Cohort 1: Dillingham, Alaska

Dillingham, Alaska, produced an economic model and decision support tool for a utility assessment of potential river hydropower impacts with technical assistance from the Energy Transitions Initiative Partnership Project (ETIPP).

Project Summary

Dillingham’s local utility, Nushagak Electric and Telephone Cooperative (NETC), has put clean, affordable, and reliable energy at the center of its community’s resilience goals. Diesel fuel currently powers the town, but with fuel prices and climate concerns rising, renewable energy is a priority for the member-owned-and-operated cooperative that provides Dillingham’s electric, telephone, cable television, and internet services.

ETIPP worked with a multidisciplinary team, assembled by NETC, of economists, biologists, hydrologists, regulatory agencies, and nonprofit organizations to help Dillingham reach its energy resilience and environmental goals. ETIPP researchers from Sandia National Laboratories and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have been working with NETC to develop an economic decision-making support tool that allows the cooperative to understand and assess the potential economic impacts of the hydropower project. The tool allows users to explore how different assumptions, including stream flow and water diversion limits, may interact with one another. For example, the user can assess how the hydropower project might offset residential and commercial diesel fuel consumption in different scenarios by inputting a specific climate condition, the quantity of fish, or the level of energy demand.

Project Outcomes

The ETIPP team was able to scope a project that provided value to a larger project team working with NETC on a multiyear project. A niche was clearly identified for the technical assistance team, and ETIPP partners filled that role while working as part of a multi-organizational interdisciplinary team. The primary output of the project created opportunities for national lab personnel to continue working with the community long after completion of the ETIPP project.

Key Takeaways

Complex problems typically require interdisciplinary teams to collaborate on a solution. Projects that involve multiple organizations with varied goals and objectives have a track record of negatively impacting community projects in Alaska. The ETIPP team was able to engage NETC’s project team and provide value without negatively impacting other project teams. This required dedicated efforts to coordinate between organizations and a commitment to reaching a consensus among the many subject matter experts working on the project. This spirit of collaboration between the project teams was noted by all parties as being repeatable and scalable for projects outside of Dillingham or Alaska.

Opportunities and Impacts

After Dillingham’s ETIPP technical assistance project concluded in December 2022, NETC embarked on a 2-year study of the economic and environmental impacts of the proposed run-of-river facility as part of the federal process for evaluating potential hydropower projects. NETC plans to input the results into the decision-making tool and to thoroughly evaluate the impacts of various scenarios. If the results show the project would positively affect the region by strengthening its energy resiliency and overall self-sufficiency while avoiding any impact on the subsistence fishery, then NETC will take steps to begin construction—keeping Dillingham’s regional stakeholders involved throughout.

Additional Information

Alaska’s Salmon Hub and U.S. Department of Energy Explore Hydropower’s Potential To Meet the Region’s Energy and Resiliency Needs, U.S. Department of Energy (2023)

Five Alaskan Entities Receive Technical Assistance From National Labs, Renewable Energy Alaska Project (2021)

Dillingham and Aleknagik To Receive Federal Assistance With Renewable Energy Projects, KDLG (2021)