office of Indian Energy directs, fosters, coordinates, and implements energy planning education management and programs that assist tribes with energy development capacity building, energy infrastructure, energy costs, electrification of Indian lands and homes. To provide this assistance, the deployment program works within the Department of Energy across government agencies and with Indian tribes and organizations to help American Indian and Native American villages overcome the barriers to energy development.
The Office of Indian Energy deployment program is comprised of a three-pronged approach consisting of financial assistance, technical assistance, and education and capacity building. This tribal energy webinar series is just one example of our education and capacity building efforts. The webinar series is part of the Office of Indian Energy's efforts to support fiscally responsible energy business and economic decision making and information sharing among tribes. It is intended to provide attendees with information on tools and resources to develop and implement tribal energy plans, programs, and projects; highlight tribal energy case studies; and identify business strategies that tribes can use to expand their energy options and develop sustainable local economies.
Today's webinar, "Powering Your Community with Tribal Energy," will start with a general presentation focusing on community-scale energy project development, from project identifications through project operation and maintenance. This presentation will be followed by a couple of specific case studies that showcase the development of energy projects that help power tribal buildings.
We hope this webinar series is useful and welcome your feedback. Please let us know [audio drops out] if there are ways we can [audio drops out] speakers [audio drops out] any energy audits and minimizing energy use. Otto is a registered professional engineer and certified energy manager, a LEED accredited professional, and a project management professional. He and his family live in an off-grid, passive, solar house with a 2 kW PV hybrid power system and solar water heating system that he designed and build over 20 years ago.
Following Otto is Sara Drescher. Sara is the Forest County Potawatomi Community's in-house environmental and energy attorney, working out of the tribe's Milwaukee office. Ms. Drescher's energy-related work for the tribe includes a range of issues related to the tribe's green energy initiatives, including development of green energy, implementing green energy projects, and commenting on energy policy. Ms. Drescher is involved in the tribe's class 1 air program and all other matters related to the tribe's environmental and energy programs. Prior to joining the Forest County Potawatomi Community legal department, Ms. Drescher worked in the Milwaukee offices for two national law firms representing a variety of clients in the area of environmental and energy law. Ms. Drescher has a B.A. and J.D. from Marquette University and is working to complete her Ph.D. from the University of Madison Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.
And then, following Ms. Drescher we'll have a joint presentation from the Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians, with three speakers – or, two speakers: Steven Estrada and Deb DeForge. Mr. Estrada is the Environmental Manager for the Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians. He has been overseeing the tribe's environmental programs since 2014, including water quality protection and other environmental needs. Prior to that he was the Environmental Director for the Santa Rosa Band of Cahuilla Indians. Steven has a B.A. degree in political science from the University of California at Riverside. He is a member of the Santa Rosa Band of Cahuilla Indians and has served on the tribal council there for nine years. Mr. Estrada served two terms as a tribal secretary and is currently tribal chairman.
And then, Deb DeForge will be the co-presenter. She has worked with Soboba for over three years as a grant coordinator. Ms. DeForge works cooperatively with all departments to find and access additional funding for programs and services. She serves on the California Indian Education Oversight Committee for the California Department of Education, a position she has held since 2006. The California Indian Education Oversight Committee provides advice to the California Superintendent of Public Instruction on all matters related to Indian education in California. As a grant writer and program evaluator Ms. DeForge has successfully written grants in areas including family literacy, Head Start, Early Head Start, First 5, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Department of Justice, AmeriCorps, U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Department of Indian Education, AmeriCorps, FEMA, U.S. Department of Energy, to name a few. Ms. DeForge has a B.A. from the University of Redmond, a master's degree from Azusa Pacific, plus teaching administrative credentials. And she has taught everything from elementary school to resource, special education, middle school and high school English. And she has also written two grants, conducted program development evaluation, and conducted staff training for tribes and tribal programs all over the state.
So, with that we'll get started with Otto. Just give me a moment, Otto, to get your slide deck pulled up.
And Otto, the virtual floor is now yours.
Otto VanGeet: Great. So, good morning, everyone. This is Otto VanGeet. As Randy mentioned, I'm an engineer here at NREL, and I've been here for 26 years working on some of the things we'll talk about today. And the focus today is obviously on renewable energy development. Mine will be more of a general presentation, like Randy mentioned, then we'll have specific examples afterwards. So, go ahead and go to the next slide, Randy.
There we go. [Laughs] So, that's a picture of me over on the right. I happened to be at Zuni Pueblo looking at some renewables. But what I'm going to talk about today is – I'm assuming that you've gone through already and done the screening, you've figured out that a renewable project looks feasible, you've figured out how you're going to finance it, and I wanted to talk about details now about how to get it built and then eventually constructed and operated.
So, I'm going to break this into pre-construction activities. One of those that I'm not going to talk about much is the financial side, but that's a super important topic, obviously, how you're going to do the financing. But I'll talk about project kickoff, design and construction documents, those kinds of things. I'll talk about the contract phase. I'll spend most of my time actually talking about interconnection, how to do that. Then a construction phase, and then ultimately commissioning and O&M. So, those will be – that's an overview of what we'll talk about here in the next several slides. And with that, go ahead and go to the next slide, Randy.
So, some of the project considerations. Starting in the upper left-hand corner, first and foremost, economic feasibility. And with that, how big a project do you want to build? How many kilowatts, megawatts, kilowatt-hours, et cetera? It's all about: Do the economics work, and how are you going to make them work? So, that's always the starting point.
Going down below that box is some contract things. You may build this and own it yourself, or you might do a power purchase agreement. And again, I won't focus a lot on the procurement mechanism, but that and the policies that go with it are, again, most important. Going on the upper row to the right, what I'll spend most of the time, actually, is on the site electrical connection and system impact. What we do with your renewable system affects the system, the whole grid. I'll also talk briefly about compatibility with your mission and with your plans and tribal issues.
On the middle we'll talk a little bit about NEPA, whether it applies or not. NHPA is the National Historic Preservation Act. That probably won't apply, but does in some cases. FAA if you're near airports. All of these things come into play. Yeah, obviously, you want to make this a competitive supply of renewables for your system. We'll spend a little bit of time talking about existing site conditions, be it roof or ground mount of any renewable. That is very important. Utility coordination, how to coordinate with the utility and who it is. Construction considerations and requirements. And then, site access control and agreements that go with that. And I'll hopefully cover most of these things in the next several slides. So, with that, go ahead, Randy – next slide.
So, there's a bunch of really nice tools that you guys should all be using, and Google Earth is one of them. It's a super useful tool for defining available areas for PV. This happens – or, not just PV, for renewables. This happens to be a PV example. But – and then, this example, it's showing potential area for ground mounts, carports, and roof mount PV, as an example. It could just as easily be showing locations for wind turbines or whatever the particular project is. What is very important, especially for ground mounts, is what's your innerconnection point? How are you going to interconnect? Where? Those are all things you could show on Google Earth and get distances and all those kinds of things. And you might actually pull images like this. You'll eventually have to pull site images into your request for proposal, your RFP package. So, this is a great free tool that you should be using. So, with that, let's go to the next slide, Randy.
So, this is examples for PV, but it's not just limited to PV. I may have used this, actually, in previous tribal energy webinars, with some cool examples here. But I'll get to how it ties to all renewables. But some examples are: Directly on the left-hand side is a nice spot, Dangling Rope Marina. It happens to be an off-grid site in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. I've been there. Beautiful spot. Upper right is Arizona Public Service. The reason I like this is any of these technologies might show up in your tribal project. The long horizontal rows are what's called single access tracking. They run north-south. Over to the right-hand side of that same image is concentrating photovoltaics. Down in the bottom right is another version of tracking, but it happens to be single access but at a tilt. Down in the bottom right is a Colorado example, and it's single access tracking only – and a nice picture.
The real reason for this slide is in your planning you need to figure out how much land it's going to take to meet your needs. For – in the example of photovoltaics it's five to ten acres per megawatt of PV. And you also need to define: What is the site requirement? For PV we'd like to see ten percent slope or less. And what are you going to do with the land? It can be left as is or it can be graded. And again, these examples apply to all renewables; it just happens to be PV in this example. And then, maybe the most important bullet is the bottom one there. If you have geotechnical reports, it's really worth saving those – or, sharing those. What these reports do is talk about things like the soil-bearing capacity and what are the soil types. And whether you're putting in soil or wind or any other renewables, what the ground is that you're working on is very important.
I can point out that if you don't have that for the specific site, you may well have it for an adjoining building. All buildings, when they design the foundation, for example, you need to have a geotech report to be able to figure out how to design that. So, if you have it, it's nice to include it. With that, let's go to the next slide, Randy.
So, same kind of thing. And again, this is a PV example; it could just as easily be a solar hot water example. But what is the roof? And what is its condition? And how much can you put on the roof? In the case of PV, depending on the technology and several other things, it's somewhere 8 to 18 watts per square foot of available area. That's not total area; it's available area. The roof has to be able to have – carry a load of two to four pounds per square foot. The PV system has some weight to it, obviously. The images on the left and on the bottom are direct attachments to, it happens to be, a standing seam metal roof at NREL. And it's a great system because those roofs last 50 years.
If you have a roof like on the upper right image, that's what's called a ballast mounted PV, and it sits on the top of the roof. And that would be a little heavier because you have ballasts to hold it on the roof. In those roofs – that looks like a picture of a membrane roof. In fact, it is because I took the picture. If the roof has less than 25 years remaining life, it might not be a great candidate. And again, the same discussion holds true for other renewables like solar hot water. Don't put PV on roofs that are near the end of the life. Another just general comment is don't put wind on buildings. That's just a bad installation practice for a whole number of reasons that we can talk about. But again, putting it on the roof or if it's on a carport, those kind of considerations need to be taken into account. How big is it, and what's its condition, what's its load capacity? Next slide, Randy.
Uh oh. Oh no. Do you have it? Ah.
So, this slide is talking about – and I'm going to have several slides talking about this – but electrical considerations. You can not worry too much about the network distribution comment: That's a specific type of distribution system that's found in urban settings. But "Acceptable connection options and are they behind the meter?" – this makes a big difference where you're connecting to your utility system. If it's behind the meter, then you're offsetting the loads behind the meter. If it's in front of the meter, you're providing it to the utility, essentially. And you need to determine that.
The next thing is "Distance to planned interconnection," be it on the building or on the ground, and how are you going to get it to there? Then, once you figure out what you're doing, "Site electrical system impacts." Now, I'll have a few slides on this, but do you need to upgrade your site electrical system? What's going to happen – say it's a PV; I have lots of PV examples here – but what happens when the cloud passes if it's a large system on a – a large PV system on a small distribution network? The utility needs to be very involved in this discussion because there may be some system impacts. And then, there's other things like acceptable inverter locations, or controls, or if you're talking a bio-based power, where you're going to put the boiler building, for example. All these things need to be well-defined and considered when you're doing this. Next slide, Randy.
So, some more detail on that now is permitting and regulatory considerations. And the key one – I'm going to go through these because this is maybe the most important slide – interconnection for on-grid PV, or on-grid renewables, like we're talking about today. You need to communicate early and often with your utility. It's really one of the first things you have to do. Some utilities – let's say it's a local tribal utility – it's very easy; they're very friendly. There is opposite extremes where some utilities are close to hostile as far as interconnection. And if you can't get interconnected, that's a show stopper. So, you have to figure out your interconnection early in the process.
Then, there's some more details. As part of your interconnection can you net meter? Can you spin the meter backwards, if you wanted to say it that way? Some utilities, again, are great with that. Others don't allow net metering at all, and that's going to be part of hopefully what was looked at in the screening, but it also has to be verified with the utility that that's going to happen. There's a nice site that talks about things like interconnection and net metering called DSIRE, and it's desireusa.org. I have it listed there. And again, communicate with your utility on this. If you don't have net metering, then it makes no sense to ever put utility – put energy back on the grid.
Permitting: That's going to be very site-specific, but it's with the local permitting organization, likely tribal. You have to go through that process. If it is not on tribal lands, this is a much bigger deal. Then you have to go through state permits and county permits and other city permits and et cetera. So, permitting needs to be addressed.
And environmental, meaning things like NEPA. And I have another slide on this, but is there impacts to – what's the impact to the environment? I won't read all of those bullets. May not be necessary for some tribal projects. I'll talk about that on an upcoming slide here. But don't forget the environmental slide of it. And then, next slide, Randy.
So, utility coordination topics. Again, this is a lot of what I'll talk about. But the serving utility early in the process. Interconnection requirements, processes, and costs. There is often costs associated with this. So, you always start out with an interconnection application, and from the application – and there is a cost to that. It will determine based on size, what the study requirements are. If it's a small, say, PV installation on a big, sturdy utility, it's going to be minimal cost. If it's the opposite, it's much more.
Consider there is a time for the study to be done, so consider that in there. Again, costs. And then, you often have to get into a connection study queue. Once you get through all that, then you have an interconnection agreement. When you're talking to the utility there's incentives and applicable policies. Some utilities have incentives to do this. Again, net metering: We talked about that. And then, one that gets forgotten sometimes is some utilities will change your tariff based on if you have onsite generation. It could be a different tariff; it could be standby charges. Again, take those all into account in your project. Next slide, Randy.
So, an interconnection example here. This is showing a panel in a building, but it still applies to all interconnections, electrical interconnections. If it's a – say it's your house or building. You can potentially backfeed the breaker in a building panel. The larger the panel, the better. And there's some rules from the National Electric Code that talk about the sum of the source circuits. What's the main breaker? And what's the PV? In this example, it's shown in line one and two. And it can be 100 percent – 120 percent for commercial or 100 percent for residential. But you don't ever want to exceed the rating of the panel. If you are going to exceed it, maybe you can survey the loads and reduce the main breaker rating, shown as 100 in this case. If that doesn't work, maybe you upgrade the panel. If that doesn't work, you can do what's called a line-side tap, and that's the wire coming into the building or to the panel. And if that doesn't work, you may end up having to upgrade the electrical service to the building, which is a huge cost impact if you have to do that. But again, think about you how you're going to interconnect and work with your utility and electricians on that. Next slide, Randy.
So, now switching gears to permitting and regulation, if you're outside of tribal boundaries, then all the state, local, et cetera policies do apply. If you locate it on tribal lands – yeah, outside the boundary, again, you need to take that into account. If you're inside tribal boundary, in general state and local land laws don't apply, but obviously you've got to follow all the tribal regulations and policies to get your project in place. That's enough on this slide. Let's go ahead and go to the next one.
So, this is NEPA – National Environmental Protection Act – [laughs] hadn't thought of that for a while – decision making process. It says if there's BIA funding or approval necessary to implement the action, if the answer is no, and if it's on tribal lands, then you clearly don't need NEPA. But if there is BIA funding, will it affect the environment? Again, no: Don't need NEPA. Yes… is the action exempt from NEPA for whatever reason? Is there some categorical exclusion, like it might be on a building, for example? If that's yes, then no NEPA. If that's no, then you do have to go through NEPA. And if you have to go through NEPA, you've got to take that time into account. It's often a year-long process to get NEPA approvals. So, that can be a key time constraint in your process. So, next slide, Randy.
So, now more specific to developing the project. Step one is develop the RFP and eventually issue it. And then, step two, evaluate the bids. And you'll want to come up with a scoring criteria, how you're going to do that. And then, eventually make a selection. And then, negotiate. Some potential projects, GSA – General Service Administration – could help with this. There's project developers. There's engineering, procurement, and construction contractors – EPCs. Those are the people designing and potentially building it. And there could be environmental contractors as needed if there's NEPA involved. So, we'll talk about each of these in the next several slides. Go ahead, Randy. Next slide.
So, your request for proposal, your RFP, is bringing together all these things that are shown around the perimeter of this. And I'm not going to read all of these to you, but the culmination of all those needs to be captured in this request for proposal. What are you asking for? Where's it going to be? Where's it going to interconnect? All the things we've been talking about. And I'll give you some help with this on the next couple of slides and documents that hopefully make this RFP process easier. But take all these things into account that we've talked about. And we'll go to the next slide, Randy.
So, there is tech specs that provide references for what you want, and I'll give you one example for photovoltaics in the following slide. But the idea of a tech spec is you want to capture what you want, what's allowable. Every time you do a procurement you learn things. You don't want to make mistakes that others have made so you hopefully make it better and at the end of the day make for a better project. That's why you might have a tech spec going along with your RFP. Next slide, Randy.
So, in the case of photovoltaics, one of my coworkers, Kosol, helped develop this nice RFP template for roof, ground, and carport utility-interactive PV. I've got the link on it here at the top of the slide, and that's – the image is just the picture from the cover of that. But this is a great document. If you're doing an RFP for PV, you should be referencing this template. It will make your life much easier. I don't know if there's similar RFPs for wind and such, but anyway, developing the RFP is the key step. And we'll go to the next slide, Randy.
This is an example of a technical specification for PV, again. There'd be similar things for wind, et cetera. And this is a template developed by another federal agency called the Federal Energy Management Program, or FEMP, and it has a lot of technical details that you could include with your PV procurements. It's available online; you can just search for this. So, I just wanted to point this out. At the end of this presentation I'll have a bunch of references to consider and this would be one of them, but it would be a key one if you're doing photovoltaics. Next slide.
And once you've completed all that, don't forget that once the system is built, constructed, commissioned, you need to think about how you're going to keep this operating and what's the maintenance required. If it's a third-party ownership system, like a PPA, then this is minimal for the tribal organization, but it's not zero. It still does interconnect to your, for example, distribution system. If you own it, then this is key because you spent a lot of money putting this in; you want it to run for a good long time. And there's several tasks, and I'll give you some references for this also. But it's the actual O&M agreement – you might have that with a third-party vendor. Warranties. Hopefully, the system comes with warranties of, say, a year or five or whatever. You'll want to monitor the system performance. Is it meeting energy expectations? If there were any production guarantees – sometimes there are, sometimes there aren't, but you want to make sure those are being met. And you might have some buyout options too. Sometimes, if it's third-party-financed, after the tax credits, if they can figure out how to capture those, are captured, say five or six years, it might makes sense for the tribe to buy it out at that point.
So, those are all things to consider. And basically, you're – I won't read all these bullets, but you're looking for long-term performance in meeting or exceeding your energy and financial performance goals. So, don't forget about the O&M phase. And with that, let's go to the next slide, Randy.
So, there's – in the case of photovoltaics, again, there's – one of my coworkers and team has developed this very nice photovoltaic system O&M guide. It's the second edition shown on the cover. They'll actually issue a third edition here in the next month or so. But it talks about all these things: the O&M related to PV systems. The next phase that's coming out in a month will also include battery systems, if its battery systems are included with the PV. And again, it talks about all those bullets that are in there – that's straight from the table of contents in there. So, we realize this available, again, for free to help you plan your O&M activities. Next slide.
Okay. So, we're down to resources. I am not going to read you all of these. You see a lot of them from FEMP. There's several NREL ones here, and some of the ones I talked about. These are all from the website. And then, next and I think last slide – near last slide, Randy.
There's also this same – FEMP has a lot of free training on renewable energy, and I listed a bunch of them here that relate to onsite energy production, including all kinds of different renewables. You can see partway down there there's a biomass and geothermal and hydro and integration and PV and solar thermal and et cetera, et cetera, all for free. I encourage you if you're developing a project to take advantage of some of these. And next slide, Randy.
And I'd like to end on this slide. First, there's my contact info. Feel free to call or e-mail. And the reason I like this slide – this is the campus where Sean and I work here in Golden. But you see a lot of PV here all integrated into our grid. Pretty much every roof of every building is covered in PV, and then up in the upper right there's a large ground-mount, three-quarters of a megawatt, all of which feed our local grid, and all of which are analogous to what should be or hopefully you are doing at your different tribal locations. And with that, I'll be done. And I think we're going to handle questions at the end of the presentation. So, thank you, everyone, and I'll talk to you at the question session. And thanks, Randy.
Randy Manion: Thank you, Otto. Excellent presentation. Sara, just give me a moment to get your slide deck pulled up.
Sara Drescher: Absolutely.
Randy Manion: Okay. It's all yours.
Sara Drescher: All right, thank you. So, first of all, hello to everybody. Thank you to everybody for having me and for taking your time today to listen to some presentations about what I think is a very important topic. Next slide.
The first two slides are just going to be a bit of introduction about who the Forest Potawatomi Community is, what their goals are, and what it is that they hold dear in terms of their environmental ethic and their goals with respect to clean energy production. Next slide.
So, the Potawatomi are part of a confederacy with several other tribes, Midwestern tribes, and the Potawatomi were designated as the "Keeper of the Fire." And that has kind of been used as an undercurrent for several of the efforts that the tribe has made in their energy efforts. The tribe, like many tribes, lost lots of their lands through a number of treaties in the early years and – next slide – and it took quite some time for them to find a place to call home. So, they were initially removed to the West and then quickly returned to the Great Lakes area and developed a reservation in Forest County of Wisconsin. Next slide
And this is a map depicting the tribe's major land holdings. You see up on the top of the Wisconsin map an area where the reservation is, and then several areas along the Great Lakes, along Lake Michigan, is Milwaukee, and that's where the tribe's casino and a lot of trust property is in that area. Next slide.
The Potawatomi have a strong tradition of protecting and preserving the environment. And based on that tradition, and part of the reason for a continued effort, is that elders continue to explain to tribal employees and tribal members that things are simply out of balance. And so, the tribe's energy efforts are in large part focused on trying to create more balance for the tribe and for the region as a whole. Next slide.
The tribe has a long history of opposing those projects in the area that might present environmental challenges, with the Crandon Mine Opposition, which started in the 1970s, resulting in a buyout of the area in the early 2000s; Class I Air Re-designation; and Treatment as State for Clean Water, which we are almost finalizing. Next slide.
So, the work for clean air and clean water has resulted in the tribe's participation in a lot of regional and national efforts. Project Greenfire is a tribal energy initiative, and the tribe has participated in climate change panels through both the state and regional initiatives. The tribe has adopted an official mission statement and has completed a comprehensive energy audit. In addition, the tribe purchases renewable energy credits for every kilowatt hour of energy that it uses that it – and does not produce through green sources. The tribe has a four-day work week to try to curb vehicle emissions, and is on the top ten list of the EPA for local government green energy use, which is essentially part of the EPA's Green Power Partnership. Next slide.
Project Greenfire was the tribe's effort to put a name to its energy efforts. So, through that, through the project itself the tribe established a goal of energy independence, energy sovereignty using only renewable resources. And this goal is important to the tribe: It gets them away from using coal, natural gas, and other nonrenewable resources that have a tendency to pollute the environment and towards the use of energy that it not only controls but also doesn't pollute the area in which it lives.
As part of Project Greenfire the environmental mission statement was adopted and the tribe completed a comprehensive energy audit. Through that audit it was able to establish a baseline of all of its energy use. Anytime a new facility goes online we track that as well. And it identified immediate improvements that it could make through the low-hanging fruit, or energy efficiency methods such as changing lightbulbs and having better insulated buildings. And then, it continues to do that with all of its buildings and with its new construction. And then, again, as mentioned previously, RECs are purchased to offset any additional use. Next slide.
In addition to Greenfire, the FCPC Executive Council has passed a number of motions specifically directed at encouraging green energy use and at encouraging the tribe to collectively and consistently consider what its energy goals are. So, for each new project we perform preliminary due diligence for all new construction, and that includes anything that the tribe might be building. So, for example, right now I'm looking out my window and we are constructing a parking structure, and on the roof of that parking structure there will be a solar canopy. We do have a motion in place that requires that all new construction include consideration of green energy efforts.
In addition, we consistently review all new funding and grant opportunities. So, we have the electronic alerts set up to notify us when there are new opportunities, and we try to make sure to find projects that are readily available for those opportunities when they come up. So, we don't wait for the grant opportunities to present themselves before we decide to develop a project, but we try to have projects ready so that when those grant opportunities present themselves we can have a project ready to go and submit an application for that grant.
The tribe also maintains a database for tracking all of its energy use. That database is compared on a monthly basis and then quarterly reports are created. This gives the tribe the opportunity to ensure that it's not only being consistent with its energy use, but if there were to be some sort of spike or inconsistency, we're immediately notified of it. And in addition, the tribe is a founding member of the Midwest Tribal Energy Resources Association. Next slide.
Currently, we're in the process of creating a utility study. That study will be completed, I think, in a couple of weeks. The tribal utility formation study was one of the things that we thought was important given how much we do in terms of the development of energy generation projects. And I can talk a little bit more about that later, but I think for now I'll just kind of focus on some of these other steps that the tribe has taken.
The tribe is also in the process of doing a microgrid feasibility study and an urban biomass feasibility study. The tribe has a LEED directive aimed at encouraging – and requiring, in fact – that all new construction be designed and built to LEED standards. And then, all new construction, as I've already mentioned, has to consider solar and green energy. Next slide.
So, now I'll talk a little bit about the tribe's projects. The tribe has several projects underway and has completed several projects. Its first project was the installation of solar energy through a Department of Energy community renewable energy deployment grant, and that was on an administrative building in the Milwaukee Valley. The project itself was rather small but it gave the tribe the ability to feel out the process and to get through some of the pitfalls with a smaller project prior to moving into larger scale projects. In 2014 the tribe completed a biodigester in the Milwaukee Valley. The biodigester, which I will talk about again later, is a project that creates energy from liquid, pumpable food waste. Next slide.
And currently – well, actually, I forgot one. We did a community scale solar project – finished that project in 2015 with approximately one megawatt of installed solar energy. That was on a number of government buildings in the Forest County area. And then, currently we are in the process of a deployment grant, again from the Department of Energy, in which we will commence work within the next couple of months. We're trying to identify the appropriate buildings, but this again will be approximately one megawatt of solar energy installed in government buildings. Next slide.
The tribe's first project, completed in 2011 – again, I mentioned that this was one of the smaller arrays – it's only a 35 kilowatt project. But I would like to encourage that even if you can't find the large projects right off the bat, those smaller projects give you an opportunity to feel out the process and to understand how it is that interconnections work, how it is that different agreements between various parties work, and how the installation process itself works. This project was important for the tribe because it was on its administration buildings, so it was kind of a showpiece for the tribe for its government facility in the Milwaukee area. And even a 35 kilowatt project has the potential to significantly impact the environment. This one specifically is estimated to reduce CO2 emissions by 41 tons annually. Next slide.
And as mentioned previously, this was a community renewable energy grant from the Department of Energy, and we partnered with the Department of Energy and WE Energies and Wisconsin Focus on Energy in order to find the funding to complete the project at no cost to the tribe. Next slide.
The Milwaukee biodigester and biogas facility was constructed in 2013 and '14 and completed in 2015. And the biogas facility can be seen at the lower end of this picture. That's a rendering of it. It's the two silos with the green tops on them. Next slide.
And that facility is a two megawatt facility. Again, it operates on liquid, pumpable food waste. And profits or revenue are generated both from a combination of tipping fees from the food waste itself – that meaning people pay us to take their waste – and we sell the electricity through a WE Energies tariff to the local utility. Next slide.
And this again is just a picture of the facility. Next slide.
Those two bigger silos are the tanks where the bugs actually eat the liquid, pumpable food waste and create the gas. It's a – the gas then feeds into two engines which create the electricity to sell to the utility.
Now, these projects are difficult sometimes to conceptualize because oftentimes you're thinking about how to finance them, how to get them moving forward. And these are just several ways in which financing may occur. There are tax credits or incentives. The 1603 is a cash payment of 30 percent of the cost for eligible projects. So, that's one option that the FCPC has used. Again, community renewable energy deployment grants from the Department of Energy. Focus on Energy is a state program which also provides funding to tribes. And self-funding: We do make efforts to take all savings off of our energy creation and reinvest that into future projects.
And then, some other things that I don't have listed that I think are really important for tribes to consider are all of the steps that you can take to get free help. And NREL and the Department of Energy are incredibly helpful in providing tribes with free assistance, and that assistance can take many forms, from resource assessments to the START program to strategic energy plans. So, if you've done some of the baseline work and you now want to go to NREL for a strategic energy plan, they'll help you develop that. The DOE and NREL also offer training programs and they – and I would suggest that you utilize their website to save yourself some work and find resources. For example, several tribes have been very graciously given several grants – FCPC included. And I'm not sure how many tribes do this or know this, but all of those grants and all of those applications are somewhere on that website. So, one of the things that I always suggest to tribes that are kind of starting out in this is to consider looking at some of those grant applications and utilizing those formulas, those successful formulas, rather than reinventing an application on your own. Potentially not a popular suggestion, but I think it's important to use the resources that are readily available.
The other thing that I think is important is to consider regional groups, and I know that there are several regional groups being developed. The Alaska natives have done a terrific job of developing regional groups. The Midwest Tribal Energy Resources Association is underway and is being funded through a grant. And these regional groups are really great sources of information and support for individual tribes. And while some of them are still in development stages, it might be worthwhile for individual tribes to connect with these groups and be founding members to kind of craft the way in which these groups can and will be helpful to you in the future. Next slide.
This was a 2015 solar project and these are just several pictures. Again, this was a nearly one megawatt project. Next slide.
The tribe was able to install solar on several of its buildings, and the cost to the tribe out of the grant, after the grant, was approximately $400,000.00 for approximately $2 million worth of solar. And the tribe created a partnership with a solar installation company, and that company was able to invest what it would receive from tax credits. So, the solar company receives the benefit of the annual tax depreciation; it receives the tax credit. And then, at the end of this, the tribe will own all of those panels and the associated benefits of the green energy production. Next slide.
So, with this project the tribe was able to install solar on 15 tribally owned buildings, and the buildings were chosen based on a number of factors. One thing that is important is that you don't necessarily choose the buildings first without consideration of whether or not solar will work on that building, whether it's appropriately – whether you can put the appropriately sized installation in to give yourself benefits, whether or not there are roof warranties or insurance issues that may present themselves. So, it took a little bit of time to determine exactly what the right mix of buildings would be. From our experience, DOE is very easy to work with in terms of reworking those factors. If you find that one building won't work, they will work with you to find the one that does and help you change your statement of project objectives accordingly.
And through the project the offset is between 20 percent to 97 percent at each individual location. And the annual savings, what we're finding, is actually over $100,000.00 a year in deferred costs. Next slide.
Other projects that we're currently working on are small scale biomass deployments. We've investigated this with assistance from NREL and the Office of Indian Energy. Small scale biomass in Forest County – and again, you have to consider whether or not the technology makes sense for your given location, but in Forest County it's a highly timbered area. So, even using solely waste product, waste biomass, we can develop small scale biomass facilities for individual project locations, which cuts down on certain costs associated with running lines to a number of different facilities. But the economics themselves have to be considered for each individual project.
In addition, we're working to create a method for compressed gas at the biogas facility, the biodigester facility in Milwaukee. In certain occasions we find that we're overproducing gas and we have to flare that gas, and so rather than flaring that gas we look to efficiencies and how it is we can change the process to utilize all components. We're also looking at geothermal for all of our new construction, and we're currently doing a Department of Energy housing efficiency project. Prior to this project we had done solely government buildings, and with this project we're branching out and doing all of the residential structures throughout the reservation, and we are doing energy efficiency updates and integrating those updates with – potentially – with solar installations. Next slide.
When it comes to tribal energy I think there are a number of things that all of us have to be very careful to consider, and primary among those is the tribe's goals and the tribal members' goals. One thing that you'll find is that not all tribal members have the same objectives as executive council. And the ideas to install green energy can be terrific, but without the outreach to tribal members you may end up creating problems. So, with our 2015 project one of the mistakes that we made by not communicating sufficiently with tribal members. And while we had our forestry department taking down some trees several tribal members were in executive council chambers that it was counterproductive to take down trees to install solar. So, one of the most important considerations is to encourage outreach to the tribal members and to ensure that tribal members have the same goals or understand the goals prior to implementing any project.
Structural integrity. Not all building is going to be useful for solar. Roof warranties have a way of being voided with the installation of solar, certain insurance policies don't like solar installations, whether or not the buildings are older and not built to a standard that can hold the load of solar – all of these different considerations need to be included in your analysis when you're considering whether or not to install these projects.
Green energy sources. Not every source of green energy is going to be useful at every reservation. On the Forest County reservation there is no wind shear. So, we have done several different studies, feasibility studies, and have found that the installation of windmills simply is not feasible. So, then we have to look at alternate types of energy sources, and that has taken us to biomass, solar. And from there you can also think about smaller scale. You don't necessarily have to think of large scale installations. Solar pre-heats is one option: geothermal. Heat pumps. And there are many other types of installations that will give you energy efficiency without necessarily having the need for a large scale installation.
Timing is an issue. One of the things that I caution tribes to think through is "What does your timing look in terms of where you are physically located, what the seasons do, and how those things all work together?" In Wisconsin, especially in Northern Wisconsin, we get a lot of snow, and so trying to install solar panels in the middle of winter isn't going to work. So, if we get a grant and that grant starts at the end of September, we have to develop an RFP and work through the winter on planning stages as opposed to using those months for the actual installation. So, one of the things that we try to do is be realistic about our timelines and incorporate enough time so that we can do these projects in a way that encourages timely construction.
Partners. It's never a bad thing to have partners. One of the things, though, is that you want to make sure that that partner is going to give the tribe, give you the opportunity to fully own that installation, that solar or biomass facility or whatever it might be at the end of a tax recapture period or after the tax incentives or whatever system mechanism you're using for financing. Once the investor has recouped their investment, you want to be sure that there's a mechanism in place for that ownership to transfer to the tribe itself.
And I think most importantly it's important to remember that energy is not one size fits all. So, all of the things that might work for Forest County Potawatomi Community might not work for another tribe. And each tribe has a unique situation, a unique reservation, and a unique opportunity to develop energy in a way that works for that tribe's needs, for that tribe's regional area, and for its goals. I am sure that all of us have heard this statistic, but nearly – in the United States – the United States holds nearly 100 million acres of trust property for tribes. And on that trust property, while that land only accounts for five percent of the land in the United States, it has over ten percent of the energy resources. So, in some ways tribes have very good opportunities to develop their renewable energy portfolios. The opportunity lies in identifying what the best methods, means are to create those projects. Next slide.
And my contact information is listed here. I am happy to talk to anybody at any time. And I thank you very much.
Randy Manion: Thank you, Sara. Excellent presentation. Deb and Steven, give me a moment to pull your slide deck up. Okay, it's all yours.
Steven Estrada: Hi. Good morning, everyone. And thank you for asking us to – or, allowing us to present to you. My name is Steven Estrada. I'm the Environmental Manager for the Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians. We're located in Southern California, approximately 60 miles southeast of L.A., so kind of halfway between L.A. and Palm Springs. Next slide.
Okay. So, Soboba was established by executive order in 1883. It's one of, I think, eight bands of the Luiseño nation scattered throughout Southern California. We're located in the foothills of San Jacinto. Next slide.
Deb DeForge: And we're actually located in Riverside County.
Steven Estrada: Currently, the tribe consists of approximately 1320 tribal members. They're not all here on the reservation. There's probably about 800 residents, including both tribal members and non-tribal members. It's a mix of both Cahuilla and Luiseño ancestry – so, both tribes are located here. And currently, there's about almost 8000 acres of land. Recently – I think it was in 2015 – approximately 500 acres was added to the trust, down by the golf course area of the tribe. Next slide.
Deb DeForge: Next slide, Randy.
Steven Estrada: So, Soboba consists of multiple departments under the administration. We have regular tribal admin, which consists of front desk reception, accounting, executive administration. Parks and recreation: There's a sports complex, multiple sports fields – I think about four softball fields, and two baseball fields, and a football field.
Deb DeForge: Gym and pool?
Steven Estrada: Yeah, including the gym and pool. Public works, which consists of a large public works building along with a fire station. Also, enterprises such as the casino and the country club. There's also two schools located on the reservation: There's Noli Indian School, which serves all the reservations in Southern California, along with native children who reside off the reservation – so, they could be out of state and still go to Noli.
Deb DeForge: And our Noli Indian School is Bureau of Indian Education funded, currently serving grades 6 to 12 and about 150 kids. And currently, we're serving kids from about 22 different reservations in Southern California. And it's a day school, so they are bused to and from every day. And Soboba Preschool, we also have kindergarten there. So, we have about 85 kids in kindergarten and preschool that attend there, and those are mostly Soboba tribal members. Next slide, Randy.
Steven Estrada: So, back in 2011 the tribal council made the decision to go into a master plan and sustainability study. So, they contacted – or, issued an RFP for a company to come out and do a master planning report that would include land planning and development, flooding, schools, and then they also specifically looked at renewable energies that are available on the reservation. Things that were considered were wastewater treatment, because the population is so large and we are all on septic systems still, so we're kind of reaching capacity. And then, solar energy was a main priority of the tribe at the time. Next slide.
So, the tribe chose Optimum Group to conduct the study. They did some pre-development work, and a feasibility study was conducted and finalized and determined that the average for two years was about 15 megawatt hours. So, the need for a renewable energy was greatly needed. And it was kind of – the reservation was broken up into different planning areas – so, A, B, and D, A being the –
Deb DeForge: Admin.
Steven Estrada: – admin, which included the sports complex, government buildings, public works, fire station. And then, B was the country club area, which includes the golf course, the service buildings they have there, and the country club itself. And then, planning area D was the casino.
Deb DeForge: Next slide.
Steven Estrada: So, part of the work that the Optimum Group conducted was the feasibility study, all the necessary reports that were needed. So, that included some of the geotechnical studies, soil analysis, site evaluation, –
Deb DeForge: Mapping.
Steven Estrada: – mapping, reaching out to Southern California Edison. And then, I don't think it was touched on much, but NEPA compliance was brought up. And although the grant didn't require a NEPA analysis, the tribe chose to do a NEPA analysis anyway. Next slide.
Deb DeForge: And what we found with the NEPA analysis is even if it wasn't required, and you've seen some slides today that indicate part of that choice of whether or not you need to do that, we found that it was easier to go ahead and make sure that we were on top of it and we were meeting all the requirements just in case we ran into anything in the future that would present a challenge to it. So, it – in our case it was easier just to go ahead and do it and have it as part of the program.
Steven Estrada: So, after the studies were completed a grant opportunity came up through the DOE for a million dollars, and the tribe decided to go after that grant to help out with the first initial solar phase, which was planning area A that included the government buildings and sports complex areas. About a year later, the tribe went after an additional grant in the amount of $500,000.00, and that was for phase two, planning area B.
Deb DeForge: And the difference between the two is the first one was the tribal administration, and then the second one was community facilities, so it didn't qualify for as much funding.
Steven Estrada: And then, Sara had touched on something earlier when she was talking about tribal member participation. The tribal council didn't just decide to go in this direction on their own: There was multiple discussions with the general membership. So, the entire tribe collectively made the decision to move in that direction and allocated $5 million for the purpose of solar projects on the reservation. Next slide.
So, initially the tribe had reached out to I believe it was Atter Wayne for legal counsel specifically for solar projects, and the tribe had considered doing the solar tax rebates and looking into partnering with outside investors. And that proved to be really difficult because when the grant fundings were used there was still the equipment that belonged to the DOE technically, so the investors were a little hesitant to put money into the project if they couldn't take –
Deb DeForge: Ownership.
Steven Estrada: – ownership of the property. So, in the long run the tribe decided that they would not be utilizing the tax incentives to lure outside investment. Next slide.
Deb DeForge: So, both of these phases – and we're still considering phase one and phase two – both of them are expected to save $6.2 million each over the life of the system, and then also generate a 14 percent rate of return; providing economic opportunities because there's the maintenance, the ongoing maintenance; providing sustainable energy; providing tribal control of the resources, which is really big for our tribal members; and then training opportunities and jobs for tribal members and staff, because we're training some of our tribal members then to take over some of the maintenance and operation duties that go along with these solar programs. Next slide.
Steven Estrada: So, this map is kind of the overshot of the planning area A, those clustered around the bottom left-hand screen. Those are mostly the government and community buildings. And then, up towards the top right, that's an extension of what we consider the sports complex. So, that's where all the sports fields are. And then, towards the left middle, it says "Public Works," but that is actually the site of the casino – so, that's planning area D. So, all the other meters – old preschool, tribal hall, was connected to the first solar phase through virtual net metering. Next slide.
And this is a little north from that previous slide. This shows the golf course, which is planning area B. Next slide.
Deb DeForge: Again, we went with the virtual net energy metering to allow us to put all those meters – because we have so many separate – about 14 meters separately that we wanted to wrap into that first solar phase. So, we had to do a power purchase agreement with Edison in order to do – make sure that we were allowed to do the virtual net energy meeting – metering, I'm sorry. And with any of your utility companies, one of the things that we've found is that it's probably the biggest roadblock that we had, whether it was net metering, whether it was solar connection, whether it was the permission to operate. We understand that we're, I guess, in a sense taking money out of their pocket by controlling our own destiny and our own sustainability and our own green energy. So, anytime that you're working with setting up something that's going to take money out of your utility company's pocket, understand that you're up against a very large block wall. And we also ended up having to bring legislators, having our tribal council contact legislators to bring some other power into it and kind of encourage the utility company then to see things a little more realistically and proceed with that. Next slide.
Steven Estrada: So, more of the immediate needs for the reservation. We knew that they would have to be implemented for the government and community buildings as well as the country club. So, for now, the final planning area – that's planning area D which serves the casino – is being put on hold for the moment. Next slide.
Deb DeForge: And the reason for that, the casino one, is because we're currently constructing a new casino resort facility. So, we're having conversations about that in terms of what kind of sustainable energy would be best suited for that new facility. So, we're looking at the microgrids. We're looking at solar, obviously. We're looking at just a number of different scenarios. So, that's why we're not dealing with that one and we're – and we went ahead and did just the first and second solar phases for the golf course and country club, and then for the – we call it the admin, but it covers all of the tribal administrative buildings and schools.
Steven Estrada: So, the first RFP process started in 2015. And there was a couple of hiccups with that, but overall it went smooth. We received six proposals total, but I think we even got some interest from a company in India that wanted to bid on the project. And prices ranging from $2 million to $3 million for a one megawatt fixed solar rate facility.
And then, the second RFP process was completed in 2016. That was a lot smoother. We received more proposals on that one, and it was roughly the same price range. Next slide.
Deb DeForge: We went with a design builder. So, we had contract equipment specifications all set up, and then had our design builder with a contract just oversee everything for putting it in. Again, worked on the interconnection agreements and the net energy metering with Edison, who is our local power utility company. And worked – because we're reservation, obviously we had to do an easement for Edison to be able to access the location of the plants and where the meters are. Next slide.
Steven Estrada: And with Edison it was really difficult because initially we were in negotiations with one particular trainee, and then they ended up leaving, so they brought on another trainee who kind of wanted to start from scratch on easement language and other necessary items. So, it just prolonged that process.
Like we said earlier, the environmental wasn't needed, but it facilitated this process a lot faster.
Deb DeForge: And then, again, just going through – this is part of the grant process, is negotiating with the Department of Energy to make sure that we've got all these pieces in place as we move through getting that contract approved and getting ready to go to construction.
Steven Estrada: And our project officers, Jamie and Lizana, were really helpful, really easy to work with, so that whole process was really smooth. Next slide.
So, we already touched on the NEPA compliance. Again, we would recommend it if you are able to do so. Working with your local utility: Try to get that out of the way as soon as possible. And if you're having problems and pushback from them, ask your tribal leadership to get involved so they can really try to facilitate it faster. Like Deb said earlier, Edison was really dragging their feet. And they looked at the reservation as just one parcel, so they were saying we could only have one one megawatt facility on 7000 acres of land, when in reality the reservation is broken up into multiple parcels. So, the tribal council reached out to their contacts and were able to facilitate meetings with the California Public Utilities Commission so they could really get this process smoothed out. Next slide.
Deb DeForge: So, our first phase became operational for five months in 2016 and showed us a savings of almost 32 percent during those months alone. Next slide.
Then, we just are showing then that we completed our second phase, so now we have two megawatts. And we received our permission to operate in June of 2017, so we're running with that one as well. Next slide.
And here's a picture of dirt. This is as we were getting – just doing some little grading and land clearance on our first phase. Next slide.
Steven Estrada: This was the start of heavy grading for the first solar phase. Next slide.
Deb DeForge: As you see, the posts coming up and getting ready to install the panels. Next slide.
Phase one complete. Next slide.
And we have enough land where they – where phase one that we had already kind of in our minds set aside a second five-acre parcel right behind it to put the phase two. So, you're looking at phase one. Over on the left-hand side you see the sports complex and gym facility. And then, if you just keep going straight back from those panels, phase two goes right behind it. So, the two take up ten acres of land and are directly adjacent to each other. Next slide.
Just a couple more pictures of the construction to show you. Next slide.
There's where our meters are so that we can – you can actually monitor there, and then we have online capability where we can look online and see generating – and I think Sara mentioned, you get alarms and alerts if the production goes down so that we know to check if it's a panel that quit functioning, or maybe a cloudy day, or – which is really rare here in Southern California – or something else. Even when the panels get dirty and it's time to do that maintenance and clean them, it'll show an immediate generation of increased power generation. Next slide.
And there you can see both – you can see almost into the second phase as well. And then, again, on the left-hand side of the screen is where the sports complex and gym is. And then, directly behind that is where our BIE school is. Next slide.
A couple more. Next.
And Chris Deschene came, Lizana and Jamie both came for our grand opening –
Steven Estrada: The first one.
Deb DeForge: – and ribbon cutting for the first solar plant. And that's our tribal council members and some of our dignitaries that were there as well. Next slide.
And there's our contact information. And that's what we have. Thank you very much for allowing us to present.
Randy Manion: Thanks, Deb. Thanks, Steven. Excellent. We'll go into the Q&A portion of the webinar at this time with the time that we have remaining. Just give me a moment to see what questions are coming in. And again, you can type your questions and we'll get them through the webinar control screen.
So, we do have – I'm going to leave the contact information up there for a minute too. Let's see. We have a question here: "Can you elaborate further on the plans for the tribal members to do some of the O&M? What types of maintenance with tribal members? What do they do and how will they be trained?"
Steven Estrada: Yeah, some of the O&M – it's just really the cleaning off of the panels. It's really dusty around here so they get dirty pretty quickly. So, there's –
Deb DeForge: There's a machine that they have –
Steven Estrada: I don't know what they call it.
Deb DeForge: – and it's a – I mean, it's like a window washer almost, if you think about it. But it's a specific machine that we have to rent or contract from another location in California and they bring it down. But rather than them bringing it down and just doing everything, they're training so that we can have a couple of employees that know how to operate that machine and then can use it and do the cleaning on the panel when it's time to do that.
Randy Manion: Okay. Great. Sara, any O&M work by the tribe out at Potawatomi?
Sara Drescher: We do. And one of the things that I think is important – and this can either be through NREL or others – is training. The tribe has its internal maintenance department and has had trainings for several of those people to be able to do certain pieces of the maintenance themselves. In addition, we're trying to have enough staff on hand, and electrical engineers specifically, so that as we move forward with these projects we can cut costs by doing some of that work in-house.
Randy Manion: Okay, great. Thank you. Another question here. A question: "How are permitting requirements different for tribal trust lands versus tribally owned land?"
Sara Drescher: That might be jurisdiction-specific. Just as utilities in Wisconsin have different tariffs and requirements than utilities in, for example, California, the jurisdictional issues are more – are going to be more important in that instance than whether or not it's trust or fee land. At least with trust land there is not necessarily state or local permitting, but because there are interconnection agreements with the utilities, tribes still have to comply with a certain amount of requirements that are outside of the tribe's control. The exception to that would be if the tribe itself had its own utility and was wholly self-sufficient and then integrated with the larger grid through some separate agreement.
Randy Manion: Okay. Great. I'm looking for any additional questions here… And again, you can type your questions in through the webinar control screen and we'll get to those. Just give me a moment to see what else we have…
Well, it looks like this may be the extent of the questions. Let me just look in one other place here. I think that's it. So, I'm going to go to this slide that shows our upcoming webinar. "Fundamentals of Organized Energy Markets for Tribes," and then the remaining three webinars for the year. And Sara, Steven, Deb, and Otto, thank you so much for those excellent presentations. I really appreciate your participation. And again, to the audience, please send us your webinar ideas for 2018. We're starting that planning process and we look forward to having you all participate in the September 27th webinar.
And with that, this concludes today's webinar. Thank you.
Sara Drescher: Thank you.
Deb DeForge: Thank you.
[End of Audio]