Community-owned Indigenous Solar for Diesel in Canada’s North

Source: David Dodge & Kay Rollans · GREEN ENERGY FUTURES · | November 19, 2020

Three Nations Energy project contributes to energy sovereignty

Green Energy Futures takes you to Fort Chipewyan where three nations have forged a unique partnership to build a 2.2 megawatt community-owned solar project that will replace 25% of the local diesel-generated electricity.

In an amazing project, three Indigenous Nations in northern Canada joined forces to build a 2.2-megawatt solar project to replace 25 per cent of the local diesel-generated electricity. What’s more, it’s completely community-owned.

Fort Chipewyan, a town in Northern Alberta, is well beyond the end of Alberta’s electricity grid. Historically, ATCO has operated a microgrid that used 100 per cent diesel-generated electricity.

Now, the local First Nations have worked with ATCO and the federal and provincial governments to create a new vision for low-carbon solar electricity. Together, they have built two solar projects to reduce the amount of diesel electricity used by the community.

An overview for Fort Chipewyan, an indigenous community made up mostly of people from the Athabasca Chipewyan and Mikisew Cree First Nations and the Fort Chipewyan Metis.

A portrait of Fort Chip

To get to Fort Chipewyan, you drive nearly to the end of the road and fly in a small plane from Fort McMurray, Alberta over the largest oilsands operations in the world, The flight also takes you over the mighty Peace-Athabasca Delta: the largest inland river delta in North America and one of the last places on Earth, along with nearby Wood Buffalo National Park with wild native bison and endangered whooping cranes.

Fort Chipewyan is an Indigenous community of about 1,000 people, most of whom are from the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (AFCN), the Mikisew Cree First Nation (MCFN), or the Fort Chipewyan Métis.

The Athabasca Chipewyan are Dene people; they and the Mikisew Cree fought over these lands many years ago. Today, they coexist in a beautiful community that is located on the shores of Lake Athabasca, an 8,000 km2 giant of a lake that spans two provinces in northern Canada.

All in all, it feels more like a coastal fishing village than a northern boreal community.

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