Energy Transitions Initiative Partnership Project: Fostering Community Engagement for Energy Planning in Sitka, Alaska (Text Version)

This is the text version of the video Energy Transitions Initiative Partnership Project: Fostering Community Engagement for Energy Planning in Sitka, Alaska.

The video highlights how the City and Borough of Sitka, Alaska is involving community members in the energy planning process of the Energy Transitions Initiative Partnership Project (ETIPP).

[Logo of U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Transitions Initiative. Text on screen: Fostering Community Engagement for Energy Planning in Sitka, Alaska]

>>Elizabeth Bagley, Sustainability Commission Member, City and Borough of Sitka, Alaska: In Sitka, more than any other place I've ever lived, water is truly life. We get our water for our power, and our water from Blue Lake is what we drink and use every single day, and water really runs the ways in which we live in Sitka. We're in an incredible place to be nearly 100% renewable. The downside is just that the community singularly has to support that infrastructure, and that can be kind of a heavy burden on the community.

>>Bri Gabel, Sustainability Coordinator, City and Borough of Sitka, Alaska: Goals for this ETIPP project are to really put together something that takes the best aspects of the technical assistance that we have, but also, tap into the incredible amount of knowledge that our community has, really create something that everybody can see themselves in, and shows what can be done when—when decisions are community driven and community led, really.

>>Molly Grear, Project Technical Lead, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory: So, the first process was really an internal-facing project, where the community wanted to figure out exactly what the possibilities were, and this second time is really focused more on what does the community want? Given that Sitka has actually a wealth of potential resources that they could generate electricity from, how does the community vision how much energy they need in their future and where that energy is going to come from?

I think ETIPP can help Sitka, like, clarify their own goals for how they want to manage their resources, so we can provide all of these numbers and data analysis that ultimately helps them say, "We want our energy system to look this way and work this way." And we can provide that technical background that says, "This is how much that's going to cost. This is how much energy that's going to use. This is what you need to do to be able to make that sort of vision a reality."

>>Haleigh Reed, Microgrid Project Manager, Renewable Energy Alaska Project: I'm really excited for this project to engage the community on another level. We are working on a survey to better understand the hopes and concerns, as well as working more on a face-to-face level for education activities and offering more opportunities for input.

>>Bri Gabel, Sustainability Coordinator, City and Borough of Sitka, Alaska: Instead of expecting people to come out to them, we've made a real effort to go into classrooms or go to other community events that are already happening or create spaces where people might just have some fun. We hosted a casual ginger build event, where we did energy-efficient gingerbread houses.

We also went to Sitka Sprouts, which is hosted by the local Sitka Sound Science Center, where we read a story book and learned about wind turbines and things that spin, make energy. And then we just had a great conversation with Pacific high-schoolers about what opportunities there are in renewable energy as a career.

>>Rob Jordan, Microgrid Coordinator, Renewable Energy Alaska Project: I think Sitka shares a lot in common with other communities in Alaska, where parents want to be able to provide a better place for their kids than they had. And one of the ways that we do that is by providing infrastructure, by providing jobs, and there are significant ties to providing infrastructure and jobs by having affordably priced, reliable energy.

>>Bri Gabel, Sustainability Coordinator, City and Borough of Sitka, Alaska: The involvement of kids here and the knowledge that they have is really surprising. They're very connected to where all this kind of stuff comes from, so it's exciting to see.

>>Elizabeth Bagley, Sustainability Commission Member, City and Borough of Sitka, Alaska: I want to make sure that anyone who wants to live in Sitka, regardless of socioeconomic status, can afford to live here. And I think that's something that diversifying our energy sources is really important to making Sitka an affordable, incredible, beautiful place to live.

[Logo of U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Transitions Initiative. Text on screen: Partnership Project Technical Assistance. Learn more about ETIPP at nrel.gov/state-local-tribal/etipp-technical-assistance.html]