REAP: [2026 Fall Energy Speaker Series] Alaska’s Microgrid Innovators

All righty. Well, it's noon here on the dot, Wednesday, October 21st, 2026. Thank you all for joining us. We'll do the sort of normal song and dance of introductions and just orienting ourselves to the webinar before we dive in for the meat of the discussion with Peter and Gwen and Chris this afternoon. I do want to start as always with the land acknowledgement.

My name is Donovan. I'm working for REAP here on Dena'ina lands in Anchorage, and our organization works to promote the development of renewable energy and energy efficiency across Alaska. And so in that work to try and steward the resources and try to make our energy systems more efficient, really wisely use the resources available to us, we draw immense inspiration from the Alaska Native peoples who have stewarded these lands and waters and just really shown that leadership for time immemorial here. And so we want to just remember the lands that we're on and draw that inspiration into both this conversation this afternoon and the work that we do every single day. As I mentioned, I work for Renewable Energy Alaska Project.

Our founder, Chris Rose, is here on the call, as most folks are probably familiar with him. And I mentioned our mission. We're a staff now of 14 folks who work statewide across education, community engagement, workforce development, and then also policy, really driving or helping to promote the development of renewable energy and energy efficiency in Alaska. This webinar is the third or second of three fall energy speaker series webinars that we'll be hosting. So just want to remind folks that we'll have one more afterwards.

And if you derive value from the sorts of events that we host or the work that we do, please consider either joining us as a member or supporting us individually, or maybe even gathering with us at the Rural Energy Conference next week in Fairbanks. But today's discussion is focused on Peter's book on Alaska's microgrid innovators. And so really just want to hand it off to him in a second to moderate the discussion with two of his contributing writers for that book. But before I do so, just want to sort of introduce the trio in front of us this afternoon. First and foremost, we've got Gwen Holtmann, who's the founder and now chief scientist of the Alaska Center for Energy and Power in Fairbanks at the UAF.

And then, as I mentioned, we've got Chris Rose on the call as well, who's the founder and 22-year executive director of REAP. And then finally, we've got the book author, Peter, who's an energy consultant of 40 years, author of 5 books, and also former adjunct professor at ACEP in Fairbanks. So, really grateful to these three who are incredibly knowledgeable and also whose time is incredibly valuable for joining us this afternoon to speak about Alaska's microgrid innovators through the lens of the book that Peter just wrote and released. So, without further ado, I'll hand it off to Peter. And just a note for folks in the audience, please do introduce yourselves in the chat and log your questions for our panelists using the Q&A function.

So that we can just make sure that we address questions either live or during the final kind of 10 or 15 minutes. So I'll hand it off to Peter and we'll monitor those questions and make sure to get those answered. And take it away, Peter. Thanks, Donovan. Well, first of all, I want to point out that I wasn't actually— I'm actually the editor and sort of catalyst for pulling this book together.

So both Gwen and Chris actually wrote their own chapters. So I'm more sort of almost like the managing editor and, you know, sort of shepherded the book through a long process to finally, you know, it's finally actually here. So it took quite a while. But I am actually based in California. And what I used to always say to folks in Alaska, I live in a place in California that it's about as close to Alaska as you can get.

I live in a fishing village called Bodega Bay. Most people know about it because Alfred Hitchcock filmed The Birds here. But also it's right south of the Russian River where the Russians came down through Alaska into California and controlled— most people might not realize this— controlled, uh, California north of the Russian River, and Mexico controlled it up to the Russian River. So there's a little bit of similarity. Obviously, the climate's a little bit different.

But, um, this book is my fifth book, and before this book, I said I would never write another energy book, partially because I'd written three books The first one was more of a— was actually a Simon& Schuster book, was more about the role business played in solving environmental issues back in 1990, which was not the most common storyline, but 3 books about California. And so I was like, what else can I say about California? I'm kind of like done with it. But this opportunity came up and actually it started— I met Gwen at a conference of some sort. And at the time, I was an analyst, had a global database on microgrids, and I think Gwen said something to the effect like, "You don't have enough Alaska microgrids in your data," or something like that.

And I said, "Oh, really? Well, can you help me flesh that out?" And she did. And lo and behold, we discovered— and there are some definitional issues— that Alaska had more microgrids than any other state. In fact, basically everybody in Alaska gets their power from a microgrid. And for those who don't know what a microgrid is, it is like it sounds.

It's just a small grid. They can be not connected to the grid, which is most of the microgrids in Alaska, or they can be connected to the grid. So that's kind of the overview. Microgrid wasn't in the original title, but I put it in there because now microgrids are a super hot topic because of power outages, because of data centers, and a bunch of other stuff. So that's kind of my broad overview.

I did write the last chapter myself, which tries to tie all of the stories together. But I want to start with talking with Gwen. So Gwen's story is pretty interesting because Gwen moved to Alaska and lived the off-grid lifestyle. And she talks about, you know, living in this cabin. And I think Gwen might not have a refrigerator yet.

You can correct me if I'm wrong. But Gwen, I'm just wondering how So, that experience must have shaped— and then you talk about how you learned, you know, about energy at Chena Hot Springs and basically went on to create ACEP. But I'd like to start, like, when you first moved up to Alaska living that off-grid lifestyle. How did that kind of shape your view on energy in Alaska and energy in general? Yeah, thanks, Peter.

You know, I think I think that one thing that, you know, we often— everyone complains about the cost of energy, really, you know, it's just kind of different levels of how high your energy bills are, or you think they are. But when you live like completely off-grid, and I did for 20 years, the cost associated with producing your own power, cutting your own wood, hauling your own fuel, is like you have a totally different appreciation for actually how affordable our energy is when we're connected to a central energy system. You know, I spent a long time like working, you know, in those early years, just having an oil lamp, no cell phone, this kind of dates me, right? So like just being out in the woods with me, my dogs, chopping wood or chopping wood and then getting my water from a hole in the ice in a local creek and the amount of time that that takes, right? So it's not like cost as in dollars going out, but the amount of time that that takes is pretty incredible.

And I have to say, when I finally actually paid my first electrical bill to an electric utility for the first time, kind of being connected to the grid, so to speak, I was really happy about that. Like, that was like— I felt like— I felt, um, instead of being like connected to this system or like having like a yoke placed around my neck, I felt the opposite. I felt like sort of this freedom from like having to, um, deal with all these issues myself. And so like, that's just kind of— I think anyone that's ever really like lived off-grid or has had like a remote cabin where you're futzing around with your system, you know, batteries, solar, whatever that is, you know, you just know that there's time and effort associated with that, that we often have sort of come to really take for granted in our modern lifestyles that we've come to appreciate and enjoy and rely on, right? So it made me— I didn't start in energy at all.

I was planning to go into space physics. That was my plan. I had like this totally different career path. I was gonna I was gonna become a space researcher. And, but this off-grid lifestyle, I was actually working at a local, I was working on my PhD and working at a local rocket range, running this laser system and looking at the upper atmospheric phenomena and using like 2 megawatts of power when I turned this laser on.

And so this sort of dichotomy between, or this sort of like really schizophrenic lifestyle between using an oil lamp to read technical papers and then going and like using this 2-megawatt laser that could power 2,000 homes or something like that technically. It made me just really interested in these questions around energy. And so I just really switched my career field and focus to be related to energy, and it still is today. Well, that's true. And I don't know, maybe I'll go to Chris quickly about Chris, did you always want to get into energy, like when you were a little boy where you're going, "I want to grow up," or not?

I have a feeling not, but I don't know your story. Well, as I outlined a little bit in the chapter that I wrote, I'm kind of like Gwen. I started out with a different career path. I moved to Alaska in 1990 after growing up in the Midwest and then going to law school in Eugene, Oregon, and wanting to come to Alaska to practice environmental law and wound up moving out to Sutton, actually past Sutton, Alaska. So I wasn't really in the, in the mix of the legal community in Anchorage.

I started my own law practice in Palmer, and that's what I did for 12 or 13 years before I realized that everything that really— everything that's really important to me, which were economics, foreign policy, and the environment intersected on energy. And that's when I had kind of an aha moment to look around to see if anybody in Alaska was promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency. And that's kind of what was the beginning of REAP, Renewable Energy Alaska Project, getting off the ground back in 2004. So similarly to Gwen, I was on one career path and abruptly relatively speaking, shifted to something that I was passionate about, but I also saw a huge opportunity for Alaska to be a leader in renewable energy because it's so large, has so many different resources, and has high costs and great need. Right.

Well, I guess my story is the same. I started— I mean, I'm a journalist, and I mean, like, in high school I was the sports editor, in college I was the arts editor, and then I moved to California on a whim Had no job, just kind of headed west, young man, and ended up in— well, first I had a little— ended up in Sacramento, and then because it was the state capital, actually became an investigative reporter, and we computerized campaign contribution information. So that was sort of interesting, and then got into environmental issues, and then got into energy. And I almost quit after, you know, the first few weeks because of the acronyms. You know, that's one thing about this industry is everyone's just throwing out all these acronyms.

I remember recording every interview, then listening to them, and then like, what the hell are they talking about? But obviously, uh, I, I've stuck with it. But let's go back to Gwen. So part of your experience, as you talk about in your chapter— and here my dog's going to say hello before I put him in this little, little bucket here— um, is, um, your early experience at Chena Hot Springs and your idea for ACEP. Because I think you were kind of looking for some sort of support for your investigations, I guess we could say, which led to ACEP.

So why don't you tell a little bit of that story? Yeah, I mean, I kind of tripped around working in the field for a little while. I actually started looking at hydrokinetic energy and small hydropower, worked for a local business, wrote a guide to microhydropower for Alaska, things like that. And then I had the opportunity opportunity to go work out at Chena Hot Springs. Initially, I was doing some hydroelectric surveys of the property, and then I got kind of hired full-time because my conclusion for the owners was instead of looking at hydropower, what you really should look at is your geothermal resources.

But at the time, there had been studies done on it by the Department of Energy, and the conclusion had been that it was too low temperature and too small of a resource to be considered for power generation. But I didn't really know that or understand it. So I said, "You should really look at geothermal." They said, "Great, why don't you look at geothermal for us?" And so that's kind of when I started working there full-time. And that was a really cool opportunity for me as a young engineer. But I didn't know anything.

I mean, geothermal is a little bit different than a lot of the other renewables and the skills that you need to be able to do a true investigation around geothermal are completely different than what you would need for solar or wind. And so I kind of tapped the university quite a bit for those skills. You know, I needed hydrologists, I needed geologists. Remote sensing was a really big component of some of the research that we were doing out there. And then I had other projects going on too.

It wasn't just about the geothermal system. We were— well, also like logging wells. Like, how do you log a geothermal well? Like, if you have tons of money and equipment, that's kind of easy to do, but I didn't have money and I didn't have equipment. So I really tapped the university for kind of solving all these little problems I had.

Also for starting to develop greenhouses for local food production out there. I definitely don't have a green thumb. And so like, you know, the university was extremely helpful to me on figuring out like LED lighting and all kinds of different things. And so, you know, that's something that I think in a small state like Alaska, we need to work together. And we all have like different, you know, pieces of expertise and information and background that, you know, when we kind of come together and work collaboratively, we can really do amazing things.

And so, you know, really sharing that information and doing that and having like a resource like the university that can kind of be a repository for some of that is pretty important. But at the time, the university didn't really have an energy program that was like working specifically on community-scale energy research. It was, you know, more like coal or gas or things like that. And so I kind of worked with the university to start up this new concept for a program, basically completely from scratch, very much built it from the ground up. There wasn't like a big chunk of money or something like that.

But there were so many people that really agreed with my vision that we needed a central repository for expertise that could move all of us forward, and the university could kind of serve as that. And so, so I had that chance to kind of build up this program working with tons of people, including many of them that are represented in the book, over many years. And I'm pretty proud of the, the program that we as Alaskans have built. At the university supporting Alaskans in energy solutions. Yeah.

Right. Well, it's funny because you said, I think you said a small state like Alaska. So in one way Alaska is huge. But I remember, I think one thing you said early on to me is Alaska is the perfect place to be a big fish in a small pond. Or there's that saying where that just one individual or a collection can really get something done because some of the communities are small and they're tight.

You know, it's not like a suburb somewhere in the lower 48 where nobody knows their neighbors or etc. Like that. I mean, and that's kind of a stereotype, but so no, I know that's a pretty interesting story, but well, let's go back to Chris. So Chris, you know a lot of the people profiled in this book. We're calling them innovators.

Do you see any kind of like common traits that these folks have, Alaskan innovators? Let's focus on Alaskan innovators as opposed to any kind of generic innovator. Are there certain traits that stand out in your mind? Sure, a couple of them pop up right away. One is most of those folks had a vision.

They knew where they wanted to go and they executed it. And I think that's one of the things that the state needs to do. We can talk a little bit more about that hopefully later on, but the state needs an energy vision that they actually execute on and have the administrative capability to do so. A lot of these smaller utilities that were administered by people like Brad Reeve up at Kotzebue or Darren Scott at Kodiak Electric had boards of directors that shared a vision of where they wanted to take that utility, and then they had very capable and capable people like Brad and Darren to execute it. I think another trait that all those folks shared is risk-taking.

To do something that's different is a risk. And I think, you know, both Gwen and I took risks to change our careers. You know, I didn't have any financial backing when I started REAP either. I was quitting a law career. To start a nonprofit, which to some people sounded kind of stupid, but it made a lot of sense to me because I cared about what we were going to do.

And I think working collaboratively, as Gwen mentioned, is another one. REAP has definitely had that in their mission statement from the very beginning. It's a collection of stakeholders from across different perspectives and across different geographies that have gotten together over the last 20+ years to sit around the table and talk about different programs and policy visions that they might be able to bring to policymakers. So risk-taking and really being willing to take a vision and execute it are super important, and I see that throughout all the different people who wrote chapters in the book. Right.

So we're not going to be able to talk about all of the authors in the book. And I guess as someone who's kind of an outsider, so for me coming to the Alaska story, you know, it was kind of, I guess, kind of coming from a blank— not a totally blank slate, but, you know, kind of looking at it. And so my chapter kind of looks more like Alaska compared to the rest of the world. The opening chapter by historian Phil White is more sort of like Alaska within the US. Energy context.

But there was a person that wasn't in the original— oh, well, I was going to say is also this book is essentially a lot of oral histories because a lot of the folks profiled are now retiring, moving on. Well, Chris, you're now in Portugal, obviously, but— and Clay Copeland just, you know, moved on from his job in Córdoba. So I think the other value of this book is sort of capturing this time when the innovation was starting, and a lot of it is sort of decentralized innovation. What I always like to say to folks— I mean, what's amazing when I tell people the Alaskan story, I say there's 100 different utilities in Alaska, and the total population would often be served by one large investor-owned utility in the lower 48. And so that's where— and a lot of the most radical innovation, my initial concept was, you know, there's grid-connected microgrids, there's off-grid connected microgrids.

Well, some of the most radical innovation are these remote systems where people just have to make things work. You know, you have no other grid to bail you out. But one person I was getting to is Diane Carpenter, who I believe, passed away, and so that's one person in the book where she was a last-minute addition. I think Gwen suggested it and Carolyn, who helped out with some of the writing. And so maybe Gwen, why don't you talk just a little bit about Diane Carpenter?

Because she talks about the very— after the— well, there's the opening and then there's your story, and then we have Diane Carpenter, sort of the very early days of bringing electricity to Alaska. Yeah, thank you, Peter. It's actually really timely because last, last night we just inducted Diane into the Alaska Women's Hall of Fame, and that was like a really, really, really cool event and a cool opportunity to share some, some stories about her. She's like a lot of these folks that are in this book where they're never like really looking for for self-aggrandizement, right? This was just really about a mission, about trying to, like, accomplish or solve a local challenge.

And in her case, you know, she came to Alaska, I think, in 1955 with her husband, who was a dentist. They moved out to the Bethel area and then to a little village called Stony River. And she— the way I came across her is that I was doing a lot of research on early the story of early Alaska rural village electrification. I was really interested in this. I'm an engineer by training, but I really believe that we need to preserve our history and like how, you know, people have faced these sorts of challenges and making sure that we're not kind of losing that, you know?

And so as part of my research, I spent a lot of time in the state archives in Juneau and really studied like this history of rural electrification, especially around the formation of the Alaska Village Electric Cooperative, cooperative. And Diane had written all of these extremely, like, compelling letters, like, just these beautifully voiced letters. You could tell that they were, like, written on a— or typed out on a home, you know, an old-fashioned, you know, typewriter. And I just pictured her out in Stony River. She always signed them as, like, housewife, right?

And I just found that that was, like, in itself, like, really interesting, right? These super articulate letters Sign: Housewife, Stony River, Alaska. So, you know, after like having spent a lot of time with these letters and kind of like thinking about the challenges that they were facing, because she was just basically advocating for how electrification would like change the lives of the people that lived in these villages, like how important it was for these communities to receive access to electricity and for And so, folks that aren't that familiar with it, the Rural Utility Services at that time was really the vehicle and cooperatives. And this is why we have a lot of cooperatives in Alaska, cooperative utilities, like basically for electrifying rural parts of the US. But rural Alaska was kind of a whole different beast because these communities are so small, so remote.

And at the time there wasn't that much of a cash economy. Question around repayment of loans to the rural utility services was a huge barrier to overcome in terms of actually electrifying rural Alaska. That required the formation of the Alaska Village Electric Cooperative. Diane was on the initial board that formed AVEC, which many of us are familiar with. And but then she's gone.

Like, after that, like, her thread goes dark because the board was structured, or the utility, after it was initially organized, the goal was that for the people that served on the board to actually live in the communities that were being served. And she lived in Stony River, and they already had access to electricity because she'd already worked to get generation out there. And so her thread just went dark in, like, the history of rural Alaska electrification. So I kind of Googled her name online, as one would do, right? And I was like, I wonder what happened to her, because she just was such an interesting— she had such an important voice in all of this.

And I find out she'd just written a book at like age 90. She just published a book. I ran to the local bookstore, got the only copy they had of it, read it all night. It was like amazing. And nowhere in there does she talk about the efforts she made around rural electrification.

Like zero, zero, nothing. She talks about, you know, electrifying Stony River, but like nothing about all this effort around AVEC, but she talks around all these other things she did around community organizing. She was a pilot, a woman, female pilot in the '50s. She was a schoolteacher. She did all these amazing things.

And apparently rural electrification was just one little side project she had going on over here, right? And so I was able to reach out to her through her editor, through her publisher, and found out she was still alive. She was in Alamos, Mexico. And it was very serendipitous because she was actually working on organizing all of her papers related to the rural electrification story. And one of the reasons why she had left that out of the book is because she always intended to tell that story separately.

And so we actually wound up hiring her as a faculty member at UAF at the age of 91, so we could work on this project to organize all of her materials and files and digitize them. And get them placed in the library up here so that everyone has access to those, that amazing part of our history. And that's going to be made available pretty, pretty soon. So we might have to do a whole nother one of these events to celebrate that because that history is so important and in some danger of being lost because a lot of our innovators are retiring and leaving and, you know, sadly passing away. And Diane did pass away.

I got a chance to go down and visit her in Alamos, spent a bunch of time with her and being able to hear directly from her some of those stories. And so that was pretty special to me, and I want to continue to share those with others as well. Yeah, no, that's— I'm so glad that you suggested adding her to the book. So we've had a question or two, and one of them is, does the book Alaska Migrant Innovators touch on the challenge of fish safety when considering hydrosystems such as run-of-the-river systems? And that's an interesting point because we should point out there are two Indigenous voices in the book, Alexander Salmon and Ed Byfeld, and the one that's relevant to this question is the community of Iggyagi, who has, as you mentioned, hydrokinetic technologies.

And actually, my first report as a research analyst was on hydrokinetic technologies, and I was supposed to forecast the market growth, which was like That's a whole other story. It was kind of like impossible and kind of a mind— but what's interesting about the story is the community, only 70 people, a utility that serves only 70 people, everybody does basically everything, but they use their indigenous wisdom because that river is the salmon— you know, the salmon in that river will have been their historical livelihood. So they knew at certain times of the year the salmon swim at a certain level in the river and at other times of the year. And so the hydrokinetic device can move up and down seasonally to limit. And as far as I know, they have not had any major issues with fish kills.

So that's just one example, and that's a very inspirational story, the story of, of Igiagi. So, well, let's go back to Chris. So, you know, a lot of the The story of Alaska is the innovation, sort of a decentralized, you might say a bottoms-up approach, individual communities, certain people with their specific skills. Cordova, I've talked about probably more than any other of the utilities. But Chris, you're a policy guy, so I guess the question is, I should say also the book is kind of 3 parts.

There's the first part, which I guess is kind of you could say like the early years, then the middle part are 4 community profiles. You've mentioned Kotzebue, Kodiak, Igiagi, and then, um, oh gosh, now I'm— or Cordova. And then the last part is sort of more looking into the future, looking at the rail belt grid, um, and of course that's where your chapter comes in, Chris. So what do you think Alaska has to do to kind of take it to the next level as Obviously, the world out there, there's— well, before, you know, this— we wrote a lot of this book before there was the war in Ukraine, or at least it wasn't really picked up, the war in Iran, and other climate change issues. So, Chris, what do we got to do next?

Well, Alaska definitely has some challenges in the sense that it is a relatively new place. The infrastructure is new.

The state's only one year older than me. A lot of policies have not been developed yet, but there's— there really is no reason why a state like Alaska can't leapfrog. Whenever a place sees a technology or policy inspiration from another place, it has the ability to not necessarily go through all the effort that was necessary to get those innovations done in other places and move forward.

And get to a place where others are already. As you mentioned, I moved to Portugal last year, and this grid is 71% renewable electricity for over 10 million people. And that's because they operate this whole place as an integrated grid. And that's one of the issues that the rail belt really faces is that it is not operating as an integrated grid. And it's, it's something that I think is born out of the fact that when we started developing electrification in Alaska, it was a great big deal to have all these different utilities set up in places like the Kenai Peninsula and Fairbanks and Anchorage.

But over time, as roads connected those places, transmission Connected them, the internet connected them. Um, we haven't necessarily in the rail belt moved forward as fast as we could have to operate the entire place in a unified fashion. Um, we also have nonprofits, which sometimes is a really great thing and sometimes provides a different set of incentives. Uh, we don't have a lot of private developers or competition in the rail belt. And the reason why the Rail Belt is so important is because most of the people live there.

It's where most of the support for rural Alaska comes from. It's where a lot of inspiration and support could continue to come from for the rest of the state. And so I think without some kind of a policy vision that is executed and enforced by the state, Alaska is going to lag behind where they could be. And I think one of the other things that's really been kind of a blessing and a curse for Alaska is all the fossil fuel we've had. At first, it was really cheap, and it kind of lulled people into complacency and one way of doing things.

And the rail belt right now is still about 80% reliant on natural gas for making electricity, almost 100% for heat. And that's really a problem now that natural gas is in short supply. It's getting a lot more expensive. There's a world market for it. And I think as everyone knows who reads the papers, the utilities are now talking about importing LNG, which is— was totally predictable, talked about for 10 or 15 years, and now seems like it's a surprise and an emergency when there could have— there could have probably been actions taken earlier on to avoid that.

So I think We really need to consider looking at what other folks are doing around the world, just as they have looked at what Alaska has been doing and taken inspiration from some of our microgrids, but in particular emphasis on, on the rail belt and what it can do to support the rest of the state. We need to have competition. We need to have the state put some effort into administering this, and we don't have a Department of Energy. We call ourselves an energy state, but Alaska doesn't have an energy division. We've got an Alaska Energy Authority that doesn't really have a lot of policymaking horsepower.

We've got a Regulatory Commission of Alaska that also does not have a vision to execute. So we've got pieces, but they're kind of at misalignment. And so I think aligning those pieces around a vision, as I mentioned before. I think that's what a lot of this innovation is behind, and then executing it. And so far, it appears that the utilities have not been able to do that execution on their own, and so some kind of state policy looks to be necessary to make that happen, and that's not uncommon.

Most states that have really succeeded in renewable energy innovation have had state policy that has has really enforced that kind of movement and technological innovation going forward. Yeah, no, it's very interesting to hear that. Of course, I reside in a state in California which is often held up as the state with too much regulation, or I remember we are the only state that has two commissions. We have a California Public Utilities Commission and then we have a California Energy Commission, Energy Commission came in later and was more focused on siting issues, environmental issues, but they used to clash. One would do a forecast of load growth and then the other one would do its forecast and then they'd argue for a while.

So there's that kind of extreme example. But no, I think the book towards the end does talk about also Alaska is very dependent on grants, and it's understandable why that is given, you know, the economic conditions and especially in some of the rural places. But there's people like Kai Holland and some other folks from Launch Alaska that, you know, talk about, you know, got to figure out some ways to bring in the private sector in creative ways. So I don't know, Gwen, what do you think about Alaska's future? What's your two cents worth or three cents worth on what has to happen?

Well, I mean, I actually completely agree with Chris, you know, first of all, that there is a role for policy. We do, we do need a more, a more kind of, kind of come to consensus around what we're trying to accomplish. And then working together, you know, I think one thing about this book that I really like is it gives us a challenge, or a chance, I guess, to kind of also pat ourselves on the back. Like, we've done some amazing things as Alaskans, and we actually have been like a leader, like we talked about with like renewable— renewable integration of renewables on microgrids. You know, we've done quite a lot in some of these areas.

We've been able to innovate and be at the cutting edge when we need to be. But, you know, yes, right now I think that there are— there is some policy that we need to kind of keep us moving forward. And finding ways that we can continue to collaborate so we don't have a lot of bifurcation, like people going in different directions. That's where we don't make progress. One of the reasons why I think REAP was such an instrumental and key organization when it was founded is because it was able to bring all these disparate voices and organizations together around a common, agreed-upon mission, which at that time, and still is, the development of integrating more renewable energy resources.

Resources in the state. And we were able to bring every— and I say kind of we because I was involved with REAP from the beginning as well— but we were able to really bring everyone together around a common consensus. There was different reasons why, like a utility or another person might want to move in that direction, but we agreed on the direction we were moving and we agreed on the policy we needed to get there. And that was a really successful approach. And I would like to see us really try to double down on that again in the future instead of going off on different directions where you've got a cluster over here working on something and this group's working on this and another group's over here.

We need to bring our voices back together and listen to one another and really come to consensus about the state that we are trying to build moving forward and also recognize there's a lot of young voices at the table that are coming with their own ideas. Donovan, you and others, you know, that, that aren't part of this old cohort of like me and Chris. And, and so we have to be open-minded and realize that the solutions that we see moving forward might look a little bit different than the ones that we had designed, you know, a decade ago or more. And so that's what I really want to see is people kind of coming together around consensus-driven policy development. And every avenue that we have to do that strengthens us and our voices as a state.

Okay, I agree with that. And one thing that I'd like to add to that, and this, this isn't an area of weakness for the state and not just energy, but education and other areas, the legislature has no professional staff for any committees except the finance committees. So the institutional knowledge at the Finance Committee, which is required by our state's constitution to pass a budget every year, is really, really important. There are people who have staffed those finance committees down in Juneau for years and years, and they know the budget process inside and out, and that's how the legislature can actually pass a budget every year. But there is no institutional knowledge in the state legislature for any of these other committees that is there every year, year in and year out, which means that, you know, if you've got some really good staff people on the Energy Committee one year, but they decide to go work somewhere else, then you've lost all that.

And it's the same for, like I said, all these other issues that the state bases. And so I think the state has to invest a little bit up front in some of these institutions so that we are able to do the work that I think Gwen and I and other people really like to see done in the state, so that when those voices come together, there's some kind of institution there that can help move it forward. No, that's a good point. I think soon we might try to open up to questions, I would say, you know, the other thing from my outsider perspective, and I did some work while I was still there on, you know, data centers is the hot topic out there. And of course, Cordova has tried to do kind of a micro data center, but there are some physical infrastructure limits.

Like I remember, you know, you would think in some ways Alaska, everyone thinks it's the middle of nowhere. I shouldn't say everyone except people in Alaska, but you know, Anchorage, Alaska. But if you look down on it, it's close to Asia. So theoretically you have free cooling for a data center. So at some point, but you need the fiber optic connections.

I helped write a report on geothermal for a forthcoming DOE report, which I don't know when it's gonna come out, but there's amazing geothermal resources, but they're not close to where the people are, except China Hot Springs is an example, and that's a low temperature resource. So there are physical sort of limitations as to what Alaska can do, but there's still a lot that it can do to innovate. So I think, I don't know, Donovan, are we ready to open it up to other questions?

Peter, I'd like, while we're waiting for other questions to come in, I'll just reflect on that comment if that's okay. Yes, reflect away. I don't necessarily have a strong perspective on data centers, but I can say this, like another thing I've really worked a lot around the Arctic and looking at other nations and their approaches because, you know, as has been said before, there's always things we can learn from other places. I was just on a phone call this morning with a minister from Nunavut talking about nuclear for communities in the Arctic, for example. But Iceland, which a lot of folks that know me hear me talk about Iceland all the time.

But I just want to say, like, one of the ways that they have, you know, 100% essentially renewables there for both heat and power, in addition to very inexpensive electricity, about 10 cents a kilowatt hour for residential customers, less than that for commercial consumers, despite being a smaller place than the rail belt system is in Alaska, is that they sell 5 times more power, and that is going to commercial customers. And so they're able to spread those fixed costs across more kilowatt-hour sales. That brings the cost down. That allows more economies of scale in the projects they can develop. And those are the kinds of things that we should be thinking about as Alaskans.

When I talk about coming together around, you know, what we're trying to accomplish, I'm not going to say that we want a bunch of data centers in Alaska because I have very mixed feelings about that. But that does have the potential to be that sort of a potential baseload customer that could allow us to build out additional generation, that could allow us to get toward this renewable future and a lower-cost energy future for folks. Here in Fairbanks, we're paying more right now than almost every single rural community once PCE is applied. You know, we're paying 37 cents a kilowatt hour for residential consumers, and we're burning more diesel fuel here Anchorage today than all of rural Alaska combined. So we need, we need to get, we need different solutions across the state and figuring out how industry can help support those different solutions rather than just be like, you know, something that we're afraid of is part of that conversation, I think.

Yeah, and I've been doing a lot of work on data centers where some of your arguments about what Iceland did, actually people are echoing that in a sort of different way in the lower 48, and, you know, where they can help lower costs if it's done— if it's done right. But in a lot of cases, it hasn't been done right, and now there's a big pushback against it. So, well, Donovan, do we have questions you want to select? I saw some in the Q&A. But they seem to mainly be coming from one person.

I shouldn't laugh, but is there— how do you want to do this? Yeah, well, we've got a good group of questions. If you scroll down, there's a number from a diverse group of people. I did maybe just before diving into the questions too, I just taken a look at who all is even just on the webinar. Like I know Connie Fredenberg, for example, who is another contributing author to the book.

Yes. And something that struck me is, you know, innovation off or Oftentimes I, when I hear the word innovation, think first and foremost technological innovation, and certainly that there's, you know, a through line in the book around like new technologies that are being adopted in various communities across Alaska. But I think you guys have really done a good job of also expressing that innovation can be done in various different ways. Like you've called out those technological innovations, the structural innovations of starting an outfit like ASAPR or an organization like REAP, you know, policy innovations. One thing though, just knowing that Connie's in the audience too, is like process innovations.

Like her and Clarissa contributed a chapter on like bringing billing innovations to Alaska's small microgrid communities too. So I just think like in the ethos and sort of like the spirit of bringing folks together and like having these conversations and sharing both information and inspiration, there's all sorts of innovation. And so within like our different focus areas. There's a lot of inspiration to be drawn from the folks who've been doing this for a while and bringing that into our everyday. But yeah, I think maybe, hopefully you do— I mean, you answered one of the questions live, Peter, so I think you can add to that.

Yes, yeah, and I'm glad you brought up Connie because I thought in some ways that was one of the more interesting chapters about prepaid electricity and how do you make a viable utility work in these remote communities when collecting bills from relatives or whatever. I mean, there's the beauty of a small community, the pros, then there's like, oh, well, are you gonna shut off Uncle Joe because he didn't pay his bill on time? So that was one of the more interesting chapters. So I see a few questions. One here I see from Rebecca Braun, who actually also helped out with this book.

Do any of you see a way we can avoid natural gas imports for the rail belt What would that require? It sounds like a question for Chris. Well, I'll take a shot at it. I'm sure Gwen has an opinion as well. The— and Tom DeLong from Golden Valley just made a comment in the chat about how the policy for the rail belt utilities is set by the boards.

And it's the boards of these rail belt utilities, not the CEOs, who really set the direction. For those utilities. The problem we've had historically in the rail belt is we've had many utilities and many visions that don't always align. And for example, Golden Valley doesn't use natural gas. I think they'd like to, but they don't.

So they're kind of out of that conversation, whereas the southern utilities have relied on it.

From what I'm hearing and reading, I think it's very unlikely that the utilities that have relied on natural gas in the Southern Rail Belt are going to have any other opportunity to replace that natural gas but for importing it. We are seeing right now, uh, and STAR talking about shortages this coming winter depending on how cold it is. So we're, we're now, you know, in a, in a period where we definitely have a shortage of gas in south-central Alaska. And of course, heating, with the winter coming up, is a primary focus for using that gas. And what we have been saying for some time at REAP is, let's displace a lot of that gas we're using for generation of electricity and save that and have that on hand.

So when we do have a cold winter, we have it for heating. So unless there's some major gas discovery that none of us know about, can get online fast enough, I unfortunately don't think that we're going to see that kind of replacement. And of course, the concern then is, do we get into a longer-term contract with LNG that continues to kind of keep us from looking hard at some of the renewable opportunities the rail belt certainly has, particularly if, as Gwen pointed out, we get economies of scale and we do projects together. But then again, that requires the utilities to work together on bigger projects and transmission and all that. And, and we need a mechanism to work together more efficiently in that.

Gwen, you want to add anything to that? I mean, I guess all I'll say is like, I don't see any way that we can avoid that. I mean, I think long term we want to move away from our reliance on natural gas, but it would behoove us also to just have that as an option, but certainly for heating. It's going to be much more difficult to, to reduce our reliance on natural gas. And the idea of importing it in the near and midterm seems pretty unavoidable while we're working on other solutions.

But there's right now, again, it's this thing about coming together. We've got 3 competing proposals for importing natural gas that utilities are spending lots and lots of time and dollars on, you know, looking at. And we need to kind of come together around like some consensus around these things instead of all going off on our own in our own direction. And so, so that's something that, that I'd like to see happen more. And that's where I think political leadership can really come to the table.

You know, a new governor, a new legislature, you know, they have an opportunity here to knock heads around a little bit to the extent that that's needed and get us all on a— get the ship sailing in a consistent path, you know. So,. Yeah, absolutely necessary. All right. I could maybe help.

There's a few in here on a similar topic. One begins with a statement and then melds into a question that's related to another. So, just to read them both together. There's great examples of fish-friendly hydro in Southeast, whether in Cake, Hoonah, Angoon, Juneau, Skagway, or Haines. This question says, could you please describe how lake tapping and fall-stranded rivers provide abundant hydro without endangering salmon?

There's another in here as well. As to fish protection in hydroelectric generation. I understand the Terror Lake Hydro Project in Kodiak created a fishery. Its turbulent water flowing at the same temperature year-round provided for the fish. So, maybe just— and that's like a, you know, that's another innovation in terms of deployment of a specific technology.

So, any comments related to fish-safe hydro and those examples in Alaska communities? Well, as noted, I mean, most of the hydro in the Rail Belt is lake tap. So we've been doing that kind of fish-safe hydro in the rail belt for a long, long time. I mean, I think this is something— some of these technologies, and there's questions about technological innovation. We have to realize that there have been lessons learned.

So some of these technologies that are ones that we've used for a long time and that we've identified challenges around, large hydro and nuclear, Anchorage would be two examples of that. Things have evolved and changed over time. We've figured out ways to build hydro in ways that protect fish populations better. I don't think anybody wants to do anything that really harms our fisheries in this state, but hydro is something that I think that we can and should be looking at. It also qualifies right now for continued investment tax credits from the federal government.

So right now, up to 50% of the capital costs associated with a hydroelectric project could be reimbursed. And so those are the kinds of things we should be taking a strong look at, and we should be open-minded, right? The question is, in terms of fish, it shouldn't be no hydro, no way, never, but it should be what are the trade-offs and how can we do the most to protect our environment, including our fish. So, I mean, that's sort of the way, the way I see it anyway.

I see one question here. I'm interested in using batteries with Anchorage city buildings for peak shaving to reduce demand charges. Oops, hold on here. How have you seen batteries used in microgrids in Alaska, and what trends do you see? I guess I'll just say, you know, using batteries for peak shaving is very common down here where I live.

That's an increasingly popular way to reduce demand charges. I think in terms of microgrids, they're— well, we mentioned Kodiak Island. That's 99% renewable, and the reason they can get there, as Darren Scott describes, they have 3 layers of storage. First of all, they use hydro. A traditional hydro dam, then they have lithium-ion batteries, and then they have a flywheel because they have a crane that's like a 2-megawatt crane that once it comes on can totally wreak havoc on that small grid.

But they've somehow integrated that flywheel, which is a form of storage that just puts short bursts of energy. It's sort of the opposite end of a hydro dam. And so by using those three forms of storage, that's why they are able to reach that high penetration renewables. But Gwen or Chris, you want to comment something about batteries in Alaska? I think the demand charges are really hurting a lot of commercial industry in Anchorage.

I just had a conversation with somebody about this the other day. And if you can shave your peak through the use of batteries and/or your own rooftop solar, it really makes a big difference. And the other thing that's coming on that a lot of people are already starting to look at is vehicle-to-grid capability so that your electric vehicle becomes a battery storage device, a much, much bigger battery than most people would be putting at their own homes, you know, a 60, 70, 80-kilowatt-hour battery. And that is starting to happen in parts of the world, and we'll see if it happens in the United States as quickly as it has in other places. Well, on that last point, I just read an article this week where it is being offered where I live, where the utility is now providing incentives and they teamed up with GM with some of their cars.

So yeah, it's also the whole idea of bidirectional chargers. You don't just charge your EV, you know, you can just discharge. And the batteries in EVs are typically bigger. I have a solar battery system, but if I had an EV, the battery would be bigger. Than the battery I have installed.

So that is— and then you think about buses and the size of those batteries and the fact that buses have a schedule that you know when that battery is parked. So there's a lot of really interesting stuff happening with what we call like mobile batteries, I guess you could call them. Right. We do have 4 minutes left, so maybe we have time for one more question. I also do want to just upvote what Gwen shared in the chat and we can link and follow resources as well, but Gwen's got an incredible podcast, award-winning podcast on energy stories from across Alaska.

And so I would definitely promote and encourage everybody to go in to check out Closing the Gap. I'll also say too, just on the topic of this book, Gwen is among speakers who will be continuing this conversation about Peter's book at a UAF-hosted event next Monday night in Fairbanks. So I'll share the link to that event in the chat here, which is before an event that REAP and some partners are hosting with some films about community energy and just another flavor on like innovation and rural Alaska communities later on that evening. So the hope is maybe folks could go to the ACEP event first and then come over, but did want to, especially for this audience, share that link to ACEP's event going on next Monday night as well. But maybe one more time for a final question, Peter, and then we could wrap up here.

Well, there is a question about long-duration energy storage. Who in the state is investigating the adoption of long-duration ocean energy storage? I don't know, Gwen, is someone looking into that? Well, I mean, there's several flavors of that, right? That's true.

There was discussion of a pumped thermal energy storage system that Westinghouse developed at Golden Valley, and MEA were looking at for a while. It did not come out as being cost competitive based on the energy resources we had to sort of charge the battery, right? Pumped hydro is the biggest source of long-duration energy storage in the US. I think a lot of people don't really think about that. That's also been considered.

But things like dammed hydro are a great source of stored energy as well. So it's not necessarily that you're pumping the water up, but that you're dispatching it when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining. So just conventional hydro can serve some of that purpose as well in terms of long-duration energy storage. Right. And I did want to just add that I'll actually be in Alaska next week, both at the event on Monday and an ACEP reception at the— it's the auto museum.

Was it the Fountainhead? Is that what it's called? Yeah. Yes. Auto museum on Tuesday night.

So I'm looking forward to coming up. I even ordered some long johns. So we'll see. Hey, Peter, I want to address a question that I saw Ingemar post a few minutes ago. Oh, okay.

About the book itself, like, is the book out? Where can people get it? How, how can folks get their hands on this book? Well, you can go to Amazon, but it just officially came out last Thursday, actually. There's also an online version which actually has color photographs.

We didn't mention that this book includes a lot of historical photographs, some great pictures of Gwen holding some tomatoes from a greenhouse, and, and some great pictures of Chris kind of overlooking a river valley kind of contemplating, you know, the future. But there are color photos on the online version, and that's a little— if some, I guess these days, didn't realize they released books online. Well, we'll have them. We'll have like 25 copies up in Fairbanks, right? Yes, we will.

And it's University of Alaska Press, which is actually University of Colorado Press. I guess it's a subset. So if you Google Alaska Microgrid Innovators, University of Alaska Press, that will also bring you up and you can choose whether you want the hardcover or the online version. Yep, and I just dropped the link in the chat, but we'll have that linked in our follow-up. Thank you three again.

Really, really appreciate you spending the time with us this afternoon to share your insights and really encourage folks to go and grab a copy of that book, whether physical or digital. It's, it's an amazing resource and there's a lot of really inspiring stories in there. So thank you all for joining us this afternoon. We've got one more speaker series webinar coming up in the series, so keep an eye out via email or social media for an announcement with that. But it is 1 on the hour here, so we want to let you go back to your busy days and just thank you all for spending your afternoon with us and hope to see some folks in Fairbanks for the Rural Energy Conference next week.

Thanks, everyone. Bye-bye.