Tribal Power Snapshot: Hualapai Indian Tribe

On this tribal power snapshot, be taught extra in regards to the Hualapai Indian Tribe’s Constructing Resiliency into the Grand Canyon West Microgrid undertaking. The undertaking was co-funded by the U.S. Division of Power’s Workplace of Indian Power.

Undertaking Fast Details

As the house of the world-famous Grand Canyon Skywalk, Grand Canyon West (GCW) is the first financial engine that helps the Hualapai Indian Tribe, attracting greater than 1 million vacationers yearly. To enhance the resilience of the distant, “islanded” (non-interconnected) GCW electrical technology system, the Tribe put in a photo voltaic photovoltaic array and battery system to boost the system’s capacity to face up to short-term outages and rising power prices. The solar-plus-storage system is able to offering 50% of the annual power wanted at GCW to complement the present diesel mills and is anticipated to save lots of the Tribe greater than $450,000 per yr in power and upkeep prices.

Take a look on the undertaking by the numbers:

Complete power technology

The system is able to producing roughly 1,600 megawatt-hours per yr, sufficient electrical energy to provide 150 common American properties for one yr.

Financial savings to the Tribe

The associated fee financial savings for the Tribe is roughly $450,000 per yr, or $11 million over the 25-year lifetime of the system.

Insights from the Undertaking Group

Kevin Davidson, Planning Director with the Hualapai Indian Tribe. Picture: U.S. Division of Power’s Workplace of Indian Power.

Be taught from Kevin Davidson, Planning Director with the Hualapai Indian Tribe, on his expertise with the undertaking.

Why did the Tribe initially pursue this clear power undertaking? Was there a selected occasion or concern that sparked the necessity?

We first started working — and are nonetheless working — on an influence line to Grand Canyon West. However by 2019 the Tribal Utility Authority Board stated, “You recognize, that is taking fairly a bit to get this energy line accepted by the Bureau of Land Administration. Let’s deal with photo voltaic. The whole lot goes inexperienced.” We figured with a photo voltaic grant we might cut back our price to perhaps $0.20 a kilowatt from a present $0.40 with diesel.

What has been the most important “lesson realized” from the undertaking?

Integration of the battery system and the present generator units. Make certain your communications are appropriate up-front. Know your contractor and power supplier can really work collectively. You may plug in a photo voltaic array at your own home together with your incumbent energy supplier identical to that. Right here we’ve a system that’s making as a lot energy because the diesel mills, so the 2 should be in parity. How they’ll work collectively needs to be ironed out.

Workplace of Indian Power Director Wahleah Johns examines the newly put in battery power storage system at an Aug. 30 occasion at Grand Canyon West celebrating the Hualapai Tribe’s solar-plus-storage microgrid enchancment and a multi-million-dollar tribal water-rights settlement. Picture: U.S. Division of Power’s Workplace of Indian Power.

How will the Tribe profit from the undertaking when it’s totally operational?

The discount of gasoline prices and upkeep. We’re saving perhaps $1 million a yr on that alone. The photo voltaic with a 750-kilowatt-hour battery may help us minimize the load by 50% on the diesel mills and save a number of hundred thousand a yr in gasoline prices. The mills have been on-line since 2015, and we spend a number of hundred thousand {dollars} a yr in upkeep. And the photo voltaic arrays will flip them right into a backup generator.

Be taught Extra

Be taught extra about this undertaking, together with further background info, price, and standing on the undertaking abstract web page.

Discover extra tribal power initiatives by the tribal power initiatives database.

Article courtesy of Workplace of Indian Power Coverage and Applications.