Energy Transitions Initiative Partnership Project Webinar (Text Version)

This is the text version of the Energy Transitions Initiative Partnership Project (ETIPP) webinar held on April 11, 2023.

This webinar outlines the ETIPP program and provides community perspectives on the application and scoping process.

Agenda

>>Tessa Greco: OK. Thank you so much for joining, everyone. Welcome. This is our informational webinar for the Energy Transitions Initiative Partnership Project or ETIPP. We're so glad that you were able to take some time from your day to join us. A few housekeeping notes before we get started. This webinar is being recorded, so we ask that you remain muted with your camera off during the first portion to reduce bandwidth issues.

You're welcome to type questions in the chat and we'll answer them at the end of each segment. We're going to spend the end of this webinar in Q&A sessions with some of our existing community members in break-out rooms. So feel free to turn on your cameras at that time to interact with the regional partners and regional leads and speakers within those break-outs.

My name is Tessa Greco, and I am the program manager for ETIPP at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Our agenda today is pretty packed, but hopefully, not too much death by PowerPoint. There will be some great interactive sessions at the end. We're going to be spending the next hour together. So during the first half of the session, we'll offer some background information on ETIPP, the application process, scoping process. And then we'll follow all that up with Q&As with a couple of our existing community members who are currently part of our ETIPP cohort 2, and then we'll all join together and breakouts with our regional partners in a kind of regionally based way.

We're going to provide an overview of ETIPP, how the program works, the partner network, and offer a brief overview of some of the projects currently in the works. We'll explain the application process and after that, you'll hear from representatives from two of our current communities to learn more about the scoping process that communities undergo after they are selected for ETIPP.

The remainder of the webinar as stated is going to be spent in break-out rooms that correspond with your region and your community. So you'll have some time, about 25 minutes hopefully, to ask specific questions about the program, applications, and makeup, scoping, and any other information that you're curious about to understand if ETIPP is actually a good fit for your community.

What Is ETIPP?

And with that, let's go ahead and begin. So what exactly is ETIPP? So the Energy Transitions Initiative Partnership Project is a collaborative effort between the U.S. Department of Energy for participating national laboratories and our regional partner organizations. This team uses a community-driven approach, to provide direct technical assistance to remote and island communities in order to increase their energy resilience.

We support projects that focus on different types of energy transition technologies such as solar, wind, geothermal, water, as well as energy efficiency measures that communities can take to bolster resilience. And that's just to name a few.

Remote and Island Communities

Remote and island communities face very unique energy challenges because of their geographic isolation, which can contribute to issues with energy access, quality, affordability, and reliability. So each technical assistance helps address those challenges with community-driven solutions that can hopefully increase that long-term energy resilience.

The program is designed to work with communities for about 18 to 24 months. So it's a pretty longstanding commitment, and our first cohort of communities named in 2021 is just phasing out of the program now. So you can kind of envision how long that period of performance or implementation period is with the technical assistance.

What Is Technical Assistance?

So what exactly do we mean when we say that we offer technical assistance? It's a term that's used frequently and as related to ETIPP, it means that we offer analysis and expert guidance on things like which energy efficiency measures a community might consider to bolster resilience or lower cost in your communities, what it would look like to transition off of fossil fuels, and how to potentially accommodate growing energy demand with renewable sources in the mix among other generation sources.

So at the core of any technical assistance project is typically a question or a set of questions that experts at our national labs can answer using data-driven economic, environmental, or grid analysis, among others. So our current communities are working on projects that explore solutions such as developing microgrids for island communities, seeking paths to carbon-free commercial fishing, and improving renewable energy generation and storage to reduce reliance on diesel fuel, just to name a few.

And you can see in the graphic here the types of technologies and technical areas that are covered, and this was specific to our cohort one communities, but it's just a nice graphical representation for what could be with ETIPP TA.

[U.S. map highlighting Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, and North Carolina, with technical areas listed: buildings, microgrids, rates/tariffs, renewable energy potential, storage, transportation, hydropower.]

So it doesn't matter whether you're new to energy planning or already deep into an energy transition plan. ETIPP can help you wherever you are in that process, and that really gets at the community-driven component of it.

So we can help you figure out what questions you ultimately need to get answered to help advance your transition, or we can help you explore viable clean energy options or pursue energy technologies or efficiencies you've already identified for yourself maybe in a strategic energy planning effort that you've taken on prior.

So I just want to clarify, though, ETIPP is not a grant program. It does not distribute direct funding to communities or cover the purchase and installation of energy infrastructure. However, we can help your community identify funding and finance options to realize your plan once that technical assistance support is complete or during the implementation of the TA.

On this slide, we have a great quote from one of our cohort one communities in Eastport Maine about their experience with ETIPP. Which essentially says, "What could have been a pipe-dream we now know is achievable because of the research done by the national lab and the conversations facilitated through our regional partners." So it's just a great example of what can be done. A good validation.

ETIPP Partner Network

This is a great graphic representation of our partner network embedded within ETIPP. So each chip is supported by a really extensive network of organizations, federal organizations, national labs as I already described, and then our regional partners. This includes the four DOE national laboratories that I already described, including NREL, the Pacific Northwest National Lab, Sandia National Laboratories and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.

And then also includes sponsoring offices from DOE's, the Department of Energy's, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, or EERE, and our regional partners of which there are five with whom you're about to meet in those regional-specific breakouts.

[Regional partners listed: Coastal Studies Institute, Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, Island Institute, Renewable Energy Alaska Project, Spark Northwest]

Our regional partners are nonprofit or academic organizations across the U.S. that specialize in community engagement, training, and education around energy issues. And they are here to support communities interested in ETIPP throughout the application, selection, and project execution process. They also help raise awareness about ETIPP projects across each region and ensure that ETIPP is meeting each region's unique energy needs.

In addition to the regional partners here today, we're also working to secure a sixth regional partner to facilitate our geographical expansion to the Gulf Coast. We're in the process of finalizing that partnership so stay tuned for more information about that organization once available.

ETIPP Communities 2021 and 2022

In its first two cohorts, ETIPP has selected a total of 23 communities to receive technical assistance primarily in Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, Pacific Islands, and the East Coast. As noted, this year, we're expanding ETIPP's reach to cover states along the Gulf Coast through a pilot program to better serve communities in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. We are primed to select up to two communities included in the cohort three for ETIPP from this region.

And as you saw in our previous slide, communities are eligible for ETIPP if they are remote or island. Remote communities are isolated from a reliable electrical grid by geographical impediments or are isolated from large population centers. And as a result, have limited access to centralized energy systems. Island communities are also isolated from the mainland by waterways.

We encourage interested communities to apply to ETIPP if they experience energy resilience challenges. For example, if you experience frequent energy disruptions or threats to your energy infrastructure from natural hazards. If you have any questions about eligibility, that the breakout rooms at the end of this presentation will be a great venue to present those questions and get some clear answers.

ETIPP Application Process

All right. So the applications for the third cohort of communities opened up in February, February 21st to be exact. And they will remain open until May 19th at midnight Mountain Time. So before applying, we do ask that communities meet one-on-one with the regional partner designated for your region. You may get your questions answered today and we definitely encourage you to participate in the breakout rooms, ask any questions that are on top of mind.

But in addition, we would encourage, if you are still interested in applying to ETIPP, encourage you to set up a private meeting with your regional partner after this instance. Once you've done that, communities can submit applications either digitally through the form on NREL's website by email or by postal mail. In addition to the application, communities must have two stakeholders support forms submitted on their behalf, and your regional partners can share more information about what types of organizations would be appropriate to submit these support forms. But ultimately, they should be decision makers outside of the applying organization whose support is important for your project's success. And all of this information is available on the application page on NREL's website.

ETIPP Project Timeline

So here's a general look at the timeline for ETIPP projects. The scoping process alone takes about 3 to 6 months. It just depends on really where the community is in their energy planning process. And we will absolutely talk more about that in the next section. But you can see, we go through the application period, the selection period, and then it gets into scoping, which again is at that 3-to-6-month time frame.

And then the technical assistance itself, we note here 12 to 18 months—excuse me, 12 to 18 months. It can really be 12 to 24 months. Again, just depends on timing of the deliverables and the completion of the project, satisfaction of the community, and adherence to those deliverables and timelines. And it just takes a varied amount of time community to community. So we are absolutely flexible and accommodating those timing needs and working with you to really guide the process.

ETIPP Scoping Process

So what does the scoping process involve? You may be wondering how detailed of a plan your community needs to have when applying to ETIPP. It’s OK if you're new to the clean energy world. You don't have to know exactly which technologies are pathways you want to pursue. ETIPP can absolutely help you explore your options. What's important is that you have a firm understanding of the goals you'd like to achieve by the end of the effort or really, by the end of your energy planning lifetime for your community.

So all that being said, ETIPP is community-driven, which means that the community members, the applicants, are in the driver's seat and will play an active role in deciding which course you want to take. Our national lab experts are here to do the critical research to help you understand which options are best suited to your goals, but ultimately, you will be in the driver's seat and will have decision-making power.

This is why it's important to have other decision makers vested in your ETIPP participation upfront. Likely, they will impact how effectively you can execute your plan, especially if the success of that plan hinges on organizations outside of the applying organization being intimately involved in the implementation process. Refining goals is built into ETIPP and that's absolutely why we spend the first few months scoping the proposed project to make sure all parties agree and are ready to kick off.

After communities are selected for ETIPP, they spend about 2 to 6 months working with regional partners, regional leads, and the technical leads embedded within the labs to scope out their projects. Communities should expect to participate in regular meetings ranging from weekly to two times per month to discuss community priorities, finalize project proposals, and support technical assistance planning.

Participation in these meetings can take between 8 and 12 hours of your time, and will require some time outside of meetings to review scope and ensure that it aligns with your goals and expectations. After the scoping phase, communities will work with technical assistance providers to execute the project for 12 to 18 months. Applicants should consider whether their proposals are feasible within this time frame and regional partners can help you set goals that are realistic based on these time constraints.

Bainbridge Island, Washington

Next up, we have two members from our second cohort of ETIPP communities, which recently completed scoping, and are here to explain more about what that process is like. First, we have Autumn Salamack from Bainbridge Island, Washington, to share her community's recent experience with the scoping process. Autumn, are you here?

>>Autumn Salamack: I am.

>>Tessa Greco: All right. Please, take it away.

>>Autumn Salamack: OK. So Bainbridge Island is an island community of just about 25,000 people located across the water from Seattle. And we have a climate action plan that has some pretty aggressive greenhouse gas emission reduction and resiliency goals outlined in it that's been in place since November of 2020. And one of the key activities outlined in that plan is how we can move faster to get to 100% renewable energy, and how we can increase the resilience of our energy systems on the island. We are really a primarily electric island. We don't have any natural gas, we have some propane and fuel oil, but primarily electric for all of our heating and power needs.

So when we started working on this program, that was back in February of 2022, and we worked with our Resident Climate Change Advisory Committee to really develop the scope for our application that we submitted back in April of last year. And once we got accepted into the program, we started working with a pretty robust group of stakeholders to really try to engage anyone who was a major user of energy or had property for potential renewable energy generation on the island to help us start looking at the two key areas that we had included in our application.

So we said that from the start, we were looking at how this program could help us decarbonize our electricity supply on the island. And then secondly, how it could help us increase electric power resilience. And I will say that our scope going in was pretty big. We were like: We would like you to help us determine everything we could possibly do to see what it would take, what it would cost, what sort of staff and time resources we need, what is feasible to help get us to 100% renewable energy by 2040 for our island. And then how we could really increase our community's energy resilience by allowing for portions or the entirety of our community to be able to operate as an islanded grid during outages. That was a lot to ask of this program even in a year with a pretty good technical assistance.

So we really spent about 3 months working from late August through November of last year with representatives from our school district, our community preparedness nonprofit, our fire department, the parks and recreation foundation, a couple of different resident advisory committees that work on climate change and utility issues. We brought in our wastewater treatment plant folks and then we also brought in our Department of Transportation and state ferry folks because we also have a ferry on the island that is converting to electric hybrid ferries in the future.

So during the process of that scoping conversation over 3 months, I think we had three meetings all on Zoom with those stakeholders to really refine what our eventual scope would be and to really help people understand that this wasn't going to be a one-and-done product, but it was really the start of a conversation and an opportunity for us to get some really good technical assistance to help pave our path forward to understand what could we realistically do on our island to build a renewable energy infrastructure.

And then if additional time and funding, so to speak, within our technical assistance program would allow, then how could we also look at building resilience in there. So our final scope had two key activities. One is an analysis of pathways to 100% renewable energy where we will be identifying, modeling, and analyzing different pathways with a couple of different components.

And then the second pathway that we're looking at is energy resilience and natural hazards planning. And that's really looking at identifying and assessing vulnerabilities to critical energy infrastructure, evaluating alternative options for addressing those vulnerabilities, and then providing recommendations for increasing resilience.

So I think we've landed at a good spot. I think people understand that we may not be able to dive as deep into both of those topics as we would like to in another 2 or 3 years’ time, but this will be a really good process for us to go through to get everybody who's a stakeholder at the table either in terms of using energy, thinking about people who are going to be adding to electricity demand on our island as they transition their fleets. And maybe electrify buildings, and then thinking about resilience within our community to really help us understand where do we realistically have some good options, whether that's solar or wind-based energy or something else. And then how big of a lift is that going to be. So really starting this conversation. And I think that's it for now.

Mount Desert Island, Maine

>>Tessa Greco: Excellent. Thank you, Autumn. I really appreciate your joining and talking about your scoping experience. Next, we're going to hear from Johannah Blackman, Executive Director of A Climate To Thrive on Mount Desert Island, Maine. Johannah, hey, how are you?

>>Johannah Blackman: Hi, I'm good. Thank you so much, Tessa. It's a pleasure to be here with everybody today. This has been a really incredible opportunity for Mount Desert Island and happy to speak a bit about it.

So as folks might know, Mount Desert Island is located off the coast of Maine, and while we have a year-round population of just over 10,000, we get over 4 million visitors annually drawn to Acadia National Park. And there's four different towns on our island and three of those four towns at this point have set very ambitious climate action goals that are backed by climate action plans.

I represent A Climate To Thrive, which is a nonprofit organization that was started as a grassroots initiative in 2015, with the goal of energy independence by 2030. And we've grown into that goal over the past 7 years in a really community-driven process. So consistently guided by the priorities of our local community, which has really defined our work.

And in that time period of the past 7 years, we've increased solar production here on MDI ten times over where it was when we got started, and all of that renewable energy generation is sited responsibly on either disturbed land or rooftops, and is locally owned generation. And also, paid a lot of attention to things like efficiency, electrification, energy literacy in our community, and supporting our towns in their climate action planning and implementation.

So when we heard about this opportunity, it was really exciting and particularly because it came at a time when we were starting to really bump up against some interesting barriers, whether it was around grid-related limitations, or we've been really fortunate to have a lot of folks with different areas of expertise related to energy involved in our work. But we're also bumping up against really the need for technical support like this to move this work to the next level that the community has identified as their priority. So this program is a perfect fit. And we put together a really ambitious application that had identified kind of two different areas that we would be interested in focusing on. So resonating a lot with what Autumn just said. We were looking at: Could we map out different pathways to fossil fuel-free generation for MDI and with an emphasis on local ownership and locally sited generation, and be able to map out the importance of within that picture efficiency as a really needed investment in looking at that transition to 100% renewable.

We also were interested in exploring microgrids and with an emphasis on local resilience hubs. And so our scoping process has taken just a little over 6 months because we've been really kind of diving into, OK, which of these two pathways do we want to pursue? Because we did decide we wanted to go into more of a deep dive that we would be able to if we kept both of the initial pathways.

And I've really appreciated the emphasis that's been put throughout the scoping process on relationship-building within the lab team and the participants from the community, but also within the community and checking in with stakeholders. And I think Autumn did a great job of outlining how that has looked there. And here, we've had stakeholder meetings as well, pulling in stakeholders from the towns but also from entities like the national park, the local college, different entities like that.

And the lab team that we are working with has really encouraged and supported checking back in with those stakeholders throughout the process, which has been really important. And through this, we have decided to focus on the mapping and implementation of resilience hubs. And looking at how those resilient hubs can be matched with locally owned renewable generation, powered locally owned renewable generation, and pilot some storage, some smart grid technology, and bring that element of resilience to the community in the face of outages with a focus on how that entire process can really address issues of equity and access within the community.

So we're really excited to see what the result of that is. It's been really wonderful to get some specific presentations from the lab team on the different types of tools that they'll use. Has been really helpful for us to get to see those tools, what those tools will look like, and what they'd be able to deliver, and what are tools that we might be able to get some training in to increase local capacity after this process of being part of ETIPP ends.

So it's been really nice to think about that thread of how participation in ETIPP can also increase local energy literacy and leadership capacity long-term here for these types of energy projects, because we know while we're going to get a lot out of this, it's going to be one plan for one kind of set of resilience hubs here and there's going to be so much work to do going forward from there.

And so I feel very encouraged seeing how attention is being paid to how this can set us up for the work that we'll encounter in the future as well. And the final piece I think I'd say is that it's such a great process to go through because there's so many grant opportunities now that this type of a planning process can really dovetail incredibly well with at the end of the ETIPP participation. That there's so many grants that can fund implementation of the type of plans that can come out of an ETIPP project. And so, I think that I'll leave it at that.

>>Tessa Greco: Amazing. Thank you so much. We have a few minutes for questions for Johannah and Autumn. If there are questions from the audience, we just ask that you either put the question in chat and we'll queue up for you or raise your hand so we don't fall into chaos if there are any questions.

[Inaudible]

OK. If there are no questions, I think we can head into our breakout rooms with our regional partners. Oh, there is a hand. I see it. Hey, Alan. Go ahead.

>>Attendee: Hi. Thank you. I'm very interested in seeing if ETIPP has in any way changed or morphed in light of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law or the Inflation Reduction Act? Has that— and Johannah just mentioned the great number of grants that are available. So is there any alignment between this new federal legislation and ETIPP?

>>Tessa Greco: Great question. So we don't have any direct alignment or funding from the bill or IRA initiatives. I will say that we are tracking very closely all of the different grant opportunities and technical assistance opportunities that are coming out of the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations for example, or other outlets within BIL and IRA. And are trying to keep ourselves well educated. I say ourselves, I think all partners within the ETIPP program so that we can apprise communities appropriately of the right opportunities that might fit within their needs and eligibility.

>>Attendee: Thanks.

>>Tessa Greco: No direct line, but yes.

>>Attendee: Thank you.

>>Tessa Greco: Any other questions before we move into our breakout rooms?

>>Daniella Frank: You have a few in the chat, Tessa.

>>Tessa Greco: Great. Let's see here. Give me just a moment. OK. How can private sector actors or NGOs with implementation capabilities coordinate with existing cohort members to execute their plans formulated under the ETIPP program? So I mentioned ETIPP doesn't provide direct cash support for implementation. I would say the best way to try and engage with communities directly is to actually work through either points of contact at the labs, so myself and others. Or to reach out to the regional partners and they can make introductions as appropriate. Though, certainly, we don't want to inundate community members who are often using their volunteer time to work with a technical assistance opportunity. We don't want to inundate their inbox or voicemails with lots of different technology development opportunities.

Next question: Who are the entities that applied for the ETIPP applications in both instances? I'll pitch that one to Autumn and Johannah.

>>Autumn Salamack: Yeah, for Bainbridge Island, I work for the city. So it was the city directly that submitted the application.

>>Johannah Blackman: In our case, it was the A Climate To Thrive on behalf of Mount Desert Island as a whole. And so we had educated—just to add a little bit more context—had kind of educational sessions with the different island municipalities about the program, great support from the Island Institute in that, and worked with them on the application and got letters of support so that they were part of the process but we did the bulk of the submission.

>>Tessa Greco: Great. Thank you so much. All right. I'm getting a couple more questions. The next is: Do you network your ETIPP recipients to share lessons and plans? There are powerful parallels between Molokai, Hawaii, and your presenters. How do we learn more? Great question.

That's actually a facilitation that I and others within the NREL program management for ETIPP would be happy to facilitate if you reach out to myself or you can reach out to the HNEI point of contact, the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, which is our regional partner in Hawaii, and they can facilitate that. Yeah, we're very happy to try and network within the program and make sure communities are connected that should be connected.

All right. And the last question that I see: Both speakers mentioned existing climate plans. Is this recommended before applying to ETIPP? We're currently working on resiliency plan but do not have a climate plan yet. I would say it is not required at all. You do not need to have an existing climate plan. It just puts you in a different spot in that energy transition pipeline. So if you have an existing climate plan, it means that maybe you're more ready to talk about a specific technology or a specific efficiency measure that you want to undertake within the—or explore within the technical assistance effort. If you don't have that climate action or climate energy plan or climate resiliency plan, no problem. Absolutely encourage you to apply anyway. It just means we might do some more digging and researching into what exactly the makeup of your technical assistance should be or what you're interested in exploring and pursuing. So that shouldn't be a deterrent if you don't have a plan in place.

Let's see. Great. Does ETIPP provide funding for the scoping phase? So again, we don't provide cash support directly to communities at this time. All of the support provided via ETIPP is in-kind via the labs and regional partners. So scoping is absolutely supported within ETIPP and we account for that time needed to adequately scope out the technical assistance project that's going to be undertaken. But direct cash is not provided.

Great. OK. And let's see. Last question: In the absence of a plan, is it essential that the municipality has expressed a commitment or goal for clean energy generation percentage by a stated year? No, it's not essential. I think that would be a good question to explore within the breakouts. Within the breakouts, our regional partners and regional leads can facilitate a conversation around what makes a good application and what community readiness might be recommended before applying in. It certainly doesn't need to be a percentage renewable generation goal. It could be a number of different goals that your community would like to achieve. Whether that's diesel reduction, energy consistency, renewable generation, energy efficiency increase. It could be a number of different things. So it could be backup resilience.

So anyway, I think the regional breakout rooms would be a great place to discuss that in more depth and get some good solid examples of the types of applications that we've seen come through ETIPP and what they've indicated as a goal for their communities.

Are African communities is eligible to partner up with ETIPP? So currently, we only provide support to the U.S. and territories. And so at this time, African communities would not be eligible to receive technical assistance through ETIPP. But certainly, reach out and there are other programs that would be great to look into that are offered with other federal support or through NREL. So please reach out to me, send me an email, and I would love to send you to the right person.

What is the smallest form of community eligible for technical assistance? Are HOAs eligible? So we have some pretty small communities within ETIPP right now, I think in the tens of people attributed to a community. I think that's a great question to explore with your regional partner. Again, it comes down to this definition of community readiness and what makes a good application. So I would encourage you to ask that in the regional breakouts.

And so we have some time to dedicate to the regional breakouts. I'm going to stop us there. And then I believe Daniella and Sarah are going to break everyone off into their regions.

>>Daniella Frank: I'll send everybody to your rooms. If the room leaders could just make sure to record and then if anyone has any questions, feel free to pop back out into the main lobby. Thank you.

Breakout Room: Hawaii Natural Energy Institute

>>Elizabeth Weber: Really happy to have you here. And as people join, we can start questions. I'd like Kendal to kind of introduce himself and HNEI, which is our regional partner in the region and then take questions. I'd love to know who each of you are as well. So if you do ask a question, if you could just let me know who you're representing or what organization, that would be helpful. So Kendal, can we pass it to you?

>>Kendal Leonard: Sure. Excuse me. So I'll briefly introduce myself and HNEI, and I'll pass it along to Yvonne, who is also in HNEI. So I'm a second-year graduate student pursuing a doctorate of architecture at UH Manoa. I'm a graduate assistant with HNEI and I also work as an architectural designer on a project-by-project basis on the side with my business.

So what is HNEI? Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, or HNEI, is an organized research institute—unit, research unit of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at the UH Manoa and it was founded in 1974. And it was further established in statute in 2007 by Hawaii legislature to serve as buoys lead on energy resource technology and development. And I'll hand it over to Yvonne.

>>Yvonne Hunter: Thanks, Kendal. So I've been involved with HNEI since last September and previously, someone who knew Mark Glick who's become our new state energy administrator for probably about 10 years. And now working more directly with Rich Rocheleau to see this program through. And in particular, the third cohort. So I've gained quite a bit of knowledge of the most recent cohort two communities, and that's Guam as one. Looking at their energy resiliency goals and how to make that transition and Hui o Hau'ula, and with Kelly Paddock just about the building of their resilience hub and all the different kinds of renewables that we might bring into the picture for them.

And then I met Leilani, of course, with the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum's 20th anniversary briefing. And so I have some understanding of C-REP on Molokai too and some of the interesting things that are going on there at the community level. So this really is a great opportunity for us to consider a few more projects that we can cue up with cohort three and I'm really interested to hear from some of you on the call about your ideas.

>>Elizabeth Weber: Mike, you want to introduce yourself quickly as well?

>>Mike Campton: Yeah, Thanks, Liz. Apologies if it's a little dark in here. I don't have a great light source in my room right now. My name is Mike Campton and I'm a project manager at NREL. Within the ETIPP team, I work with Kendal and Yvonne and HNEI to manage two community projects in Hawaii. As Yvonne mentioned, Hui o Hau'ula project as well as working with the University of Hawaii in understanding geothermal applications on their campus for cooling and energy efficiency use. So I work closely with HNEI as well as communities and act as the interface between the two to deliver the technical assistance for these projects. And so I'm excited to learn more about all of you and what your ideas are.

>>Elizabeth Weber: Great. Thanks, Mike. OK. So this time is really for you. So I would love to just open it up and get some questions that you may have and we're here to help. So who wants to start us off?

>>Sierra Jackovics: I can start, pleasure to meet all of you via Zoom. It would be nice if it was in person but I'm sure we're all very spread out. My name is Sierra and I work for Mana Pacific. So we're actually a Hawaiian sustainable business corporation based in Kihei, Maui. I'm actually in New York right now. I grew up part-time in Hawaii, but I'm representing our East Coast cohort right now. And Ali Andrews is actually also on this meeting. I don't know if she's there or not but we're helping Molokai and the Oahu Energy Cooperative develop the first two community solar projects there.

So we're really operating as a developer that works in community focused models across the Pacific and Hawaii. And, Yvonne, I know you mentioned Guam as well, a couple of our team members are actually in Guam currently at the island sustainability conference with the University of Guam. So we're trying to help GPA really reach their renewable energy goals. I know they have a 40% goal right now that may change to 100% in the next few days. We'll see but that's a little bit about me. And I'm not looking to have us join the cohort as a private company for 2023, but really just seeing who else is here and looking at the groups that are already in Hawaii. And, yeah, pleasure to meet everyone.

>>Elizabeth Weber: Great. Thanks. I see some other folks on the call. So is there anyone on the call that specifically has like a question about application, project ideas, what you're looking for.

>>Audrey Newman: Aloha. I'm Audrey Newman and I'm with Sustainable Molokai. And I'm also part of the Molokai Clean Energy Hui, who is spearheading facilitating the Molokai Community Energy Resilience Action Plan, which we love to call CERAP. And there's a bunch of us on the call involved with Molokai and the CERAP. And we've had conversations with Rich, but would really love to follow up—I don't know, Yvonne, do we call you or Kendal about—

>>Yvonne Hunter: Certainly. Either one of us. Our objective is to help you move forward.

>>Audrey Newman: Great. So CERAP is our community-led island-wide roadmap to 100% renewable energy. It's what the community after lots of discussions and some technical analysis has said this is what we want. And so a little bit different from the two examples that you shared early on so we have a plan. I guess my question is, do we—and in talking to Rich, he actually helped us focus in on—let me back up. In that plan, there are 10 priority projects that the community has identified from a small solar farm that we hope would be hybrid microgrid on the West End to a larger floating solar, possibly floating solar project in the middle, and then big problems with sea level rise on the East End so that's a—we're not going to ask you guys to help us with them.

So my question, I guess, is it appropriate and competitive for us to ask ETIPP to really help us do a feasibility, cost analysis, and comparison between the floating solar, which the community is really interested in? But we have questions and possible concerns. But if those questions are addressed, that's our first choice. And if those questions come back negatively, then there's land adjacent to that reservoir that could be used for solar. Solar is our strongest preference. So I guess the question is, can we ask for kind of expertise at that level where this is the project the community is really interested in? We need someone to do a deep dive analysis and reality check and some comparisons to alternatives.

And is it too much because in our discussions, the discussion of floating solar and the discussion of pumped hydro have come together. We understand they're two different projects, different time frames, different technologies, but if our dreams could come true, we would ask you to help us look at both of them because they involve the same area, and would probably need to be coordinated in some way. So I know this is quite detailed, but I think it's kind of helping us understand what's the right level of request.

And the other one that Rich kind of pointed us at is a place where we have a big puka in our community plan, which is it just took all our time to deal with electricity, and so we didn't get a chance to have any conversations about clean transportation. And what are the right—what's the approach, big concerns about if we start converting to more electric vehicles. What does that mean for gas prices, for the very small community, could we have real equity issues? So, one is a blank slate and the other is a very concrete project. How do we—I assume we can't apply for two, we're not foolish, how do we choose?

>>Elizabeth Weber: Do you want me to start with this, Yvonne and Kendal, or would you like to?

>>Yvonne Hunter: I think, go ahead, Liz. I'm interested to hear your response on that.

>>Elizabeth Weber: OK. So, Audrey, so it sounds like, first off, and your first component you have ideas that are right up the ETIPP alley. So planning scenarios, feasibility studies, that's exactly what ETIPP is kind of designed to do to help the communities take those steps to meet their goals. And it sounds like you have a lot of work already compiled to help us start that initial research or one of the labs. So I think that's—the key importance into these applications is to really truly understand what ETIPP can provide and what it doesn't provide. And so you're already on the right track there, that with ETIPP, it's strategic energy planning, it's planning scenarios, it's feasibility studies whether they're economic studies, which involves costing or if it's location, identifying the best location. So I would say that Rich has already started to guide you down a great path there.

Now, in the presentations, I think both of them mentioned that their applications were very full. We have a tendency with all the labs when these DOE kind of applications come down, we have a lot in these submissions and we generally have to tease things out and can only really do maybe one to three of the asks in an application that may have asked for 24 items. So my just kind of reference is to continue that conversation with Rich but not to limit yourself within the application. So if you have some studies, some feasibility studies or planning scenarios that you would like to potentially see for the community, have that but also maybe weed out a little bit of your second ask with the transportation, because transportation is such a huge topic right now, especially electrifying transportation. That that is sometimes maybe even a little bit smaller of an ask in an application where you can start the ball rolling with a smaller study to then get it to a point where you could apply for additional funding through another mechanism at DOE to get what you wanted to follow up on that. So that's kind of my first kind of overview on what I do. Not to limit yourself to one or the other, but potentially find a way to incorporate.

>>Audrey Newman: We could [inaudible] a set of asks and you can help us tease out which ones are like the best.

>>Elizabeth Weber: And HNEI and Rich can really help you in that process to present that in the most clear way. Yvonne, Kendal, Mike, anything to add?

>>Yvonne Hunter: Yeah, I was just wondering, Liz, do you see those then as separate applications from the same applicant or you put them—you want them all in one?

>>Elizabeth Weber: I don't believe you can—the same applicant can apply twice.

>>Yvonne Hunter: OK.

>>Audrey Newman: Certainly less work to put it all in one.

>>Elizabeth Weber: Yeah, and I would have to follow up on that but just from my gut and reviewing cohort one and cohort two, I would say that don't apply twice.

>>Audrey Newman: I had one other question. We've also been encouraged by a different partner to look at the C2C program, and were very different things. So are those like—can we only get one or is it appropriate and possible to actually pursue both of those?

>>Elizabeth Weber: Yes, and I recommend it. And if you get one or you get the other, I would use that in applications in the future. So I wouldn't necessarily mention that you're applying to C2C and the ETIPP and I wouldn't mention the C2C and vice versa. But we are currently encouraging our ETIPP communities that we currently have in cohort one and two to actively go after C2C as well because that's one of the goals of what DOE is trying to implement right now is a stepping stone for communities. We don't want this analysis to be we come in, we do a year to 2 years of analysis and then we step away and we're out and the communities left with, well, what's next? So these programs at DOE is really trying to implement now is to give those stepping stones. That there's a rolling type of TA available for communities, that will hopefully also include deployment and implementation.

>>Audrey Newman: Thank you so much. That was super helpful.

>>Elizabeth Weber: You're welcome. And, Audrey, have you attended the C2C webinars and have you had some contacts with those folks?

>>Audrey Newman: No, we just learned about that I think last week.

>>Elizabeth Weber: OK.

>>Audrey Newman: We haven't.

>>Elizabeth Weber: Feel free to reach out to me or HNEI and they can get you in contact so we can get you the right information regarding those as well. NREL is the lab that's monitoring that as well. So I'm happy to help.

>>Audrey Newman: Thank you and I'm sorry I took all the time. Looks like we're about—

>>Attendee: Sorry to interrupt. I'll ask a quick question. Will there be follow up after this meeting like all the participants their [inaudible] interest in Molokai project or Hawaii-related project?

>>Elizabeth Weber: So for following up to learn the outcomes?

>>Attendee: Yes, ETIPP.

>>Elizabeth Weber: Yep, so we'll have some of those presented on the ETIPP website if you want to just follow up. And then also, if you want to know more about the specific Hawaiian projects, contact HNEI and they can facilitate meetings and presentations and even probably give a presentation themselves.

>>Attendee: Thank you.

Breakout Room: Renewable Energy Alaska Project

>>Rob Jordan: OK. Hi, everybody. Let's see if we've got everybody in here, but my name is Rob Jordan. And I am the regional partner for Alaska. And in the breakout groups, if you'd like to turn on your camera and/or your microphone, you are welcome to do so. We have fewer demands on the broadband. And I love to see your smiling faces.

>>Bri Gabel: I've been getting a bad internet connection so I'm going to leave my camera off, but I'm here. Good to see you, Rob.

>>Rob Jordan: OK. It's good to hear from you, Bri. Excellent. OK. Well, I'll assume that this is the group, so I'm Rob and I'm based in Alaska. I work for a nonprofit organization called the Renewable Energy Alaska Project, and we advocate for the development of clean renewable energy systems throughout Alaska. And we provide a level of technical assistance to communities as part of the ETIPP process. And just to sort of have a rough idea, I am not a technician. I am not an engineer. One of the things that's fairly easy to find at a national lab is a scientist or an engineer. The reason that ETIPP is a little bit different is because they decided to find regional partners that were based in communities that could really address some of the soft skill-related challenges that exist for development of projects. And a lot of that is just an understanding of history, and understanding of culture, and an understanding of some of the nuances that go on that impact communities. So that is—that's what I bring. And then I do a whole heck of a lot of community interfacing. So I have lots of conversations with members of communities all the way from the application process, through scoping, project delivery.

And then as we're finding out more and more, actually, even after offboarding of an ETIPP project.

For instance, we've got a couple of folks here from Sitka. And in the first cohort of ETIPP, we did a fantastic project that I really enjoyed. In Sitka, one of the things that we identified fairly quickly was that there was more that could be done that fell within the realm of technical assistance. And so I got permission from the national labs to maintain those relationships and to keep the conversations going and to help encourage the community to continue doing some of the planning that would need to be done to take advantage of the project. So that's a little bit about how that works.

Since we have folks from Sitka here, I'll just talk a little bit about what the project sort of started off like in Sitka and where we ended up. So first off, when the application from Sitka came in, boy, it had a lot of stuff in it. And it had a lot of stuff in the application because, frankly, we were starting up a new program and we didn't really know what was in bounds or out of bounds. So when I'm in that position, I just encourage people to ask for everything they want and then we go through a scoping process.

And during the scoping process, we really narrow down that the range of options. So let's see. Bill asks if have I worked with the City and Borough of Yakutat. And if so are they interested in participating in ETIPP? So we do not have an ETIPP project in Yakutat. I have worked in Yakutat previously. I used to work for the State of Alaska. I was the director of energy data programs at the Alaska Energy Authority. Did some work there. But we have never received an application from Yakutat. So as I can tell, they—for all I know they don't know a thing about us. But if you want me to talk to somebody, I am happy to do that. We can do that via Zoom, email.

>>Bill Staby: Well, Rob, that's a community that has spent a lot of time and effort looking at their different—particularly on the energy front and we were working there with the City and Borough of Yakutat to propose a particular project, which, well, it's a complicated series of discussions you have to have with these communities because they're often three different government organizations that are at work. The reason I ask the question is, so before spending too much time and trying to promote a participation in ETIPP from my perspective, I want wanted to know whether you've found any sort of warm feelings towards it. They probably don't even know about it, I would guess.

>>Rob Jordan: We have no traction there in Yakutat. The Sitka project though, I mean—Kay's on the line here. I think Kay can speak to this. The reason that we had a Sitka ETIPP project was because Kay and a number of other like-minded citizens from a completely non-governmental advocacy group found out about it and started raising questions, and started asking for the community to participate, and they did as a result. So I think that in the right circumstance that can work, but in terms of the application, the municipality or the tribe would have to sign off on the application. Because at the end of the day, if we don't have access to the governmental structure, we can spend an awful lot of time spinning our wheels and we don't want to do that.

And one of the things I think I would also say is that just because we're working with the governmental entity, doesn't mean that we're going to get the maximum impact that we would like to see. I think what we are finding out is we really do need that blend of citizen-based advocacy groups combined with the governmental entities. Because the advocacy groups tend to want to push action, and they're more risk-tolerant by nature than our governmental or municipal groups. I think by the nature of the way that things are set up and I think that you need some dynamic tension there. I think you need the push-pull to happen there. So thank you and just keep asking questions. I'm down for this.

The Sitka project when it came in the door asked for an awful lot, but Sitka is an amazing, beautiful, and fascinating place. And one of the things they have going on is they're currently at least in terms of electric generation, they're totally renewable. They have two large hydroelectric plants that currently meet the demand. The issue is that utilities don't spend a whole lot of time worrying about demand and need right here in this moment. They're typically 5, 10, 15, 20 years out in terms of thinking. And Sitka did rate study and when the rate study came back, one of the things that said is you're in a beautiful location, you have relatively low cost of energy for electric production, and you have a hospital being developed in your community, we think more people are coming to your community and we're concerned that you won't be able to produce electricity in Sitka without using your diesel generators. And of course, for community members in Sitka sort of across the board, that's a situation they didn't want to be involved in.

So the idea was is what is it that can be done short of another large hydroelectric plant to be able to meet that future need? And so that's what we studied. And it was fascinating and one of the things that we came away with was that because Sitka had so much hydroelectric generation, there really was the ability to absorb what's called distributed energy resources. So if you think of solar, you think of wind, maybe some other smaller renewable resources but those two in particular. One of the challenges that they have is that they have the ability to impact the frequency of the electrons that are moving through the power lines, and that can really impact your ability to provide power that doesn't kill our beautiful computers and our iPhones and all the things that we like. So this is something that can be a challenge.

But what we found out was is they had a couple of great big dams and because of that, they could take on about 50 megawatts of renewable energy from distributed sources without impacting the overall grid. And then we looked at some other cool stuff like, hey, what if with excess electricity we use hydrolysis or electrolysis, I'm sorry, to produce hydrogen. And then we could sell hydrogen as a bulk fuel and looked at all kinds of cool stuff like that.

So that's an example of a more technical project, but we've also just had projects where communities just came to us and said: We have really high costs of electricity, we have incredibly high costs of fuel, oil, and diesel that we need to heat, and we really don't think that we have—we really don't think that we understand a way out of this situation. And so we've helped communities like that as well. And what we do is we just jump right in with the development of a strategic energy plan for the community and a resource assessment. So I mean you can really run the gamut.

So I hope maybe that gives you a sense of what's available. Some things that you'll want to think about if you're strongly thinking about an ETIPP application is you want to think about who the lead is. The community-based lead has an awful lot of responsibility but they're also in a position of tremendous power within our process. They really do help to define the scope. And the way that we work and because we've got loads of project managers, we don't tend to deviate from the scope of work. So we spend a whole bunch of time developing a plan for what we're going to do, and then we spend the rest of the time delivering on that. So basically he or she that is responsible for the development of the scope of work really is in the position to—is in a great position of power and influence. So I think you want to think about who that person is.

You also want to think about the time commitment that that person is going to have to have. What you're looking at is you're looking at anywhere from 5 to 10 hours a month upwards of 20 hours per month for a period of 12 to 18 months. That's a significant time commitment. And if you're a community member or a volunteer, that's really significant.

Some other things to think about is, are there decision makers and supporters involved? If you're a community member, we really want to make sure that you've done the work to reach out to decision makers. If you work within a municipality or a city or a village, or you have a tribal institute associated with your community, you want to reach out and have those conversations and make sure this is something that they're going to support because we're going to require it in the application process.

What makes a good application? Number one, a demonstration that this is a community-based project, that you have broad support across the community. Other than that, an understanding and a demonstration that you have an ability to go get information and bring it back to the group. Because you understand how scientists and engineers work, these are people that are very good at processing information and they do remarkable things with information, but they don't generate it for you. So you have to be in a position where you can get access to reliable information so that they can perform an analysis for you. Basically, what I'm telling you is it's garbage in, garbage out. If you have bad information coming in it's unlikely that we're going to be able to help you achieve your objective. So we're looking for that as well.

In terms of what's too big or too small, too big is a little bit easier to describe than too small. But generally speaking, what you want to think about is want to think about a sweet spot is something that focuses on an analysis or an assessment of your energy system. Maybe an analysis or assessment of what's possible to bring into your energy system and then something that focuses on the implementation.

I apologize that we've so quickly run through our time. What we'll do is I'll put my information in the—and my information is on the website. If you have follow up questions, call me, text me, email me. I'm happy to talk to you further. But yes, if you are in a community where there's a significant tribal element or influence, you want to get the tribe involved as much as possible.

OK. I think we've run through our time. I apologize we don't have more, but we'll go ahead and we'll stop the recording now. And we'll go ahead and leave the room.

Breakout Room: Spark Northwest

>>Mia Devine: Hello, everybody. My name is Mia Devine from Spark Northwest. And if you can turn on your video, I think it'd be helpful for this breakout session. So Spark Northwest, we're a nonprofit based in Seattle. And we through ETIPP are the regional partner for the Pacific Northwest. So what that means is that we can support communities in figuring out their potential scope of work and submitting an application to ETIPP. We can't actually write the application for you, but if you're interested in applying, we can certainly have meetings with your different community members, talk through your ideas and kind of refine your scope.

We can look through draft applications and give you feedback to make sure you're submitting the strongest application possible. And I will say some tips based on our experience over the last year with the application is, you don't have to know right away what your specific scope of work is that you want the national labs to address.

As Autumn mentioned, she submitted an application with a pretty wide scope of work. And then if your community is selected, the first few months are spent refining that scope of work and coming up with a detailed action plan that the national labs will undertake. So your scope might change a little bit after your community is accepted. The main thing to do in the application is communicate what your energy need is and what work your community has already done to start about it.

I think that that's kind of the most important thing, is to have a range of different stakeholders involved who would end up being some of the decision makers and look at the results of the assistance and actually be able to implement it. So having that team is pretty important but I will pause there and see if anyone has any questions so far. And Autumn is here from Bainbridge too to answer more specific questions about her experience with the process.

>>Attendee: So my question for Autumn would be related to the Northwest Greenhouse Gas Initiative. I know that the work that you completed for developing your plan was a little bit ahead of the state. So I don't know if you've had an opportunity to look at aligning your goal frame with the state objectives.

>>Autumn Salamack: Yeah, we did a carbon wedge analysis as part of our greenhouse gas emissions inventory. So it did take into consideration things like the Clean Energy Transformation Act and some of the mandates around EV adoption. And now, it's looking at—we're doing some revisions of that right now to look at additional actions. But for the purposes of this particular technical assistance program, we were really interested in how could we get to 100% renewable energy by 2040, which would put us 5 years ahead of the state time frame.

And really thinking about like what opportunities do we even have on this island for on-island renewable energy generation, and how do we navigate that balance between the desire to never cut down a tree and to also have a lot of solar? And then to have wind but not in my backyard and is marine even an option? And if we're looking at waste-to-energy like, what are the minimum requirements that would be in place in terms of either feedstock for that or land space that we would need?

So we're just now getting into that sort of process of really understanding what are the options. What's our team at NREL and the Pacific Northwest National Labs, like what are they seeing in terms of minimums for us to then make some decisions about, do we want you to look into that further or is that like a no start from the beginning? Because we can tell you right now, there's no way we're going to do waste-to-energy on this island. So let's not even talk about that one. We're not going to be burning any grass.

>>Attendee: That make sense. Just to pull on that thread a little bit, have you had a look at hydrogen formation from biomass?

>>Autumn Salamack: We have not. I mean, our scope was not really focused on that. We're really asking NREL to say we have this idea for an anaerobic biodigester, here's the information that we have in terms of what our organic waste collection is on the island right now, here's what we in terms of solids coming from our two wastewater treatment plants. Can you help us figure out like is this viable, would this even work? If so, what would it cost? What sort of investment would we be looking at? And like what percentage of our electricity supply do you think that would help us meet if we were able to make that conversion? So it's really up to you as a community if you were really interested in a topic like hydrogen or something else you could say to them, this is what we want you to specifically look at, which is nice.

>>Attendee: Appreciate that. I'm actually working with Stehekin.

>>Attendee: That's interesting, Jay. I heard you say you're working with [inaudible] and I'm a latecomer to your group. I was dropped into the southeastern U.S. group. And I'm here representing Holden Village, which is also up Lake Chelan, but one stop off before Stehekin. It's a beautiful place but in terms of energy resilience, it's a pretty precarious place. And so this has been really interesting and helpful so far.

>>Mia Devine: And I wonder if it might make sense to join forces on a single application depending on what exactly your technology is you're looking at, and if there are any synergies there. But that's something we could discuss. Does anyone have—

>>Eriq Acosta: Mackinzi has her hands up, Mia.

>>Mia Devine: Oh, OK. Mackinzi, go for it.

>>Mackinzi Taylor: Yeah, so I was just informed that Four Corner's folks have been grouped in here as well. But this is more of an eligibility question, I'm not sure if there's someone else I should be posing this to. But I am representing a number of energy communities in the Intermountain West and Four Corners region that while under the very traditional definition of rural, but do have stronger energy grid ties because of their history as coal power plant producers. Would those kinds of communities qualify for this technical assistance?

>>Mia Devine: Yeah, the definition is a little bit squishy and there is room in the application for communities to kind of define for themselves if they are remote and kind of it's a matter of describing your application what the energy challenge is and how the existing power system isn't serving the communities need. And that it is kind of remote in terms of receiving technical assistance or lacking the local expertise and vulnerabilities to certain events happening.

So that's something maybe if you want to set up a call with me, you can talk more, you can tell me a little bit more about the details and we can figure out if it would fit exactly. And to your point on the Intermountain West, so right now, Spark Northwest I think we would include that in our region, Pacific Northwest region. There's not really another regional partner that covers any of the Midwest States. So they kind of lump folks into whoever is closest, I guess.

>>Mackinzi Taylor: OK. Yeah, and I noticed that there weren't any current or previous communities from that area and is that from a lack of applications or from a lack of reasonable applications?

>>Mia Devine: I think it's maybe a lack of applications and maybe NREL might not be doing the outreach as much to those because they rely on the regional partners to do the outreach. And so Spark Northwest we kind of focus our outreach on the Pacific Northwest. So that might be why. And then it could also be that in the Middle States, the grid maybe is more reliable in a lot of parts. Although, yeah, there definitely are rural communities at the end of lines that could benefit from this technical assistance.

>>Mackinzi Taylor: OK. That's helpful. Thank you.

>>Mia Devine: Still eligible. Yep, Eriq.

>>Eriq Acosta: I was just saying, that's a big corner for indigenous communities. And then I was asking Mackinzi, is that the Peabody Oil—are they going out for good?

>>Mackinzi Taylor: Yeah, so we're working with a bunch of communities in like the Navajo Nation where their plants are closing down, their mines are closing down, but they do have good grid connections as a result of some of that. But extreme poverty and extremely rural and every other sense of the word.

>>Eriq Acosta: Right.

>>Mackinzi Taylor: Thank you, guys.

>>Mia Devine: Yeah, I was going to say that's another good point as far as tribal nations who may have good access currently to the grid but maybe they would like to be more independent or sovereign. And so that could be part of the technical assistance is, OK, yes, you have grid access but how can you take control and create your own utility, tribal utility?

>>Attendee: So my name is Demi [inaudible] I am a member of the Southern Indian tribe. But I just went to a forum and the biggest advocate for technical assistance is to use the national labs. So Los Alamos would be the closest one here. And so I would definitely like to exchange because I have a connect over there that they're really avid about using their funds that they have for this type of stuff.

>>Mia Devine: Yeah and the way that the ETIPP program works is if a community is selected, then during that scoping phase as we talk about what exactly—what types of technical assistance that community needs, then NREL assigns whichever national lab has that expertise. So even though the Pacific Northwest National Lab is located close to us, if they don't have that particular expertise the community needs, then they might be assigned to Sandia or a different lab across the country depending on where that resource is. Any other questions or anyone want to talk about? If you have a project idea and wondering if it would fit.

>>Attendee: In the chat, Mackinzi, I put a link up. And also, Demi, for your benefit, USDA has just announced a significant amount of financial assistance for Native American tribes. So we're looking at some of those opportunities. We have some storage potential in the quarter of Highway 101, one of the reservations. But that's an area where we're probably going to be reaching out for some assistance from the labs before we move forward with that.

>>Mia Devine: I guess another tip I'd offer up for those still kind of thinking whether or not your community should apply is just a little bit of a warning maybe that if you are accepted into the ETIPP program, it will require some of your community's staff time. That is all not paid for by ETIPP. And, Autumn, maybe you can kind of speak to this workload on your end, but we've been having basically bi-weekly calls. And then, Autumn will be hosting a site visit later this year, potentially two site visits. So you have to have some staff time kind of dedicated to helping to bring the different stakeholders in and facilitate those meetings and meet with the lab and get the lab the data that they need.

>>Autumn Salamack: Yeah, that is very true. I mean, we're lucky in our community I'm the city's climate mitigation and adaptation officer, so we're lucky we have staff dedicated to this work. But if you don't have that sort of dedicated staff member within your organization, you'll have to find somebody because there is a fair amount of data collection and then just regular meetings like Mia was saying. It's like one hour every other week now, sort of like through this year of technical assistance for me. And then coordinating meetings with other stakeholders as topics come up, and there was quite a bit of collaboration and just a lot of scheduling and like setting the stage and really helping to frame the conversation for folks. And then when this is all done, there will also be a lot of work on my end to figure out what is our implementation pathway and what are the options and I'll need to take that to our city council and then work on getting funding.

So it's a process but it's been really great I will say in terms of building connections with some of our community stakeholders that we didn't have strong connections with before. And it's also I feel like helping us to understand where is that balance between our aspirational goals and then like what is really feasible and what will that actually take? What kind of lift is that really going to take? And is our community ready to dedicate those resources to it or not? So I'm hopeful that this is going to help us actually move forward with meeting some of our goals.

>>Attendee: Autumn, I have a question about the stakeholder support form. Can you tell us who supplied those for you folks when you applied?

>>Autumn Salamack: Question—I know that our electric utility, Puget Sound Energy, they submitted a letter of endorsement, and then I also got one from our Climate Change Advisory Committee, which is our resident committee of folks that provides guidance to our city council on climate related activities, and they helped me to draft the application as well. Those were the only two letters of endorsement that we got from the beginning for our application.

>>Attendee: Sure. Thanks.

>>Mia Devine: Yeah, and it definitely is helpful to get the local utility on board. Even if they can't write a letter of support, at least having them engaged if your technical assistance requires them to actually implement something in order for the change to happen. We certainly don't want to do all this analysis and studies and provide recommendations and then the utility says, no, that doesn't work with us. We can't actually implement it.

>>Autumn Salamack: PSE has been a very important partner for us in this whole process.

>>Mia Devine: OK. Well, thanks. It looks like we're getting kicked out of the breakout room. Feel free to call or email me if you want to talk about next steps.

Breakout Room: Island Institute

>>Emily Roscoe: I see a lot of familiar names, so that's good and also good that are good, some that aren't so familiar names. Great. So I think I'm just going to get started by sharing a quick example of Islesboro whose community in Maine that is a cohort one community that is off boarded and in the process of offboarding from ETIPP. And then I'm just going to open it up to discussion and questions. And we don't have much time so I'm going to be pretty quick. But I hope that just adds another layer of information and context.

So Islesboro is an island community in Maine served by one underwater transmission line. The community regularly experiences outages, as well as high energy prices. They applied to ETIPP after many energy efficiency efforts on the island and some other community-oriented solar projects. Their vision was 100% fossil fuel-free in which inhabitants on the island benefit equitably from low-cost emergency resilient electricity produced in large measure locally.

So through identifying their main energy concerns and goals, they scoped out their project with their labs team for their technical assistance. And their technical assistance will be looked at renewable energy potential through collaborative development of energy goals for the community assessment of conditions in Islesboro including existing energy systems, current energy use, and historical greenhouse gas emissions, and assessment of risks and hazards, and evaluation of force strategies to meet goals and mitigate risks. And also, a techno-economic analysis of alternative power systems.

So they have received a report with their modeling and analysis of what I just described above and a community-oriented slide deck as well that includes a resiliency roadmap designed specifically for the island. And they're the first community to be offboarding from ETIPP. So now they are on to making decisions about what they want to implement, talk about from the report with their community, and they'll be continuing to work with the Island Institute post ETIPP.

So I just wanted to give that example of a start to finish island. It was pretty quick, but I just wanted to leave space and room for conversation and questions. And we have Johannah in the room as well from Mount Desert Island who is scoping out their ETIPP project. We also have Laura Beshilas in the room from NREL who's the regional lead for the Northeast. Yeah, with that, does anybody have any questions or? Anything at all?

>>Attendee: Well, I'll start off. We applied last year Doral and Stonington working together, we hope to also this year. And one of the things I wondered about when MDI received the award, it was really had an impressive level of institutional infrastructure in place with solarized MDI, A Climate To Thrive, and other initiatives there. And I wonder how important that is and what kinds of grassroots organizing do you expect to see in a competitive grant proposal.

>>Emily Roscoe: Yeah, that's a great question. And I think it really depends on the community. I'll have Laura provide input as well from your perspective at NREL, but from my perspective as the regional partner, I definitely think that grassroots or organizing helps but it does not have to exist to have a successful ETIPP application. Islesboro, although they've done some major energy projects like energy efficiency and solar on some municipal buildings, it's an energy committee that drives a lot of that. And so I think definitely, it helps to have folks who are there but as we know, a lot of these communities have capacity restraints and that's really important to be aware of. But it's definitely not a necessity to have the extent of grassroots work that has been done on some of the communities. Laura, did you want to—

>>Laura Beshilas: Yeah, when I'm reviewing applications, something we do consider is community buyin, but it is not the number one factor. Let's see we've got a whole bunch of questions. I think [inaudible] you were first that I saw go up.

>>Attendee: Yeah, thank you and I know I've posed this question with Emily before just a couple of the communities that I'm working with that might consider ETIPP. There's an electric cooperative that is on the islands and there's a submarine cable to the island and the island also generates wind power. So there's been a little bit in the past when I've spoken with the cooperative CEO, there's been a little bit of pushback to ETIPP saying, Oh, well, we already have wind power we wouldn't be eligible. And then also, this idea of being a cooperative being—an idea that the co-op—being a cooperative is an obstacle. And I just want to get your sense on either one of those or is that—

>>Laura Beshilas: Having wind already, not an obstacle. Being a cooperative, not an obstacle, but I would say that the cooperatives should be only one partner in the application. That there should be somebody from the community in partnership with the cooperative doing the application and being a partner in the project.

>>Attendee: And that could be the municipalities?

>>Laura Beshilas: It would be great if the municipality partnered with the cooperative and came to ETIPP.

>>Emily Roscoe: Laura, could you give an example of another cooperative and if there are any? [inaudible]

>>Laura Beshilas: No, it's OK. I can't remember if that's was a cooperative or if they're a muni. I can't remember. I apologize.

>>Emily Roscoe: I couldn't either. I can follow back up. And Laura and I put our heads together.

>>Laura Beshilas: Johannah, did you have something you wanted to comment on that? Did you have your hand up?

>>Johannah Blackman: Not that one, but I was thinking about Jim's question. Obviously, not speaking from the side of reviewing applications but thinking about how the application and the ETIPP process itself could be an opportunity for grassroots organizing. And so you could consider how to write that in about how—because the scoping process does ask for all that stakeholder engagement and how that could be a tool or a pathway to do that type of work.

>>Emily Roscoe: That's a great point, Johannah. Thank you so much.

>>Laura Beshilas: I don't know who was first, Alan or Sarah. We'll just—

>>Attendee: [inaudible] go ahead, Sarah. Go ahead, Sarah.

>>Laura Beshilas: Thanks.

>>Attendee: Thank you, Alan. We're in New York, Shelter Island, accessible only by ferry in the Peconic Bay on the east end of Long Island. I have lots of interesting factors that I think we'll discuss in more detail with Emily with the Island Institute, but I'm curious about the possibility of a partnership—an applicant. The municipality is working on an update to the comprehensive plan, but I also represent a nonprofit large landholder and educational farm, Sylvester Manor, that is working on its own energy plan potential microgrid with some resilience that would be available to the community. And we're just—I'm one of four members of the town's green options committee that's in this breakout room and we're just trying to figure out the basic focus.

Is a public-private partnership that's explicit in the application a good idea, or should we find a way to get the municipality to apply in order to inform the update of the comprehensive plan and just keep the non-profit as one of the stakeholders? I think that's the question.

>>Laura Beshilas: Emily, what is your first inclination?

>>Emily Roscoe: I think I'd like to have more conversations. That's my first inclination. I think that there's definitely possibility, especially with the resiliency benefiting other parts of the community. So I think having more conversations sounds like a great next step.

>>Attendee: I'll just add that we're also interested in how it might correlate with the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act that the state is working on. And just throw in there that we have a very unusual public utility structure with Long Island power authority and PSE&G that is going through some regulatory pushback and changes. So it's really complicated to figure out where we should focus our planning efforts.

>>Laura Beshilas: That sounds like a further conversation with Emily. Thanks. All right. Alan?

>>Attendee: Yeah, did I hear correctly that there will be two applications accepted in each region? Is that what we're doing?

>>Laura Beshilas: No, we don't have a set number for each region at this point. I think you heard that we can accept up to two in the Gulf region.

>>Attendee: That's right. OK.

>>Laura Beshilas: So I can't tell you—

>>Attendee: We're not limited in our region.

>>Laura Beshilas: No.

>>Attendee: Thank you.

>>Attendee: Well, go ahead.

>>Attendee: Go ahead, James. That's fine.

>>Attendee: Well, I guess also and maybe, Johannah, you could tell us about the time commitment required to do this project. I mean, is it monthly meetings, weekly meetings, how many people are involved? Because if we're recruiting people, I need to give them some idea of what they're committing to.

>>Emily Roscoe: Johannah can definitely answer for the scoping phase because I think it changes a lot. So I'll let Johannah answer about scoping out your project. Once you have a scope of work defined, it will be monthly meetings. The Island Institute definitely checks in more casually outside of those monthly meetings, but it's not required. It's more just to touch base and make sure the community, you guys, everything's going smoothly, and to stay connected on other stuff. But, yeah, monthly meetings for the 12 to 18 months. Laura, did you want to—

>>Laura Beshilas: I will say that the labs do ask quite a lot of the community even when scoping is over. There's a lot of data that we ask for that can be hard to collect. There's a lot of things that we ask you to review and comment on. Because even if we're doing analysis, we might not be getting things quite right or our assumptions might not be quite right. You guys know better than we do. So we'll be asking for lots of reviews. Any kind of deliverables that we are creating like slide decks or reports or one-pagers or any of that, we ask the community for their review on. So it is not an unsubstantial amount of work. I will be completely honest. I think, Johannah is like, Oh God. There's a whole lot and scoping is a lot of work too if you want to talk about that.

>>Johanna Blackman: Well, I actually was thinking as you were talking, Laura, that that's kind of been my assumption is that the work—like the heavy-duty work is probably about to start for us because we're about finished with our scoping process. So the scoping, Jim, hasn't felt like a super heavy lift, and we've been meeting every other week. And there's a little bit of work in between those meetings. We have two or three of us on the meetings just because with our team right now, one person is really deeply involved in renewable energy and grid, and one person is very deeply involved in electrification and efficiency, and we wanted both of those perspectives present. And then I'd say that this work, of course, with stakeholders, getting community feedback, but I would say it's averaged out to probably like two, maybe two hours a week or so at the moment in the scoping process, but I think that the data collection is going to be—it's going to be intense. I'm just like waiting for that to start.

>>Laura Beshilas: And the labs do try to make it straightforward and easy and we do try to find what we can on our own, but there are some things we can't get. You have to [inaudible] in Alaska, like the mayor had to dig through cabinets for a week to get the schematics of the lines in town. So it depends on your town too. So that's a lot of work, but hopefully, you all think it's worth it. And our last couple of minutes, [inaudible], you had a question?

>>Attendee: Yeah, actually just a quick follow up to my prior question regarding the cooperative applying in the municipality. Can the municipality be the applicant with a cooperative partnering or because we have an electrical—OK. So that could be the case. Thank you.

>>Emily Roscoe: Yeah, definitely, the municipality, the community applying makes total sense in partnership with the cooperative. Laura, did you want to add anything? I didn't mean to cut you off.

>>Laura Beshilas: Nope, I just nodded.

>>Emily Roscoe: OK. We only have a couple of minutes, but Ed, did you want to—

>>Attendee: Yeah, I had a question tailored more for Johannah's project as well on MDI. Just curious about some of the details and where we might be able to find out more about who you're partnered with and how you got your hands dirty in it. And we discussed some of that stuff earlier today in a meeting—Jim and I and others.

>>Johanna Blackman: We're happy to chat and give you more background of what our process was here and anything else we can help. And I know that Emily could connect us. I've really appreciated the Island Institute and the role that they're playing in all of this and connecting communities with each other. So happy to talk more.

>>Attendee: Perfect. Thank you.

>>Laura Beshilas: Looks like we have 30 seconds left in this breakout. So any further questions direct them to Emily. Thank you all for joining us. We really appreciate it. And I hope to read your application in a couple of weeks or in a month. Thanks.

>>Attendee: Thank you.

>>Attendee: Thank you.

>>Attendee: Bye all.

Breakout Room: Coastal Studies Institute

>>George Bonner: Thanks, everyone, for participating in the webinar. Hopefully, you've got some good information or you probably have a lot of questions about the program if you're new to it. I'm George Bonner. I am at the Coastal Studies Institute on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. So this is our third year of being involved with the ETIPP program. Linda D'Anna is my colleague here. She's in the breakout room as well, and she works right down the hall from me. Yeah, we're a regional partner for the Southeast. So we're here to help answer questions, help with applications, and I think it's really exciting program.

I grew up on the [inaudible] Island where I'm at now, and then it was in the Coast Guard for 30 years living on a lot of islands on the East Coast, West Coast, Puerto Rico, Alaska, Kodiak Island. So I think I always think about we're the first ones to lose power on islands and the last one is to get it back on, usually. So I’m just really excited about this program to help build resilience and help move towards clean energy solutions for islands.

So we're currently working with Nags Head, which is over here on the Outer Banks in North Carolina, working on a microgrid to help build some resilience for their town critical infrastructure. We're also working with the island of Ocracoke in North Carolina ferries on what would be the power needs as they move towards electrification of the ferries. And the ferries are the only way on and off the island, so that's kind of a critical link and they're moving towards clean energy electric ferries in the future. So we're looking at the energy needs for that, the shoreside energy needs. And we're working with some communities in Puerto Rico that have had major resiliency challenges, and how can we use microgrids and to improve the resilience for these remote communities within Puerto Rico. So exciting program.

If anybody wants to introduce themselves, I don't know how many people we have in the room here. And just real quick your name and what community you represent. Katherine, if you want to start.

>>Katherine Canipelli: Sure. I'm tussling with a black lab in the background here. Sorry. I'm Katherine Canipelli. I'm in the Washington, D.C., area. Fairly new to this area. Have lived in coastal Connecticut prior to this. And my interest is I worked for a tech—it's a little bit different but I'm attending to learn—I work for a tech startup that has developed a really low-cost, very viable, economically feasible plug load control system. And plug load is just a significant part of the energy that we use in our buildings, about 40% on average. And so it's not insignificant and as we move more towards renewable energy in the communities, the opportunity of ensuring that we manage our capacity and that we can do that intelligently, and reduce and eliminate unnecessary waste of energy is really what we're all about. And so I'm intrigued by the possibility of in the future, getting involved in this.

>>George Bonner: So I think an opportunity for a new emerging technology and how it may help an island or a remote community. So I think teaming up with some community, and there's a range of technical support, you could ask like what's the feasibility analysis or how could this improve resiliency, reduce—access the power and affordability of power and resilience. So those are all things that could be part of that analysis. If you have communities in mind, we can maybe have a discussion and—

>>Katherine Canipelli: Well, first, we launched in the U.K. so the first thing I'm working on is getting our physical product here developed and engineered for the U.S. market. So we're about a year and a half away, but there's no time like the present to learn and to prepare and to build relationships with those who need and understand how this technology fits into a bigger scope of energy resiliency.

>>George Bonner: Yeah, I mean even though your product is not market-ready, you can still do—the technical support can provide an analysis or look at the feasibility. So great. Dennis, how are you doing?

>>Dennis Nickerson: Hey, George. How are you doing? Very good. Thank you. Hi, everybody. I'm Dennis Nickerson founded a company called Portable Solar based out of Miami. We've been around for 3 plus years and we were developing a couple of products, solar products, that are meant to be assembled without the need of a solar installation company. Still need an electrician to connect it to the grid, to the electrical panel, but the actual assembly itself, we're doing it so that anybody could basically do it. One, is we avoid the roof. So one is placed on the ground. It's a ballasted system that can be assembled by a resident of the home. And the other one is an awning that attaches to the wall studs of single-story homes. And we've started out prototyping it with Clayton Homes, which is the largest manufactured home builder in the U.S. And so we have different module manufacturers, panel manufacturers that we're working with, including lightweight ones. So we think that both solutions could be applicable for remote areas because we basically can—if a UPS truck or the post office can deliver it, then as long as you have an electrician, you can get solar hooked up either on grid or off, frankly.

>>George Bonner: Yeah, so like we were talking about with Katherine, I think teaming up with an island or a remote community could help maybe show that whether your application makes sense or not through ETIPP. So there's an opportunity there. There's a couple of projects ongoing like that now through ETIPP that are using like marine energy emerging technologies, and there's one looking it up in Maine and then up in Alaska. So those are examples of how a technology developer teamed up with the community and put together an ETIPP application and they're getting the support to help look at this feasibility.

>>Dennis Nickerson: Yeah, do you think I should maybe reach out to the past winners then?

>>George Bonner: You could. Yeah, or I think the key thing is maybe identifying a community that you could work with.

>>Dennis Nickerson: Yeah.

>>George Bonner: Yeah, so but I'd be glad to talk more offline if we had a chance so.

>>Dennis Nickerson: Perfect. Thanks, George.

>>George Bonner: Yeah, and John, I got your note so same thing, please reach out to me. Really interested to learn more about what you're doing in Pine Island, Florida. And how ETIPP may support you there so. Charlene. Is Charlene available? I can't hear you, Charlene. OK. How about Brittany Dodge?

>>Brittany Dodge: Hi. I'm with the Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve on Sapelo Island, Georgia. And we have a small community of about 50 residents that are of Gullah Geechee descent, and then we have different entities on the island, the University of Georgia Marine Extension, our historic parks department, the DNRWRD, and we're in a county that doesn't currently have any kind of plan at all for the island. So we're currently making a resiliency plan then hoping to kind of branch that into other planning actions. And really looking into this because we did just get an electric ferry—a grant for an electric ferry but we have absolutely no infrastructure for an electric ferry or any type of electric hookups. So it's going to be real interesting.

>>George Bonner: Great. Brittany, I think we may have talked over the last year at one point?

>>Brittany Dodge: Yes, we did. Yeah, trying to get everyone on board with this, it's been a little bit of a struggle, but we're going to push forward with it.

>>George Bonner: Yeah, let's make sure we get an application in this year and I'm in the office this week and all next week so we'd love to talk more with you. And I think there's a great opportunity there. So let's please get in touch and I'm going to put my contact information down in the chat if anybody needs to reach out to me, please you can use my cell phone or my email and I'll ask Linda if she could put our contact information as well. So look forward to talking, Brittany. And Carmen.

>>Carmen Rodriguez: Hi. Nice to see everyone. I'm Carmen. I'm actually working in the DOE's Water Power Technology Office with Sarah Loftus. She's also on the call. And yeah, I just actually joined to learn more about the program and it's good to hear all of the different organizations and companies that are looking to invest in this. Great to meet you.

>>George Bonner: So you're in the NREL in Golden?

>>Carmen Rodriguez: No, I'm in the Water Power Technology Office in D.C., but I'm actually a remote worker based in Miami also.

>>George Bonner: OK. Great. And I know I saw at least one marine energy developer on the call. Walter. I forget his last name but I saw him on here so he's out of Key West so I'm hoping that he will put an application. And he applied last year, but hopefully, he'll apply again this year.

>>Carmen Rodriguez: Yeah, I look forward to seeing that.

>>George Bonner: And Sarah, you're with NREL or WPTO?

>>Sarah Loftus: Hi. Yeah, I'm also with the Water Power Office and have been looking into the ETIPP program since it started in 2020. So it's great to see all the interest and applications. And more just here to learn about people's resilience, challenges, and interest in the program.

>>George Bonner: OK. Good deal. And I see Charlene is from Kill Devil Hills and her microphone's not working. So Linda and I both have our contact information in there. Like I said, this is an awesome program. I think there's a lot of—I think it's an opportunity not only to address a specific need in your community or how your technology may support a community, but also sharing in lessons learned across the different islands and regions. I think that's going to be a huge benefit as this program continues. It's just sharing a lessons learned and hey, we found out this technology can support this community and how can that apply to other communities. So a great opportunity there. And I think that what I really like is the scoping process. So that first couple of months like Tessa was describing, really a good opportunity with the technical expert from the national labs, the NREL staff, and your regional partner to really work on a scope and some milestones and objectives that really supports the community. And then at the end of it, you have something that you can act on whether that's seeking other funding to help solve this problem and move forward. So that's the goal is that this doesn't just—it's just not a study. It's something that leads to action to make a difference in the community. So that's what I'm really excited about as well. Linda, I don't know if you have anything else to add from your perspective on ETIPP?

>>Linda D’Anna: Hey, everybody. No, George, I think you covered much of what I would have wanted to say too and I think I would just underscore what Tessa was talking about in terms of this really being community-driven and that what happens in the scoping process and then beyond is really about digging into what the communities goals are and what would best support them making progress towards those goals. And there's really—that the community is really in the driver's seat for that process. I think that's something that's really special about ETIPP that it isn't being—somebody is not being pushed on, that is really coming from the communities themselves. And kind of getting the support that they need to think through the options that are available.

>>George Bonner: And the application process is not—it's not anything crazy. It's pretty simple. And we're here to help you with that, answer any questions about the application, review it for you. So please reach out to us with any assistance you need on the application. And like I think we've seen with other communities that we're working with, it starts a dialogue about really solution-oriented. How can we enhance resiliency? Does renewables make sense? And a lot of people when we started, a lot of the stakeholders that we were working with didn't really know what a microgrid was, so I think you're just increasing learning about what options are out there, what energy storage option, what renewables besides solar. There's wind, there's green energy, there's other renewables that can make a difference in especially in island communities. Also, I'm interested in aquaculture. If anybody has a link to aquaculture and how renewables could help make a difference there. I think ETIPP could be a good program to help look at some better energy needs for supporting aquaculture development. Something else to think about. So I really appreciate you guys. Great meeting everyone. Don't hesitate to reach out to me. Shoot me an email, give me a call. We can set up a Zoom call or whatever and talk more. So I'm really excited about you guys participating and meeting you. Does anybody else have any questions? We got 20 seconds. All right. So for Charlene and John, please let's connect and I look forward to talking to you. So thanks again for participating.

>>Linda D’Anna: Thanks, everyone. Good to meet everyone.

>>Dennis Nickerson: Thank you. Thank you both.

Breakout Room: Gulf Coast Pilot and Other Regions

>>Tessa Greco: I'm very happy to be here with you all. Should we go around the room and just do very brief introductions to say your name, where you're from, what you're interested in ETIPP is.

>>Shelley Ruszkowski: Sure. My name is Shelley Ruszkowski and I work for ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions. And I see a lot of funding opportunities that are related to communities. And sometimes they need partnerships with corporations to provide funding, and I'm kind of interested in how to connect with those communities and how to help them if there's an opportunity to do that.

>>Tessa Greco: Great. Nice to meet you, Shelley.

>>Shelley Ruszkowski: Nice to meet you.

>>Tessa Greco: Kristin.

>>Kristin Wegner: Hi, everybody. I'm Kristin. I also work at NREL so I do some community work. And so I was interested in learning more about ETIPP and also from the communities.

>>Tessa Greco: Awesome. Thanks, Kristin. Daystar.

>>Daystar Babanawo: Thank you. My name is Daystar Babanawo. I'm from Ghana. I'm a researcher in Center for Coastal Management University of Cape Coast. So we do research regarding coastal resilience and building communities so we understand vulnerabilities. And I'm interested in clean energy so I chanced upon this and I registered. Thank you.

>>Tessa Greco: Awesome. Great to have you. Welcome from afar. What time is it where you are?

>>Daystar Babanawo: It's 7:44 p.m. here in Ghana.

>>Tessa Greco: The commitment. I'm impressed.

>>Daystar Babanawo: Thank you.

>>Tessa Greco: Awesome. And then, Brooke. Can you just pop on and say hi? Introduce yourself.

>>Brooke Van Zandt: Absolutely. Let me see if my video is working. Here we go. Hi, everyone. Hi, I'm Brooke Van Zandt. I am on the communications team at the National Renewable Energy Lab. So I work closely with Tessa on the program and excited to just hear what everyone has to say about this potential new region. Very excited.

>>Tessa Greco: Awesome. Perfect. I had some prompts for this breakout room, but I want to make sure that following interest and any questions that you all may have. And seeing as there's not necessarily a community representative that would be typically applying into ETIPP, do you guys have any specific questions surrounding the ETIPP program itself or anything I can help clarify or answer?

>>Shelley Ruszkowski: Well, I guess when you talk about the different communities and the different projects, some of the different funding opportunity announcements for grants and stuff have partnering lists. And I was just wondering if there are communities because honestly, I don't know the communities that have energy plans that other than big cities like city Houston maybe. Like Laporte, Texas. I don't know if it has one or that kind of thing. So I was just curious how some of these actually come about.

>>Tessa Greco: That's a great question. And I will say that it's largely our engagement and work with our regional partner organizations. So we mentioned, we have five existing in the program now and we're working on a Gulf Coast region partner. And the regional partners are contracted with NREL to provide that kind of regional awareness as to the energy challenges that are typically experienced with communities within a region, as well as the opportunities. And then political awareness, social awareness, cultural awareness, that would need to be kind of folded into any one community effort or technical assistance effort to make it a success. So we rely heavily on our regional partner organizations to identify communities, either communities are reaching out to them or they are directly going out and soliciting some engagement with communities that they think might be a good fit for ETIPP.

>>Shelley Ruszkowski: So who are the regional partner organizations that you have working--that you work with?

>>Tessa Greco: So we have five. One in Alaska, the Renewable Energy Alaska Project and I'm going to drop our website link in the chat, which details all of this information. And then we have a regional partner in the Pacific Northwest, Spark Northwest, Coastal Studies Institute in North Carolina, Island Institute in the Northeast, and then Hawaii Natural Energy Institute in Hawaii and the Pacific. And I mentioned we're working on a Gulf Coast region. We actually have a phone call this afternoon so we're hoping to have that nailed down and that will be updated on our website as soon as it's available.

>>Shelley Ruszkowski: OK.

>>Tessa Greco: Let me see here. Sorry, I'm finding that site for you. So it's largely driven by the regional partners and then, of course, we've got the open application period and communities. We'll talk with our regional partners, understand if they've got a good solid technical assistance make up for 12-to-18-month period. The regional partners can help them formulate what the application could look like. So they do provide some direct support there. And then we go through once the application closes, we go through the selection process. Here we go. So I'm going to drop the application site. And if you scroll a little bit down—Oh, thank you. Thank you, Brooke. You're sick of waiting for me for my 20-minute search for our website. So if you click on that link, scroll midway down. You can see the regional partner points of contacts listed and their emails.

>>Shelley Ruszkowski: OK. Thank you.

>>Tessa Greco: Yeah, of course. Any other questions? Interests? Areas of interest? Daystar, I'm curious to understand what's your specific focus of research or work.

>>Daystar Babanawo: All right. I'm into vulnerabilities studies, climate vulnerability. So recently, I published two papers and vulnerability of coastal communities to coastal flooding from sea level rise-induced flooding and lagoon overflow as a result of climate change. And those communities are very vulnerable to climate change impacts and they use rudimentary measures for their [inaudible] they are fishing communities along the coast of Ghana, and they are not using any renewable energy processes for their fish processing. And I want to harness that opportunity and create something for them.

>>Tessa Greco: That's amazing.

>>Daystar Babanawo: Yes.

>>Tessa Greco: Congratulations on your publications. That's really exciting. And your work generally, it's a great area to be engaged in. We do have—it'd be neat to put you in touch with a couple of our researchers at the labs because we do have some specific efforts surrounding fishing communities. So in Alaska, in one of our cohort one communities, we partnered with the Alaska Longline Fishermen's Association, and they're looking a little different. They're looking to electrify or hybridize their fishing fleet so that they get some more efficient use out of their fishing vessels, and lower the costs of business ultimately.

>>Daystar Babanawo: Wow.

>>Tessa Greco: So that's one effort we've got going on. And then in the second cohort we're working with the Makah Tribe in Pacific Northwest and Washington. And they are—I think they are in the process of developing a number of plans to kind of ward off the effects of climate change. And one of those is kind of the worst-case scenario, a relocation plan and what they do with just kind of a scenario where sea level rise has impacted their communities so greatly that they can't stay. So it's a crazy balance of extremes right now and communities trying to figure out what to do to try and mitigate the effects of climate change all the way to what do we do if we can't mitigate those effects.

>>Daystar Babanawo: OK. Well.

>>Tessa Greco: But if you are interested in following up more please email me and I'd be happy to put you in touch with some researchers over here.

>>Daystar Babanawo: I'm humbled. I'll email you.

>>Tessa Greco: Sounds good. Sounds good. Cool.

>>Daystar Babanawo: OK.

>>Tessa Greco: Shelley, I'm curious. Thanks, Kristin. See you. I'm curious what—you said Exxon, correct?

>>Shelley Ruszkowski: Yes.

>>Tessa Greco: Yeah, what is Exxon's interest or what are you guys hoping to connect with communities on?

>>Shelley Ruszkowski: Well, we are producing a lot of—we're planning to produce a lot of clean hydrogen.

>>Tessa Greco: OK.

>>Shelley Ruszkowski: So the transition to use blue hydrogen is one of the things that we do. And then we also are involved a lot with carbon capture and sequestration. So capturing CO2 and storing it as a way to reduce emissions. And a lot of different programs talk about reaching out and working with communities, but on the type of level that you're talking about, we don't really have that connection unless we actually have the facility there. So there's just a lot of engagement type of things. And I guess one of the things that we are also good at is providing technical assistance to communities if we had to for developing plans and to working with them, and that might be something that we would be interested in doing in order to better understand the needs of some of these communities, and to tailor some of the things that we can provide.

So that's kind of one of the things that we're looking at. We're looking at putting in hydrogen fueling stations for vehicles, mostly for heavy-duty trucks and things like that. Because those are the ones that are looking to transition earlier and having the biggest impact at least initially. So where would the best place for those be, so we're trying to figure out that kind of stuff. And how would that best help people. And so different things like that that we're interested in engaging with the communities. And also, letting them know that we have a lot of expertise that we can share and work with the communities.

>>Tessa Greco: Awesome. That's great. Cool stuff. I would love to connect with you outside of the ETIPP world because we got a lot going on in the carbon sequestration and carbon capture, as well as in kind of connection with my work specifically marine energy. So wave, for example, wave energy for people. Connected with hydrogen, so direct wave-to-hydrogen production to kind of facilitate any coastal fueling needs as well as energy needs.

>>Shelley Ruszkowski: Oh, OK. Yeah, sure. I'd be happy to connect with you.

>>Tessa Greco: Sweet. Cool. All right. Well, I think, Brooke, checked my timing. And I think we're going to head back into the main room.

>>Shelley Ruszkowski: OK. Nice to meet you.

>>Tessa Greco: Great to meet you all. Thanks for joining and please do reach out with any emails or questions afterward.

>>Shelley Ruszkowski: OK.

>>Brooke Van Zandt: I believe the breakout rooms are closed.

Conclusion

>>Tessa Greco: All right. Cool. Awesome. Well, it's great to see some beautiful faces in my Brady Bunch screen. So thanks for keeping those on. Thank you all so much for joining us today. We are going to post the recording of this meeting to our website for you to reference in the future. I really hope that this time was productive and helpful for your ETIPP awareness or ETIPP application. As a reminder, applications are due by May 19th, and if you have any additional questions, please feel free to reach out to us at ETIPP@nrel.gov, or of course, contact your regional partner who hopefully you got to in the breakout rooms. Thanks so much again and take care.

[End of webinar]