The U.S. Department of Agriculture has recently announced more than $100 million to aid the Navajo Nation in its green energy transition.
This investment from the Powering Affordable Clean Energy Program will finance solar-powered facilities and a battery energy storage system for the not-for-profit Navajo Tribal Utility Authority.
It’s supposed to generate more than 30 megawatts of renewable energy for its roughly 40,000 tribal customers in rural Arizona and New Mexico.
“We’ll be able to power about 13,000 homes each year,” said NTUA general manager Walter Haase. “So it allows us to have some power supply to connect up those families that don’t have service today.”
About 10,400 households still live without electricity on Navajoland. So not only will this federal funding help light up more homes, Haase explained it’ll make the entire electrical grid more reliable — meaning fewer power supply spikes.
“By having battery storage, we’re now able to supply that cost-effective economic power that’s produced during the day,” he added, “in those couple hours when the price is very expensive. That is a cost savings.”
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More than 56 million acres — nearly 3% of the U.S. landmass — belong to tribes. The Land and Water Conservation Fund has aided more than 47,000 projects, like parks and trails, in nearly every county nationwide.
