Randy Manion: Today's webinar is being recorded and will be made available on DOE's Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs website along with copies of today's PowerPoint presentations in about one week. Everyone will receive a post-webinar e-mail with the link to the page where the slides and recording will be located. Because we are recording the webinar all phones have been muted for this purpose. We will answer your questions at the end of all the presentations.
However you can submit a question at any time by clicking on the question button located in the webinar control box on your screen, and type in your question. And if you've entered your audio pin when you join at the end of the webinar you can also click on the raise your hand icon and I will unmute you and you can ask the panel your question directly. We'll try to keep the webinar to no more than 90 minutes.
We have several speakers today so let's get started with opening remarks from Lizana Pierce. Liana is a program manager in the Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs duty stationed in Golden, Colorado. Lizana is responsible for implementing national funding and financing programs and administering the resultant Tribal Energy project grant and agreement. She has more than 20 years of Clean Energy technology project development and management experience assisting tribes in developing their energy resources and building their energy visions.
She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from Colorado State University and has pursued a master's in business administration through the University of Northern California. Lizana it's a pleasure to have you back to give opening remarks. And the virtual floor is now yours.
Lizana Pierce: Thank you Randy and hello everyone. I join Randy in welcoming you to the sixth webinar of the 2016 series. And especially I'd like to thank Sara and Travis for giving of their time today as speakers. This webinar series is sponsored by two U.S. Department of Energy organizations: the Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs, and the Western Area Power Administration. The series is designed to promote tribal energy sufficiency and to foster economic development and employment on tribal lands using renewable energy and energy efficiency technology.
The Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs directs, fosters, coordinates, and implements energy planning, education, management, and programs that assist tribes with energy development, capacity building, energy infrastructure, energy costs, and electrification on Indian lands and homes. To provide this assistance we work with in the Department of Energy across government agencies and with Indian Tribes and organizations to promote Indian Energy policy and initiatives to help Indian tribes overcome the barriers to energy independence.
To help tribes overcome the barriers the office has developed several programmatic initiatives and partnerships. This Tribal Renewable Energy webinar series is an example of the type of education and capacity building efforts we have developed with our other DOE partner. Today the webinar attendees will learn about Tribal Clean Energy for Sovereignty and Economic Development.
As most of you know Indian land contains an estimated of five percent of all U.S. renewable energy generation potential. The significant potential and renewable energy resources on tribal lands represent an untapped opportunity for tribal economic development and points to clean energy deployment as a vital pathway to economic sovereignty for tribal nations. In additions to a proven economic health and the quality of life in tribal communities, energy development can support stronger economies in the surrounding region.
Today you'll hear from Forest County Potawatomi Community about clean energy activities and projects that they are pursuing specifically because of their vital linkage to economic development. You'll also hear from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory – Travis – about the tools, models, and resources available for assessing the potential economic impacts of these clean energy projects and tools and resources to get you started with planning in renewable energy projects that directly support your economic development locally.
We have another five webinars remaining in this series. And each new webinar builds upon the previous. The Foundation of Strategic Energy Planning in the often undervalued or overlooked benefits of economic development in this strategic energy planning process. In each of the 2016 monthly webinars we've been trying to include tribal case studies and information and hands on tools that you can use to progress where self-determination and energy independence.
We welcome any ideas or inputs you would like to provide on this series. However before I turn it over to Randy I did want to take a moment and remind people of an important deadline coming up on July 1st regarding DOE's Quadrennial Energy Review and your ability to provide input into this process. I'd like to take a moment to give a little bit of background on January 9, 2014 President Obama issued a Presidential Memorandum directing the administration to conduct a Quadrennial Energy Review (QER).
Informed by the June 2013 President's Climate Action Plan and in response to a 2011 recommendation by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology the administration YQER enables the Federal government to translate policy goals into a set of analytically-based integrated actions, executive actions, legislative proposals, and budget and resource requirements for proposed investments over a four-year planning horizon.
The secretary of energy provides support to this QER taskforce, including the coordination of activities related to the preparation of the QER report, policy analysis and modeling, and stakeholder engagement. So the administration is seeking public input on key questions related to possible Federal actions that would address the challenges and take full advantage of the opportunities of this changing system to meet the nation's objects of reliability, affordability, and clean electricity.
Over the course of 2016 DOE has convened a series of public meetings centered on the topic of the second installment of the QER, an integrated study of the U.S. electricity system from generation through end use. So if you'd like to provide input into this or find out more information you can search DOE QER and it will provide a tremendous amount of information and background as well as an online form to provide input. And with that I'm going to turn the virtual floor back over to Randy.
Randy Manion: Thank you Lizana. And our next two speakers today are Travis Lowder and Sara Drescher. I'll introduce both of them now. Travis is a renewable energy analyst at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado. His research centers on solar PV finance and financial innovations, market analysis, and renewable energy policy. He also works directly with municipal governments, universities, tribal nations, and other public and private institutions on technical assistance matters related to PV, economics, tax implications, capacity building, and training.
Travis holds an MA in international development from the University of Denver and a BA in English from the University of Colorado. And then following Travis is Sara Drescher. Sara is the Forest County Potawatomi community's in house environmental and energy attorney working out of the tribe's Milwaukee office. Sara's energy-related work for the tribe includes a range of issues related to the tribe's green energy initiatives including development of green energy implementing, green energy projects, and commenting on energy policy.
Ms. Drescher is involved in the tribe's Class 1 air program and all other matters related to the tribe's environmental and energy program. Prior to joining the Forest County Potawatomi Community legal department Sara worked in the Milwaukee offices of two national law firms representation a variety of clients in the area's environmental and energy law. Sara has a BA and J.D. from Marquette University and is working to complete her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.
And so with that we'll start with Travis. And Travis the virtual floor is all yours.
Travis Lowder: Thanks Randy and thanks everyone for taking your time to join the webinar today. I'm going to talk a little bit about renewable energy potential for economic development on tribal lands today. And then we're going to just briefly cover two tools that could be useful to doing some analysis to that end for tribes looking at these projects as economic development opportunities. We're going to cut this up into three sections. Randy if you'll go to the next slide we're going to start with some high level economic development concepts and then we'll get into the tools.
And then the last section is just a brief sort of where you can go for technical assistance if you need help with these tools. Next slide Randy. We show this as our project finance and development trainings for tribes. This is a range of the benefits you can capture in completing a renewable energy project. We're going to focus just on this left-most column here: the economic benefits. And just Randy if you'll click one ahead there's a little animation there. If we go up to slide number three we should be – one up.
Yep right there, sorry. We're going to be focusing on jobs, energy savings, and possible income from projects. The extent of the benefits and the type of benefits will depend on the size and scale of the project. If we go to the next slide, we've generally broken these up when we do these trainings into three scales. Facility and community are both onsite and are principally for energy offsets. The generation technology you install onsite or near the site will be used to feed electricity to the facility so that facility does not have to make energy purchases in the amount they're receiving to the utility.
And then we've got the commercial scale below that which is the financial play really. It's building a renewable energy project to sell the power – sell the energy to a utility or to host that project and then collect lease payments from a private developer. The next slide Randy please. In either case you're looking at returns on this project. If you're building it to offset the facility or facility use or the use of a cluster of buildings you can plow those savings that you're earning – You can treat those savings as revenue. And you can plow them back into community investments.
It's the same thing if you are earning a lease revenue, if you're hosting a privately owned project, or if you own the project and you are earning revenue from the energy sales. There are all sorts of ways you can apply these income streams. You can invest in facilities, parks. You can invest in social programs, expanding the social safety net, schools, healthcare, et cetera. You can issue fiscal stimuli to the household level either through direct payments that occur on a per capita basis distribution or incentives for household spending.
You can of course use the savings to fund your next renewable energy project and create a general program through which you are capturing increased revenue either through savings or again through income via lease or PPA sales. And of course you can be creating jobs through these projects if you are generating enough income to create a new position or create a new agency.
If the project is making a good deal of money then you might be able to fund a sustainability position or something like that – someone who's going to be able to see through the implementation of a renewable energy program or energy efficiency installments, et cetera. So you can always initiate projects to sort of build on that directional thinking either in renewables or efficiency. Next slide Randy.
Just to talk about the kind of jobs here. And we're going to go into this just a little bit more when we review the model – the JEDI model towards the end of my presentation. If we're talking about job creation, not necessarily about income streams, but actual jobs that will amount to increases in households income on the reservation the onsite jobs are sort of the direct labor that will accrue to household income. Jobs that renewable energy projects can generate include truck driving, all kinds of earth moving, blading ground to make it flat for solar fields or wind farms or something like that.
Again the amount of jobs and types of jobs will depend on the scale of the project. Smaller scale stuff will require less of these onsite construction jobs. And then the larger scale stuff is going to require more folks participating. If you go to the next slide Randy those are the onsite jobs. And then you're looking at sort of secondary impacts. These are supply chain and other. These are your multipliers.
So if you bring these construction jobs onto the reservation then you're going to look at some other industries that will be affected in the supply chain. If the tribe has a business where they provide transportation, they provide trucks, et cetera, they have materials manufacturing – those businesses might see a bump in their sales. Things like financing banking and accounting – positions like that – that have connection to the project they might see some activity as well.
And then the next slide Randy are your induced impacts. So these are after the secondary effects, the general economic impact within the community. So if you're bringing more workers onto the reservation or if you're increasing household spending on the reservation through direct jobs then you're going to see uptake in activity in local businesses, restaurants. You might have childcare for folks that need to drop their children off while they go to work on the site, increase grocery store sales, medical services, hotels, et cetera – hospitality in general.
Those are sort of three grades of job impacts that you're looking at. But there's also this one category that doesn't always get modeled. And that's on the next slide Randy. Job training and skills development; we've got a few pictures here – GRID Alternatives. Some of you may be familiar with this organization. They have a tribal program whereby they partner with tribes to do installations, mostly at the residential level on tribal family properties – single family properties and multifamily properties.
The labor will be donated. They will procure the equipment and things. But because the labor is donated you get a discounted price on your solar system. And that donated labor all comes from the tribe. And that is essentially a de facto training program for tribal members. And while this doesn't necessarily equate to direct jobs, 'cause there's no payment and then afterward there's no guarantee that there will be availability – or demand for the types of jobs in which these tribal members got trained they do have the training.
And they can either parlay that into off-reservation jobs, or again if there's a renewable energy program that develops within the reservation they will be candidates for hire there. And then this other picture here in the job left is the Moapa project. This is a project that's earned by First Solar. But Moapa did negotiate for tribal members to get jobs onsite. So a number of jobs are created through the construction of this project. And then there are some ongoing jobs.
I believe there are eight spots reserved for the operations and maintenance – eight tribal positions reserved for the operations and maintenance team. Again this is an example of where you're looking at a giant project. This is 200 megawatts I believe. And job creation sort of expands with the size. The operations and maintenance – the long term jobs – that come from that are –
They're a bit more – There are more available. There are more jobs available for larger projects. Operations and maintenance for smaller scale projects usually there's not a whole lot to do. So that might be one or two positions at most if you're not looking at the megawatt level. Next slide Randy.
Just to talk about the tools now – things you can use to do some preliminary analysis of your economic potential. The System Advisor Model is a cost of energy calculator. It does a whole lot more but that's sort of one of the most important readouts you're going to get from this model. It's available at that website listed at the top there. It's essentially a project calculator. You go in. You enter your site. You enter your project details and a whole lot of other things.
You're going to get granular outputs to the extent that you include granular inputs right? That's the old sort of garbage in/garbage out adage. But it does have some pretty well-defined defaults. And these were derived from industry interviews and things like that. The defaults are robust. If you don't have a whole lot of information about your project then you can do this. If you're working with a private contractor or private developer you can use this tool to sort of fact check their numbers.
And certainly if you're doing this development yourself you can use this tool to do some preliminary estimates and see exactly what you're working with to sort of narrow in on a particular site and to determine the economics of that site. And different technologies within your – how they would perform within your reservation. If you'd go to the next slide Randy this is generally how the tool works.
You start with weather data, pick your location. You get a typical geological year file which will help you to once you enter the system specs like tilt and _____ and all that stuff for solar and other specifications for other technologies. Those will combine to give you your electricity production per year which will degrade at a certain level depending on what you put in there. And then you combine this with your cost data. How much is your labor going to cost, your hardware, your _____, et cetera?
You sort of create your bill of materials and what everything is going to cost. You combine that with your utility rates and incentives. So what are you –? If this is onsite power that you're going to be using, onsite electricity generation, then what's the rate you're competing against? And what are your savings against that rate? And what incentives are available either through the utility or if you have an incentive available through your tribal government you can enter that in there.
And then you do the financial structure of the project: how much debt, how much equity, et cetera? What is that capital coming in at? All these inputs go to your outputs at the very bottom there which is your energy output, your levelized cost of energy. That levelized cost of energy number is what you're going to be comparing against the utility rate. If it is lower than the utility rate then you're making money on a per kilowatt an hour basis you're making money.
And those savings you can sort of – You can do the analysis within SAM to determine how much you would save over a given period of time. And you can use that number to figure out what your return on investment is going to be and then sort of go from there as to how you would use that capital. Other readouts you're going to get from the model are net present value, payback, and things like that. So you can use this to essentially determine what your return is going to be on the project.
And then you can make the decision from there how you would invest that return. If you go to the next slide Randy please the Utility Rate Database is the largest source of utility data available on the web for free. It is a volunteer populated database. So you do have to sort of fact check it against what your utility is posting online. A lot of tribes are also – They purchase power electricity from their cooperative utilities. So cooperatives and municipalities if they're smaller may not be in the database.
But generally a lot of the major utilities are in here. And SAM pulls from this database. So you can do your analysis within SAM. There is an option to actually enter in if you don't have your utility data in SAM in the Utility Rate Database there is an option to enter it in yourself. But these are all going to help you essentially maximize your use of the tool so that you're determining at a granular level what your savings would be. Next slide please Randy.
So that was SAM. The next model that's going to help you sort of make some preliminary assessments is the Jobs and Economic Development Impacts model. It's acronymized as JEDI. It's available at that website that's posted at the top there. It's an input/output model which is an economic development impact model, generalized structure. It's an Excel model so it's pretty easy to use. You just tweak some inputs and then you'll get some outputs that are fairly robust.
And again it's going to depend on the level of detail you have in your inputs as to how robust those outputs are. But it's useful for decision making purposes. The defaults again – like SAM – are based on industry interviews, literature reviews, et cetera. They're pretty well-vetted. It's available in a host of technologies. I just posted the photovoltaics one up here. But there's land-based land, offshore land. There are even fossil technologies available. So there are all kinds of technologies that you can access.
And there's a lot of material both for SAM I should mention and for JEDI on the website available for users that are sort of self-training if they need to bring themselves up to speed. They can access tutorials and things like that and various papers that have written on the models. Randy, next slide please.
Just giving you a sense of how this model works, this is the output page. So there's your input page. You're going to enter in project costs, various details about the project, and then you go to your output page. And you're getting these four columns here: the ones you're going to mine the most. You've got your jobs. The far left column is the number of job. The column next to that are the earnings. That's the total earnings for that number of jobs pool there on the left.
Your output is a measure of total economic activity with your expenditures netted in there. And the last column on the far right is your value added. That's your GDP number. So if you want to know what the GDP of this project is going to be or if you want to enter in that number at the very bottom there you see that's bracketed in blue – If you want to enter that number into your total GDP numbers at a tribe level at the sort of national level, you know what does this project contribute to our GDP? That's the number you would use right there.
So that's sort of the topline number. That's the one that a lot of people are interested in, not only for determining how it's going to impact at the macro level but also in the decision making process that number is very useful and sort of presenting to your constituencies. Next slide please.
Just dome quick comments on JEDI. The results are gross, not net. That means that jobs – When you get the number of jobs you're looking at your total: how many jobs am I going to create through this project? That does not consider how many jobs may be lost from other industries – let's say from coal mining jobs or something like that – some industry that may be losing out on renewable energy development.
So JEDI is just going to tell you what the project in and of itself is going to create. The net analysis is going to have to be done on a separate level. JEDI did not also factor in some of these far-reaching impacts like changes in utility rates. That's a very relevant topic right now as utilities are considering changing rates. There is more distributed _____ entered under the great or more _____ generation in _____ the grid. They're figuring out how to restructure.
And JEDI is not going to measure that. So it's going to give you some more near term – you know next couple of year kind of readouts. I should also mention that the results are annual. So when you're looking at the numbers that we saw on the previous page that's within one year. If you're looking at a two-year development time horizon then you would just multiply those onsite construction jobs by two. And then the operations and maintenance jobs remain constant after the project has been launched.
It looks at construction as one-year process. You multiple that by however many years development goes. And then your operations and maintenance jobs are the ongoing jobs after that and the construction jobs go away at that point. Input/output models moreover don't estimate supply side changes such as – there are examples here that I've got on the slide: technological improvement, changes in prices for various commodities, changes in taxes and subsidies and things like that. So again those are factors you will have to weigh on a separate decision making process, a separate model maybe.
JEDI doesn't evaluate project feasibility or profitability. That's what SAM is for. So using SAM in conjunction with JEDI can give you that information. SAM also has some capability to look into changing utility rates not necessarily on an ongoing basis but you can do an analysis to see what a particular project – what's the revenue it would generate, the savings it would generate on a different utility rate. So that capability is available to you through SAM on a limited basis.
And I should say for both of these tools that NREL has developed these for public use. But we do not have responsibilities for how they're applied outside of our control. But if you do contact us for technical assistance then obviously we have a little more say in the process – a little more responsibility for the information you're receiving. And on the note of technical assistance – Randy if you'll go to the next slide – if you do need help – and then the next one – please contact the technical assistance team through the Office of Indian Energy.
We can help you run these tools. And there are plenty of other experts available to help with your questions. So don't be shy in using this form. Please reach out and moreover if you are interested in JEDI in particular as a tool in your decision making process there is a seminar coming up in Portland in July – I believe it's mid-July sometimes – which will be going over economic development. So it will be going over this topic a little more in detail.
And it will be going over the JEDI model in more detail – some hands on experience. So you can access that through the Indian Energy website under education and training. Information on the webinar is posted currently so please go there and take a look. That's the end of my slides. Thanks so much for your time and I will pass it back to Randy.
Randy Manion: Thank you Travis. And Sara just give me a moment to pull up your deck.
Sara Drescher: Absolutely.
Randy Manion: Okay. It's all yours Sara.
Sara Drescher: Thank you. I'm Sara Drescher. I am an attorney for the Forest County Potawatomi Community. And as Randy mentioned I do all of the tribe's environmental and energy work. So thank you for the opportunity to talk with you today. And certainly I think it's an important topic. So Randy we can go ahead to the next slide.
The underlying approach for the Forest County Potawatomi Community related to energy is based on the tribe's respect for the earth. And largely a lot of these efforts have started with an environmental bent. And the remarkably you find that there are a number of reasons that the economic development aspects become just as important. Next slide.
So the Potawatomi is a confederate – Or it's a tribe that is a confederacy with the Ojibwa and Odawa. And the Potawatomi are designated as the Keeper of the Fire for the confederacy. Next slide.
Based on the tribe's history they were largely within the Great lakes Region all along the eastern coast of Lake Michigan in Wisconsin – I'm sorry the western coast of Lake Michigan in Wisconsin. And through a series of treaties they ended up losing their rights to these homelands. But eventually they established a reservation in northern Wisconsin. Next slide.
And so this map depicts the majority of the reservation. Those other dots are areas where the Potawatomi also have holdings. The Milwaukee in the lower right hand corner on the map – That's the Milwaukee casino and the biodigester which we'll talk about shortly. Next slide.
So again as I mentioned at the outset a lot of the tribe's energy projects are based on their belief in protecting and preserving the environment. And one of the things that has been discussed amongst tribal members considerably for quite some time is how out of balance things have been. And the tribe has an incredible track record of fighting for environmental causes and protecting and preserving the environment for the use of not only the Potawatomi people but also for all the other people of Wisconsin and really nationally and the world. Next slide.
So these are a couple of examples of instances Potawatomi stood up to what the Potawatomi refer to as those who would abuse mother earth. The Crandon Mine Opposition was decades long. And there is a large mineral deposit in northern Wisconsin located right next to the reservation. And if you know anything about Wisconsin geology at all the groundwater table is very, very close to the surface in most areas. So diffing a large pit mine – and we're talking very large – but digging a large pit mine is going to drain all of that water into the pit.
Wisconsin also – Although Minnesota is named Land of the Lakes Wisconsin actually has more lakes and streams, wetlands, et cetera. So it's a very water resource heavy area. So this opposition was a very important movement for the tribe. In addition the tribe has received Class I Air Redesignation and treatment-as-state status for the Clean Air Act and is working towards treatment-as-state status for clean water. Next slide.
This is just a list of some of the initiatives and projects that SCPC has been involved in. And I think one of the things that I'd like to point out is that a lot of these initiatives are inter-related. There's a real focus both on environment sustainability, energy, climate change adaptation planning, green energy options, and economic development and how all of these things kind of come together to create good projects that move the tribe forward in a number of different ways. Next slide.
One of the main projects is Project Greenfire. Project Greenfire established for the tribe a goal of energy independence using only green renewable clean or carbon neutral resources. And I think that you know largely the importance of this is based in the tribe's environmental perspectives. But as I previously mentioned what we've found is that just starting this process saved the tribe a considerable amount of money. And primarily through energy efficiency mechanisms at the outset and then later with energy projects themselves. Next slide.
So this is one example of the energy efficiency that the tribe has gone through: energy efficiency upgrades at its casinos both in Milwaukee and in Carter, also at its administration buildings and several other tribal facilities. The casino itself has not been fully – All of the implementable ideas have not been fully appreciated and realized. So there still are steps that the tribe will be taking. But the initial efforts alone cut down 12.5 percent energy use. Next slide.
And this slide I like a lot. It gives you an understanding of exactly what it means when you do these upgrades and when you just do energy efficiency measures. And so for each of those kilowatt hour numbers imagine multiplying that by anything from $.04 to $.09 per kilowatt hour. And that's the level of savings that we're talking about. So facility wide if you look at the bottom bullet there ten similar projects throughout the facility total annual savings: 4,367,237 kilowatt hours.
Now multiply that – depending on your rate. And traditionally it's anywhere between $.04 to $.09. And you really are creating an economic benefit. Next slide.
In addition to the energy directive the tribe views sustainability and climate change adaptation as important measures for partnering with green energy. If we build sustainable LEED buildings we'll automatically use less energy. Every new construction has to be LEED standards but then if we also consider green energy opportunities at that stage of planning for new development we can have wholly self-sufficient buildings which helps the tribe meet its goals of 100 percent energy independence.
So for example the Potawatomi Hotel in Milwaukee is LEED certified gold. And that was based on the initiative by Executive Council that all new construction had to be LEED certified. The construction of the building also includes sustainability measures that recycle a number of food waste sources, resources that go directly to the biogas facility which is just across the street from the casino.
Room controls are tied directly to a reservation system. So you save energy simply by not over-cooling or over-heating unoccupied spaces. And then a number of construction wastes were diverted from landfills and repurposed recycled, reused. So having an approach that builds off of sustainability but looks at a number of different sectors has allowed the tribe to really expand its portfolio in ways that previously haven't been considered. Next slide.
This is the Wgema Campus. The tribe has purchased an old – you can go to the next slide – college campus in downtown Milwaukee. And this college campus was in considerable disrepair – next slide. But the tribe had a goal of – again – sustainable redevelopment including LEED certifications and energy upgrades and implementation measures. Next slide.
Now we're going to talk about the tribe's more specific projects. The tribe has been very fortunate to receive several different grants through which they've incorporated green energy projects on a number of different tribally owned buildings and created a biodigester that they can use as a unit to recycle waste from their properties but also to take others waste and generating tipping fees from that. Next slide.
The Milwaukee Administration Building was the first of the tribe's solar installations. And this was completed in October, 2011. It's a relatively small project compared to some of our later projects but it's 35 kilowatts of solar array on the roof of the administration building. Next slide.
And so this was a grant that the tribe partnered with DOE on a renewable energy grant. WE Energies is the local utility and Wisconsin Focus on Energy. And one of the other things that I think is really important for tribes to consider – and I'll bring it up with this slide because of the integration of the different groups. One of the really important things for tribes to consider is stacking incentives. So if you have a grant from DOE but you can also work through Wisconsin Focus on Energy and other sources to stack various benefits it can be very beneficial to the tribe.
One of the projects that the tribe is currently working on is the development of a home energy audit and energy efficiency upgrade system. And through this program obviously the tribe is applying for grants that may be applicable. But in addition we will be working through the Focus on Energy program to try to have a tribal construction company certified to install and to perform these audits so that we can keep the money within the tribe.
But then in addition we can take that – Once that tribal company is certified by the state that company can go outside the tribe. And so the tribe can generate business from its experiences. So it's always important to look at any incentives that a state may have in addition to federal grant materials and funds that you are receiving. Next slide.
This is just a picture of the biodigester as it was originally proposed. Next slide. The biodigester is a 3 megawatt anaerobic biodigester. It runs off of waste, food, grease, and organics. And it's located next to the Potawatomi Casino. The food is ground and liquefied and pumped into two stacked digesters. And then from there the digesters work to break it down, create a gas that then generates – that then runs to two engines and generates the electricity.
Now there's a combination of tipping fees and the electricity is sold to WE Energies under a Renewable Energy Tariff.
Every utility at this plant has a requirement to meet a certain amount of green energy. And so they do have tariffs that you can sell your energy to them for a specific price at the outset. Typically these tariffs are negotiated for a certain period of time. So it's not as though you put up the facility and then the work is over. There will be a point down the road where there will be renegotiations or you will divert that energy back to your own tribal use or whatever it might be. Next slide.
This is just another picture. Next slide. Then along with the biodigester there is compatible infrastructure and the heat is sourced from the biodigester and pumped into a heat loop to the Potawatomi Bingo Casino and Hotel. So this allows us to use that excess waste product and provide heating for the hotel and casino. And that generates an offset against whatever those electric bills would otherwise be for providing that same amount of heat.
Presently enough heat is available to offset the natural gas for heating all of the water at both the casino and hotel. There are additional considerations. We're always looking at ways to improve the operation of the facility and whether there are ways to offshoot from current production to create other processes. So right now there are ideas for compressed natural gas. Currently because we're overproducing the gas the biodigester has a flare. And a flare is a certain amount of gas.
The tribe is looking into ways to compress that natural gas. And part of that is finding sources to use that natural gas. And then the tribe is also considering ways to incorporate a vertical urban farm. Now here again you could use that heat from the generation process to heat a vertical urban farm – a greenhouse if you will. And then we're also working on ways to reutilize the gray water – the wastewater – that's coming out of the biodigester at the current time. All of those things are additional ways to both provide economic development opportunities, but also to promote sustainability. Next slide.
There are a number of different funding options and opportunities for tribes. And then one of the things that I think is really important is to consider ways that you can redirect funds. So if you can show a savings – if you perform energy efficiency projects in this year, and then you can show the savings of those projects in the next year, it may be worthwhile to ask Executive Council or whichever entity whether or not you can redirect those savings into new energy projects. And that's one way to kind of generate a continuous scale and a continuous process of creating new projects. Next slide.
And then additionally I think it's really important to consider ways in which you can stack – I mentioned before the Focus on Energy. But stacking those incentives and finding ways that you can create internal opportunities that will then externalize are both important ideas. So now we're going to talk about the Community Scale Clean Energy Project that we did last year. Next slide.
And this project was a DOE community scale grant. The grant was $1.4 million and provided half of the project costs. The tribe then had a partnership with the solar company. The company invested a certain portion. And then the tribe had 20 percent to pay through a Power Purchase Agreement. Next slide.
The interesting thing about this community scale solar project is the vast array of projects that the tribe was able to accomplish. The tribe installed solar at 15 tribally-owned facilities. And it was a tough process. There are a lot of considerations to think through when you're trying to decide where to install. And I think the process in and of itself is probably worthy of a conference like this. Some of the things that you have to consider are whether the buildings are capable of holding roof mounts.
So are they constructed to a capacity that they can use solar? And you want to think through energy efficiency. Is it worthwhile to install solar on buildings that simply aren't efficient to begin with? If you have consistently high energy bills because you're not efficient – and several of these grants require a specific offset – you may think about incorporating energy efficiency first so that it lowers the requirement for the amount of energy you have to meet or that offset.
So all in all the project is providing between 20 and up to 97 percent of the power for each individual location. And it's nearly a one megawatt project. Next slide.
There are a number of projects that Potawatomi continues to consider including small scale biobass on or near the reservation specifically for reservation parcels. Biomass can be a challenge especially if you have a Class 1 redesignation. What we've found is that we have to be very careful with how we implement certain projects. But it's still a viable option. There are a number of other options, whether it be solar, geothermal, or a combination of those – or energy efficiency and a combination of all of those things.
And I think one of the important lessons from our work is that there is one size fits all approach to energy on reservations or two energy for specific tribes. What works for one tribe may not work for another. In Crandon where the reservation is there is no wind shear. So although we've considered and we've looked at the possibility of installing windmills it simply wouldn't be feasible. Next slide.
And I think with that I turn it over to Randy.
Randy Manion: Thank you Sara. And thanks Travis and thanks Lizana. We'll go into questions now and remind the audience you can ask your questions in two ways. You can type your question and send it that way. Or you can click the raise your hand icon and I'll unmute you. We have one written question so far. It is: are job numbers the same regardless of location, skill level is assumed?
Travis Lowder: I'm sorry Randy. I missed that question. Could you read it one more time please?
Randy Manion: Sure. Are job numbers the same regardless of locations? Skill level is assumed.
Travis Lowder: So addressing the first part of the question no, generally – So the JEDI model does things at the state level. But there are ways to modify it to do a county analysis. Or if you're looking specifically at tribal territory you can do it based on your own economic indicators. The difficulty there is that a lot of the data that people use to change the model functioning to suit their own particular area; that data is available in IMPLAN which is a data service.
You can get that data elsewhere but it's difficult to capture for tribes. Sometimes the measures aren't either accurate or not available. So unless you have a good handle on what your particular indicators are it might be difficult to do it specifically for tribal territory. But those numbers will change based on the region under analysis.
Randy Manion: Thanks Travis. There's another question – Oh go ahead. Was someone going to say something? Okay yes there was a question regarding access to the recording and slides. And they will be posted on the Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs website in no more than one week. Our apologies by the way for the late posting of the May 25th webinar. We had some technical problems. But that's resolved and I notice that that webinar has been posted. The next question: would the benefits for renewable energy for Indian land be the same for biomass to electricity projects? And then there's a second part. Go ahead and answer that one if you would.
Sara Drescher: I'm sorry. Can you repeat that?
Randy Manion: Sure. Would the benefits for renewable energy for Indian land be the same for biomass to electricity projects?
Travis Lowder: Would they be the same to biomass? Is it would they be the same between different technologies? Is that the question? Or am I misunderstanding?
Randy Manion: Yes that's all I have. Let me read the second part. Which departments and agency should be approached for these projects?
Sara Drescher: Well I think it's important to note that each type of project is going to have different benefits and drawbacks. And that has to be analyzed kind of independently on a tribe by tribe basis. Because all tribes are faced with very different circumstances and different landscapes. They may be able to install solar at a very reasonable rate whereas if you're in the middle of the prairie and you don't have enough biomass in the immediate area unless you're growing fields and fields of switchgrass it may be too expensive to truck in the required amount of biomass to produce the same amount of energy.
So I don't know that it's an easy question to answer. I think there are multiple considerations. As for the agencies Lizana is just a tremendous resource. Sorry Lizana. In addition I think that there are just so many knowledgeable people even at other tribes. And I've found that tribes are very supportive of each other's work so it's very easy for them to kind of reach out and mentor each other.
Lizana Pierce: And to follow up on that Sara, as far as we're to look I think it depends on where in the process you may be. If you are exploring new technology on the research and development side, the DOE biomass program would be one place to contact. If you're looking at resource assessments the Department of the Interior's Division of Energy and Minerals currently has a funding opportunity announcement out now that I think closes next week.
But that would be someplace to contact for technical assistance as well as for those resource assessments. If you are looking to implement or deploy a biomass or any other clean energy technology project on tribal lands the Office of Indian Energy would be a good place, as well as in a rural environment, the USDA has a huge number of grants and loan combinations. If you're looking at early planning phases I would say technical assistance through the Office of Indian Energy there's also the U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development who has _____ grants.
So there's just a tremendous amount of resources on our website. We not only try to keep track of the current grands through the various agencies, but also a context and agency – somewhere to look depending on which phase or step of a project development you may be in. Hopefully that helps. I know it's a lot.
Travis Lowder: I may as well add two more. California Energy Commission just released an announcement for development demonstration and deployment of environmentally and economically sustainable biomass to energy systems for the forest and wood sectors. So subscribe to any state energy office, newsletter so you can be notified of various funding announcements like this. And I know New York State is very active as well and there are many states in between those two states that have a lot of activities and programs.
As well as environmental groups that are out there; they also have their own newsletters and sort of monitor this stuff.
Randy Manion: Another question: in researching biomass did you look at making wood pellets, bio bricks, or only generating power? And the second part of that: if you researched others what were the results?
Sara Drescher: The tribe has selected a number of different biomass options – everything from the tribe's reservation – Forest County's reservation is in Forest County. And as the name probably implies it is heavily forested. The tribe owns very heavily forested land and then is surrounded by national and state forests. So we have looked at being able to utilize that. Unfortunately that wouldn't supply the amount necessary. There is also in Superior – which is just to the northeast of the tribe's reservation – a biomass facility.
And that facility takes biomass waste from east to west in the northern part of the state, so from the Mississippi River over to the Great Lakes. So there is already some competition for biomass. We have looked at pelletizing. I think one of the things you want to consider when you consider pelletizing is that the process itself is energy intensive. So are you necessarily gaining benefit if you're using an energy intensive process to create a way to make energy?
And that's not always the case. But that was one of the things that we ran into. We also considered switchgrass – pelletizing switchgrass. Switchgrass I think over the next several years could become more popular. And I say could because it's a crop that grows quickly. And you can plant several in a season. But it doesn't have the same value as a source of generation. So I think again it's just we did look at a number of different options. And it's just a matter of finding the right combination.
Randy Manion: And Sara one more question for you: would you comment on the economics of the Potawatomi project so far, for example the net savings after cost and the net proceeds from sales to outside?
Sara Drescher: The net savings – and I used to have a number. I'm kind of waiting for our updated carbon reports. We do quarterly carbon reports and I haven't received one in a little while. So my numbers are going to be a little off. But the net savings is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. And I say that – That's on the low end. One of the things that we found is that the energy efficiency measures alone resulted in that much savings.
But now as we're generating more energy we don't have a full year yet of generation to know exactly what the savings will be. What we're finding so far – and we are tracking it on a monthly basis – is that our preliminary analyses were very close to what we actually are generating. However one off the problems that we weren't necessarily considering is just whether or not we can – So in winter for example and we don't have anybody right now taking the snow off of the ground mounts.
So that impacts production. And we had kind of a more static production number. So we're trying to wait until we receive those results before we really say where we are. But the results look very, very promising. The solar project from last count had saved the tribe over $100,000.00 just on the production. And that's not even a yearly number – or the annual number as of yet.
As for the amount that we make off of sale to the various utilities with the solar installations we tried to size those in a way that there would be sale of electric to the utilities. Unless you're under a net metering approach your wholesale rate of sale to the utility is not necessarily something that's going to make those projects viable. So we tried to undersize the projects to a point where we wouldn't be overproducing and be selling electric production to the utilities, because it simply doesn’t make the same rate.
With respect to the WE Energies I believe it is a $.07 rate. And our biodigesters were down for some mechanical repairs for a couple of months. So again unfortunately I just don't have the numbers right now.
Randy Manion: Okay thanks, one more question for you: what level of tribal council report was required and to what extent were there champions on accounts or _____? Many tribes have opportunities but there needs to be someone to move the projects forward.
Sara Drescher: I would say that's one of the most challenging aspects of tribal energy projects. I'm fortunate to work with a tribe and an Executive Council that has a very aggressive goal and a very aggressive plan. But this is one of those questions that I've answered a lot over the last few years. One of the things I think that's important is to have buy-in not just at the Executive Council level, instead of going top down try going bottom up.
One of the mistakes that we made in this last project was that we were so dependent on Executive Council approval that we didn't do enough with tribal members in garnering support for our various installations. And what I've found is that establishing that support at the base and with members and the moving that up is just very, very helpful. Each grant opportunity requires an Executive Council resolution or similar approval from the tribe in order to accept the grant and to move the proceeds into a program.
So there is a certain amount of approval that is needed. But one of the things I think is most important is building capacity within the tribe from tribal members, environmental professionals, attorneys, and throughout the organization so that you have a team that's dedicated to moving these projects forward once you have the buy in from all of the various parties.
Randy Manion: Thank you Sara. And Lizana this one will require your crystal ball so I'll wait a second for you to pull it out.
Lizana Pierce: [Laughter] Okay, wait, wait just a second. It's not there. Okay go ahead.
Randy Manion: All right. Will these programs through NREL and DOE outlive the Obama administration?
Lizana Pierce: Okay. You know we have been doing tribal energy within the department since the mid-90s – since the passage of the Energy Policy Act of 1992. That was amended in 2005. You know in the early days my nails were short. We'd hang on every year and hope. But I think that Indian Energy might be neutral. So my hope – and I'm betting my career on it at this point – is that they will.
Randy Manion: Excellent. This may be for you Sara. Are there solar installs at the Carter location?
Sara Drescher: We're actually working on a project right now to do a solar install at the Carter Casino. One of the ideas there – We're changing our wastewater facilities at that casino and currently have two lagoons. Those lagoons will no longer be used. So one of the ideas is to either float solar on the lagoons or fill the lagoons and use that as an area for solar for the casino, the _____ shore and surrounding area. That's a project that is actually on my desk as we speak.
Randy Manion: Okay great. And does it matter if tribes are at a regulated utility state with monopoly investor-owned utilities versus deregulated states? And then I may as well throw in you have a variety of public _____ facilities, including co-ops and municipalities.
Travis Lowder: I can take that one. I'll take a first crack. I guess it would sort of affect maybe if you are going to build a large project and anticipate selling the electricity. If you're in a deregulated state you'll have access – you can be an independent power purchaser and you can access the energy markets. If you are in a regulated state then the utility is really going to be your only bet in terms of off-ticker contract counterpart for our Power Purchase Agreement. So it might matter there.
It might also matter in terms of rates – you know what kind of rate structure you're on. You know if you're commercial buildings demand charges there's no real sort of correlation as to type of utility and the rates it's going to offer. But you might see some more lenient rates with some of these cooperatives, or more customer responsiveness to rate structures with cooperatives and munis and things like that that are going to be a little closer to their customers than the IOUs – the investor-owned utilities.
I would say those would be the major differences. So not necessarily directly effecting economic impact but you know could affect energy savings, could affect what kind of financial arrangement you have for your project.
Randy Manion: Thank you Travis. And I may add here as well we are promoting tribal utility partnerships. And so if you're interested in learning about how to establish a strong partnership with your local serving utility please do contact us through the technical assistance request that was on the screen earlier. And there was also a request for information on whom to contact for technical assistance in New York. And I'll put up the e-mail contact list in just a bit and Lizana would be a good point of contact. Anything to add on that one Lizana?
Lizana Pierce: I'm going to jump in here. Another good resource for incentives and possible funding in your area is the Desire website. I can't remember if it's .org or .com. And if you do it you'll go places you didn't really expect. But if you go to the database of states, incentives, and for renewable energy I think is what it is it'll provide information on policies, interconnections, funding, and incentives for your particular state and area.
So again that's a wonderful resource.
Randy Manion: Okay great. Let's see what other questions we have real quick. Bear with me as I scroll through this list. Okay Sara I think this is for you. You mentioned the past 30 percent tax credit that the private solar company partner took advantage of. Does this mean that the company is the owner of the project? And if so how did you get around the problem posed by double taxation at the state or local level? If not, how did the tribe pass along the tax credit to the company?
And maybe this could've been you too Travis.
Sara Drescher: The way that this was set up the tribe partnered with this company and they created a separate LLC. And that separate LLC has the ability to generate those tax credits. Because the tribe doesn't have tax implication all of the tax credits are given directly to the partner of this LLC – the other partner of the LLC. That was the cleanest way to do it. I know that when the tribe was going through the process of creating the LLC we were in pretty close contact with DOE to make sure that there wasn't any reason that this would somehow jeopardize the grant.
But again I look at that as one of those times where you stack whatever incentives you can to end up with the best cost at the end of the project.
Randy Manion: Okay great. Travis, anything to add on the tax side?
Travis Lowder: No. You know we get a lot of questions about this and some of it can be kind of theoretical. But Potawatomi has been very successful in looking into this and executing on it. So I would take Sara's advice on this one. I'd probably just sort of spout tax rules and that's not what is useful.
Sara Drescher: Well it's not an easy thing.
Randy Manion: No it's not at all. But he's just saying like you've done it.
Sara Drescher: The concept though is good.
Randy Manion: Yeah.
Sara Drescher: Right. The concept is good and one of the things about those credits though is that there is a _____ associated with those credits. And it's not for several years but that 30 percent starts to decrease at a certain point. So you're going to get more out of a project sooner rather than later.
Randy Manion: Okay, thank you. There's a request for the web address for technical assistance and the other links Lizana that you've mentioned. Lizana you probably have that address off the top of your head if you want to provide it.
Lizana Pierce: If you such search DOE Indian Energy you should get to our office's page and along the top is technical assistance and gives you information. And you can complete the online form there. What's the other one you wanted? The Desire website?
Randy Manion: You mentioned USDA so again I think probably internet searches for most of those.
Lizana Pierce: Yeah so most of those and we also have – We have a table, a tool, on our website that shows you and gives you links for each of the funding sources by project, by phase. And then we have a current funding table that provides the information on open funding opportunities. So if you Google Indian Energy that'll get you started. And if not we have a link on the main page – lower right hand corner that you can send to us and we can answer any specific questions you might have.
Randy Manion: Okay great. Let's go to the raised hands real quick. Those are all the written questions at this time. I think I saw one raised hand. John Clancy you had your hand raised. I'm going to unmute you so you can ask the panel the question directly. You're unmuted. John you may be muted on your end. John Clancy? Okay I'm going to re-mute you and just raise your hand again if you come back. Let's see. There a question from Peggy Plate. She has her hand raised. Peggy I've unmuted you. Feel free to ask your question.
Peggy: I just did that by accident. Sorry.
Randy Manion: [Laughter] That's all right. Let's see if there are any other hands raised here. That looks like all the hands that were raised, so maybe one more written question. Thank you all for doing this webinar. You're making a living planet for our children. So a nice compliment there. With that I think we'll conclude the webinar. Let me go to the upcoming webinars. So as I mentioned earlier also if you feel you have a presentation for one of these [inaudible comment] we're always [inaudible comment].
Lizana Pierce: Randy you're cutting in and out for some reason.
Randy Manion: Okay sorry. Thank you. Here are the remaining webinars. We hope to see you all at these webinars. And again we thank our speakers, Travis, Sara, and Lizana. And we'll talk to you all next month. That concludes today's webinar. Thank you.