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Bipartisan INfrastructure Law

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Local First Arizona

The Hopi Tribe, with a reservation across 1.5 million acres in northeastern Arizona, is one step closer to energy independence. 

A $11.3 million solar project, made possible with a $9 million federal grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, will improve electricity access and affordability for the tribe. 

The project, expected to be operational within three years, will equip the Hopi Utilities Corporation with its own 1.25 megawatt solar microgrid. The grid will include battery storage, allowing the tribe to power its Turquoise Trail Municipal Complex, deep in the arid, red-hued desert of the Colorado Plateau, 24 hours a day.

As it stands now, the tribe only is able to run the buildings — housing critical services for the tribe such as its Incident Command Center, IT Hub, Department of Health & Human Services, Social Services and Solid Waste Department — for 8 to 12 hours per day, five days per week, utilizing diesel generators. Not only is the current system unreliable and expensive, but it also releases air pollutants that are harmful to health. 

Carroll Onsae, general manager for electric operations at the Hopi Utilities Corporation, said the project will improve reliability for municipal operations.

“The main problem is the blackouts and brownouts. Everybody notices it. We’re a small community, and everybody is working together, and we’re connected to one another,” Onsae said. “You can’t do business in places where they have no power. You’re hamstrung.”

Fletcher Wilkinson, energy manager for the Hopi Utilities Corporation, said the project will allow the tribe to maintain power for emergency systems throughout the night. 

“It’s causing issues with systems going offline,” Wilkinson said. “The goal is 24/7 power. And it’s a useful project to show how the Hopi Tribe could meet similar needs in remote parts of the reservation.”

$43 million for Hopi clean energy projects

Hopi members pay some of the highest costs in the U.S. to heat and generate electricity in their homes, a standing that became exacerbated following the 2019 closure of the Navajo Generating Station. The coal-fired power plant was responsible for nearly 90% of the tribe’s primary economic base.

To apply for the federal grant and bring the solar project to life, the Hopi Utilities Corporation partnered with Arizona State University and BoxPower, a solar microgrid company. 

BoxPower co-founder Angelo Campus has been captivated and motivated for years by the concept of energy sovereignty — or the ability for a community to independently determine how and where to generate the power its members need — particularly for tribal and rural areas where grid accessibility can be challenging. 

“Years in the making, here we are,” Campus said.

In total, the federal government has granted nearly $70 million in the past year to support clean energy projects on the Hopi reservation, including solar panels for hundreds of homes. The funding was made possible through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act passed by Congress and signed by the president.

A sovereign nation building its own energy sovereignty

Beyond affordability and accessibility, the solar microgrid project puts power literally in the hands of the tribe while making room for other benefits to the tribal community. It is anticipated that once the solar installation is completed, the tribe’s microgrid will be among the top three largest off-grid solar and battery systems in the country.

“It will actually be the grid. This is really important from an energy sovereignty point of view,” Wilkinson said. “The Hopi model for many years has been purchasing power from Arizona Public Service or buying diesel off the reservation. This project will mean energy is being produced on the reservation, and dollars are being kept on the reservation. That is total control for the Hopi Tribe, and that’s really important.”

ASU’s involvement was critical for the grant writing support, but the partnership also aligns with the school’s charter, which requires the university to take responsibility for the health and well-being of the communities it serves. 

Kristen Parrish, an associate professor at ASU’s School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, said she would welcome the opportunity to replicate this type of partnership to expand research and benefit the livelihoods of other communities.

“It is our responsibility to tell this story to try and empower other people to repeat it, not just the grant but operating it and training people,” Parrish said. “We have an entire year of the project just devoted to telling the story and letting people know what we’ve been doing.” 

Creating clean energy jobs

One critical component of the solar microgrid project is a commitment to train and hire locally, which presents an opportunity for up-skilling or re-skilling and additional jobs for members of the Hopi Tribe. It is a model that BoxPower has utilized on other Indigenous and rural projects with success. 

The project will pay local workers to attend training for solar installation and safety and then employ up to 19 local workers for temporary construction jobs and up to 12 newly trained solar microgrid construction workers, plus one long-term microgrid manager.

Creating jobs and putting the tribe on a path toward energy sovereignty will benefit all members of the community, Wilkinson said.

“Broadly speaking, this will result in energy savings for the tribe, and that will benefit the tribal programs that are working out of those offices,” he said. 

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, commonly called the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Biden in 2021. The law will invest billions of dollars in federal funding into rural infrastructure, disaster assistance, high-speed internet and more.