Dan, Jonathan, and our team at WSCAT have done some pretty good work on the solar project. Dan worked to develop the plan for the Community Solar Project site, to determine what the configuration should look like, and how much it will cost.  Jonathan has worked with the CTWS Land Use Committee and former Tribal Council to ensure that the community solar project has moved through the correct processes, has gotten the right approvals, and that CTWS tribal leaders understand the goals and objectives of the project.  

I have been working with Dan to think about how we fund the Community Solar Project, and what the appropriate timing of the project will be. As I think you’re aware, we have decided to do three projects in the community.  The first project will be to put solar panels on the WSCAT building to offset all of our power costs.  As a nonprofit committed to sustainable community development, we have determined that it is important for us to complete a small, easily achievable project before we do the Community Solar Project, as a way of ushering in greater community knowledge of and a deeper community commitment to solar power.  We are cobbling together a funding package of small grants and tax credit funding for the WSCAT building solar project (about $80,000), and expect to have solar on our building by the end of this summer.  Our second project is the Commissary solar project (about $200,000), in which we will create a net-zero energy business incubator with office and retail space, a food cart pod with an outdoor pavilion, and a commercial kitchen (for community members interested in producing value-added foods for sale).  Dan, along with our pro-bono architectural partners (Hacker Architects, of Portland), have developed a plan for the Commissary site, utilizing elevated dual-axis solar trackers from an Ashland-based company called Stracker (https://strackersolar.com/).  Dan has also pursued a line of communication with the Stracker Corporation to potentially create a production facility on the Warm Springs Reservation, which is a federally recognized Enterprise Zone. We are applying this week for funding from Grid Alternatives’ Tribal Solar Accelerator Fund (TSAF), which will help us pay for the majority of costs on the Commissary solar project. We have also joined a national cohort with Pacific Northwest National Laboratories (part of the US Department of Energy) and will receive technical assistance on how to develop energy storage systems to enhance resilience if and when the power grid crashes (as it sometimes does in Warm Springs). I am optimistic that we will receive funding for and be able to complete installation on the Commissary site by next May. 

We intend to use these smaller projects (WSCAT building and Commissary site) to help build our staff capacity to manage solar projects, and to provide workforce training to CTWS tribal members interested in developing career skills in the solar energy field.  Because we’ve never done solar projects before, there is a bit of a learning curve for us, but we are adjusting and becoming more knowledgeable each day. Over the long term, as we move forward with the larger Community Solar Project, it is important for us to ensure that the financing package works and that it is manageable for us.  Over 95% of WSCAT’s current efforts are grant-funded and I (along our board) move cautiously in projects where large loans are involved.  We are also in a new political climate, in which a newly-elected Tribal Council came on board two months ago.  Some good news about the new Tribal Council – Jonathan was elected to the (11-person) council and was selected to be its Chairperson.  Also, Jim Mannion, the former head of Warm Springs Water and Power, was elected to the Council.  This means that the new Council has some folks on it who are visionaries and people who know about how to develop, implement, and manage energy projects.  This will undoubtedly serve us well as we move forward. 

We have utilized approximately $15,000 of the funding from your congregation to move the larger project forward and to develop our strategy.  The majority of funds have been used to fund Jonathan’s consulting work on the project, while a much smaller portion has paid for assistance from Dan and the Oregon Clean Power Cooperative. With Jonathan now serving on the Tribal Council, we are doing due diligence to ensure there is no conflict of interest issues with his continued work on the project.  We hope to bring him back into our planning process later on in the summer, or early fall.  We are excited to be moving forward with all of these projects and grateful to you for providing the resources that are helping us surge ahead.  We will keep you up to date on these processes as they move forward, and would be happy to host you and members of the congregation on a site visit.  

Best Regards

Chris Watson (he/him)

Executive Director