Bonneville Environmental Foundation Helps Make Wind Energy Project a Reality for Nome, Alaska
Bering Straits and Sitnasuak Native Corporations partner with Bonneville Environmental Foundation to help finance the area’s first commercial wind farm
Portland, Ore. – September 18, 2008 – The Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) today announced an agreement with the Bering Straits and Sitnasuak Native Corporations that creates a new wind energy project to help Nome, Alaska become less dependent on fuel oil, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The 900-kilowatt Banner Wind project is a joint venture between Bering Straits Native Corporation (BSNC) and Sitnasuak Native Corporation (SNC). The project will use 18 Entegrity wind turbines installed by Western Community Energy, the project developer. Electricity from the project will be sold to the Nome Joint Utility System.
Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) committed significant funding to purchase the Banner Wind project’s carbon offsets – a green power product that BEF offers to utilities, commercial customers, and individuals around the country.
“BEF’s funding was a key part of making this project happen, and keeping the price of energy down,” said Jerald Brown, vice president of BSNC. “Their aspirations as a non-profit – to bring harmony to the relationship between humans and the earth—are consistent with our own mission: ‘To improve the quality of life of our people through economic development while protecting our land, and preserving our cultural heritage.’”
“This is a great example of a community taking charge of its own energy independence,” said Margaret Gardner, CEO of BEF. “It’s an honor to be associated with the project.”
Currently, the local electricity grid in Nome is served by diesel-powered generators, with the exception of a small solar system installed at Bering Straits Native Corporation’s headquarters. Energy from the new wind farm will reduce Nome’s reliance on diesel, replacing it with renewable energy.
Revenues from the operation of the wind farm will be shared equally between the two partners and include the stipulation of dedicating 50 percent of the profits to the development of renewable energy projects in the villages around Nome. Selling the energy will provide savings to the utility to help lower energy costs in the Nome area. The project also provides some energy produced locally that is not dependent on imported oil.
About Nome, Alaska
Located on the south shore of Alaska’s Seward Peninsula, 500 miles west of Fairbanks and 510 miles northwest of Anchorage, Nome is the center of the Bering Straits/Seward Peninsula region, providing retail, transportation, medical and government services to city residents and the surrounding villages. It is dependent on fuel oil for both home heating and electrical energy. As a hub community, all goods to the region are transported via air or seasonal barge service from Anchorage and Seattle, Wash. There is no road access to Nome or the surrounding villages. As of the 2000 U.S. Census, the population of Nome is 3,505 with a regional-based population estimated at 11,300 with unemployment at 12.1 percent.
About Bering Straits Native Corporation
Bering Straits Native Corporation (BSNC) was formed in 1972 as a regional Alaska Native Corporation for 6,333 shareholders. The Bering Strait's region encompasses the majority of Alaska's Seward Peninsula and the coastal lands of eastern Norton Sound. BSNC owns and manages nearly 2 million acres of subsurface estate of land selected by 17 village corporations in the region.
About Sitnasuak Native Corporation
Sitnasuak Native Corporation (SNC) is the largest of the 16 village native corporations in the Bering Strait Region and was established in 1973. SNC is headquartered in Nome, Alaska and serves 2,564 shareholders. SNC will receive surface rights to 243,000 acres of land. It has received interim conveyance to surface estate of 190,696 acres of land and has received patent to additional surface estate of 43,487 acres.
About Bonneville Environmental Foundation
The Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF), a Portland, Ore.-based nonprofit organization, was established in 1998 to further the development and use of new renewable energy resources and restore watershed ecosystems. Through revenues generated from the sale of green power products, BEF funds projects that support new renewable energy from solar, wind and biomass and restore damaged watersheds. Revenues generated from its sales of BEF Offsets (formerly known as Green Tags) directly support new watershed restoration and renewable energy projects.
