Tribe planning for micro electric grids

by Scott Hunter

The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation (Colville Tribes) and Open Access Technology International, Inc. (OATI) announced a landmark collaboration last week to “advance tribal energy sovereignty and resilience through the design and deployment of multiple microgrids across the reservation.”

The Tribes’ 1.4 million acre reservation, which includes parts of two counties is served by five different electric utilities, and power outages are getting worse, said the Tribes’ Business Council chair, Jarred-Michael Erickson in an interview with The Star.

Micro-grids can isolate different areas, even buildings, from the rest of the electric grid during a power outage, said David Heim, OATI’s vice president and chief strategy officer.

“The program represents a significant step toward improving reliability, reducing outages, and providing long-term energy independence for the Colville Tribes, which is governed by four legislative districts: Omak, Nespelem, Keller, and Inchelium,” a press release on the program states. “The initiative is backed by federal and state grant awards and addresses vulnerabilities such as winter storm disruptions and wildfire risks.”

OATI provides expertise in designing the system, picking an appropriate new energy source — generator, solar, battery, or others — and software to handle the transitions in outages, both going into and coming out of “island mode.”

Erickson said the Inchelium area experiences an average of 5.7 days a year without power, and will be one of the Tribes’ first microgrid projects.

“There’s times where they’re a week without power, depending on the situation,” he said. “If there’s a fire that happens, a big wind event where there’s multiple down power lines, that takes a long time for Avista to get those back up and running.”

Other areas to develop microgrids include the Tribes’ government center in Nespelem, Keller, and Pascal Sherman Indian School near Omak.

Heim said the company expanded a microgrid in North Carolina, where it had protected a 33-home community from a hurricane outage. They realized it had the capacity to serve more homes and eventually expanded it more than 300.

Erickson said if it goes well and there’s interest, the tribal microgrids might also be able to expand into adjacent communities.