Project Overview

Tribe/Awardee
Seneca Nation

Location
Salamanca, NY

Project Title
1.8 MW Wind Turbine on Tribal Common Lands near Lake Erie in New York State

Type of Application
Deployment

DOE Grant Number
DE-EE0006475

Project Amounts
DOE: $1,500,000
Awardee: $4,520,125
Total: $6,020,125

Project Status
See project status

Project Period of Performance
Start: July 2014
End: June 2017

Summary

The Seneca Nation of Indians (SNI) will install one 1.8-megawatt (MW) wind turbine on tribal common lands near Lake Erie in New York. Wind resource assessments, using industry standard wind resource assessment tools from AWS TruePower, New York State Energy Research, and Development Authority (NYSERDA), and SNI-installed anemometry at the site, have determined an available wind resource of 7.13 meters per second at a hub height of 60 meters. SNI, with its partners, will install one 1.8-MW turbine that will produce approximately 5 million kilowatts (kW) of electricity per year for a 40% energy savings for the tribe.

Project Description

Background

The Seneca Nation of Indians, the largest tribe of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy in New York, reorganized its tribal governmental structure in 1848 with the adoption of a formal written constitution that provides leadership by elected officials in a democratic process. The people of the Seneca Nation today live and work on the same lands that Seneca people have inhabited for more than 1,000 years, which consist of five distinct and noncontiguous territories located in western New York.

In 2003, the Seneca Nation, with the help of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), embarked on the development of a strategic energy plan that would allow SNI to comprehensively address energy-related issues on the SNI tribal lands. These efforts encompassed three phases. In Phases I and II, the Seneca Nation's vision for energy self-sufficiency and development were defined, its energy needs quantified, and its renewable and nonrenewable resource opportunities and energy options identified. Among the activities completed were a series of installations of meteorological towers to assess the available wind resource potential on various tribal lands. The most recent of these installations near Lake Erie revealed a substantial resource for community-scale turbine installation.

In Phase III, the primary objective was the development of an energy organization capable of service delivery for natural gas and electric power. Activities under Phase III included three steps:

  • Assess the current state of SNI infrastructure in terms of existing tribal departments or subsidiary corporations of the tribe with responsibilities in the energy sector; this assessment was also to include a legal regulatory review that would analyze existing legal issues that might hinder or help in the development of the organization.
  • Define a preferred path for creation of an energy organization and identify potential roadblocks.
  • Develop the future state of the organization by either creating a new organization or utilizing an existing business structure of the Seneca Nation.

The results of Phase III efforts led to an analysis of the enterprise companies within Seneca Holdings. The majority of the concerns within the holding company were mature businesses acquired with the purpose of providing immediate income while positioning the tribe to engage in government service activities through its 8(a) status. One of those companies, Seneca Energy, LLC, was a start-up energy services company without revenue that was formed primarily for energy marketing. Because Seneca Energy was not producing revenue and was not a fit with the mission of Seneca Holdings, tribal leadership removed Seneca Energy from the umbrella of the holding company and approved this tribal enterprise. This provided the opportunity for SNI to repurpose an existing tribally owned entity to a tribal utility organization. A proposal was developed by the planning department to change the bylaws of Seneca Energy in order to repurpose it for engaging in utility distribution activities of both natural gas and electricity. This proposal was unanimously accepted by the tribal council, making Seneca Energy the official business entity to conduct electric and natural gas distribution services on behalf of the Seneca Nation.

Project Scope

The specific objectives of this project are to:

  • Design, procure and install one 1.8-MW wind turbine on Seneca Nation of Indians common lands next to Lake Erie in New York, interconnected with National Grid distribution service
  • Aggregate Tribal load at facilities in the Cattaraugus Territory also served by National Grid;
  • Take advantage of aggregated net metering in New York and provide approximately 1.8 MW of wind power credit against tribal load currently served by National Grid
  • Generate a credit through aggregated net metering that will provide rate parity and savings to tribal members on the Cattaraugus Territory approximately equal to tribal members on the Allegany Territory
  • Administer this credit through the newly formed tribal utility organization, Seneca Energy, LLC, a Seneca Nation subsidiary.

Project Location

The Seneca Nation holds title to five distinct and noncontiguous territories located in western New York, an area of the state where communities are primarily rural in geographic location and are considerable distances from the services and amenities available in urban locales. The territories are situated in portions of five different counties of western New York: Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Erie, and Niagara. The aggregate acreage of tribal territorial land is 53,106 acres, or 82.9 square miles.

Two potential sites have been identified for the turbine, both along the eastern shore of Lake Erie. The Seneca Nation land in this area includes a public beach, consisting of approximately half a mile of lakefront, and located about 2.5 miles from the primary municipal building. This area has high wind potential from winds generated by the lake effect. The site includes mature trees about 100 yards from the waterline and an unimproved roadway leading to the beach. The site is bordered by Silver Creek on the south, a "dead creek" on the east, Lake Erie on the west, and summer rental cabins to the north.

Project Status

This project is complete. For details, see the final report.

The project was competitively selected under the Tribal Energy Program's fiscal year 2013 funding opportunity announcement "Community-Scale Clean Energy Projects in Indian Country" (DE-FOA-0000852) and started in July 2014.

The March 2014May 2015, and December 2016 project status report provides more information.

Video Url
The Seneca Nation sought Baker Tilly’s tribal energy consultants for development of a strategic energy plan.
Video courtesy of Baker Tilly US