Communities in Hawaii & Alaska Alternate Concepts to Have interaction Residents in Vitality Transitions

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When the third cohort of Vitality Transitions Initiative Partnership Undertaking (ETIPP) communities was introduced in 2023, the inclusion of Molokai, Hawaii, caught the attention of Bri Gabel, a sustainability coordinator for the Metropolis and Borough of Sitka, Alaska. Sitka was additionally chosen for ETIPP, and Gabel noticed a possibility to infuse some current learnings from Molokai into Sitka’s ETIPP mission.

“I did my undergrad in Hawaii, and so I’ve at all times sort of seemed to Hawaii as inspiration for among the work that I do,” she mentioned. “There are lots of similarities between Alaska and Hawaii … lots of comparable challenges and prices related to having to ship all the things in.”

ETIPP combines technical experience from 4 nationwide laboratories with native data from regional companion organizations to assist island and distant communities pursue their vitality resilience objectives. Whereas this system, which is managed by the Nationwide Renewable Vitality Laboratory, has traditionally emphasised constructing connections between researchers, native organizations, and group members, it additionally offers a spot for communities which might be working to shift towards sustainable vitality programs to be taught from one another.

Though Molokai and Sitka have completely different renewable vitality objectives, they each view group engagement as a vital ingredient to achieve these objectives.

Molokai entered ETIPP with a Neighborhood Vitality Resilience Motion Plan (CERAP), which outlines 10 vitality tasks that have already got gone by a strategy of growing consensus throughout a number of stakeholders and secured group help. Sitka, which is embarking on its second spherical of technical help by ETIPP, is trying to choose renewable vitality choices primarily based on an ETIPP evaluation of future forecasted vitality demand.

Molokai has already established some profitable group engagement practices that Sitka hopes to emulate in its ETIPP mission.

“The work [Molokai had already done] was so much like the work that we’ll be doing with our present ETIPP work,” Gabel mentioned. “It was attention-grabbing to … see the place we may sort of construct off a few of their work or no less than not begin from zero.”

Assembly Neighborhood Members The place They Are To Increase Participation in Vitality Determination-Making

Sitka first joined ETIPP in 2021 with a give attention to exploring viable renewable vitality choices and conducting capability planning for future vitality wants. The group’s newest ETIPP mission will analyze and examine future forecasted vitality demand, accounting for elevated hundreds from heating electrification, electrical transportation, and different decarbonization applied sciences. The outcomes of the evaluation will assist Sitka match beforehand recognized renewable vitality alternatives to satisfy forecasted vitality demand.

In Molokai, constructing on the priorities specified by its CERAP, the island’s ETIPP mission will mannequin and assess the feasibility of photo voltaic vitality, determine renewable vitality sources to help vital infrastructure, and discover pumped hydropower as an possibility for vitality storage.

After reviewing Molokai’s plan on-line, Gabel’s workforce was impressed by not solely the varied group illustration mirrored within the doc but additionally the diploma of vitality training Molokai supplied residents in the course of the planning course of. Gabel mentioned Sitka needs to attract closely from Molokai’s method of weaving training and engagement collectively in Sitka’s ETIPP mission.

“We actually preferred that earlier than they even began asking a few of these greater questions, they actually tried to … improve individuals’s vitality literacy in order that they felt knowledgeable and had an understanding of what’s happening,” she mentioned. “So not simply talking at them, however really having a dialog.”

Gabel invited Leilani Chow, an vitality sovereignty program coordinator at Sustainable Molokai, to current a few of Molokai’s insights to Sitka’s Accountability Fee. Chow’s presentation highlighted strategies utilized in Molokai to construct group consensus and participation.

In Molokai, vitality planners began by asking group members how they wished to take part and what they noticed as obstacles to participation. After they heard “group fatigue” was one of many essential limitations to partaking in vitality planning, Chow’s workforce created engagement alternatives that had been extra handy for his or her goal members.

“We tagged onto different group occasions. We might get a sales space and provides individuals lemongrass tea and say, ‘Can I choose your mind actual quick about some vitality stuff?’” Chow mentioned. “They might spend 5 to 10 minutes with us after which they might go. They didn’t have to remain in a gathering. We had been actually conscious about protecting it brief and candy.”

Chow mentioned Molokai additionally took cues from group members about how they most popular to be taught extra about vitality and tried settings starting from Zoom conferences to pop-up occasions.

Everybody on Molokai is taken into account a stakeholder whose enter issues, Chow mentioned. However conducting thorough and methodical outreach helped them attain key teams together with first responders, emergency preparedness groups, vital infrastructure operators, conservation teams, and homestead associations.

Though the engagement course of was time-consuming, Chow mentioned the end result was price it.

“The group is tremendous excited to begin trying into these tasks. It’s simply made a good stronger case for community-led vitality planning, when communities codesign their tasks,” Chow mentioned. “These tasks present much more than simply vitality options; they supply general group options in a holistic method. [ETIPP has been] letting us lead on the group course of that we all know has labored for us and that we wish to proceed to strengthen.”

Creating Area for Neighborhood Voices To Lead Vitality Transition Discussions

Again in Sitka, pleasure and momentum are constructing across the group’s ETIPP mission, as effectively. The researchers and regional companions supporting Sitka’s ETIPP mission traveled to Sitka in December 2023 to higher perceive the group’s wants and what outcomes Sitka is anticipating from the mission.

“I do like that ETIPP is structured to have technical help specialists and group engagement specialists,” Gabel mentioned. “[It shows] an understanding that you really want each of these issues to ensure that these things to achieve success.”

There aren’t any assumptions that “simply because they’re vitality specialists, they know all the things they should know,” Gabel mentioned. “The most important problem has been attempting to let the group know that these specialists are right here to assist, however they’re not simply right here to talk to you—they’re right here to pay attention.”

Gabel mentioned she has been grateful for the ETIPP workforce’s vulnerability as they’ve labored with the group to finalize the mission’s scope of labor.

“Individuals [in Sitka] are very opinionated and anxious about a few of these issues, and so it’s not simple to return in right here and let individuals primarily grill you about what’s happening as a result of we have now to essentially construct that belief earlier than we really get going into a few of this work,” she mentioned. “The workforce has been nice, and I’m excited to truly get this [ETIPP project] scope finalized and transfer into the subsequent part of this technical help.”

Sitka is utilizing the group enter from the December 2023 assembly to finalize the main points of its ETIPP mission. And as each ETIPP tasks progress, Gabel mentioned Sitka hopes to return the favor to Molokai.

“I even have [Molokai’s] technique printed out and marked up like loopy,” Gabel mentioned, “and I undoubtedly allow them to know that we’d be glad to speak extra and sort of share some attention-grabbing finds from our preliminary ETIPP work.”

Go to the ETIPP technical help web page to be taught extra about this system and keep tuned in regards to the 2024 utility interval.

Courtesy of NREL. By Brooke Van Zandt