A major goal for outage-prone tribal communities is energy resilience through the deployment of microgrids and renewable energy. They’re also looking to take control of their energy future and lower their energy costs.

The U.S. government is stepping up to help tribes achieve these goals. 

The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Loan Programs Office recently announced a conditional commitment under the Tribal Energy Financing Program for a loan guarantee of up to $72.8 million for a solar-plus-long-duration energy storage microgrid on the tribal lands of the Viejas Band of the Kumeyaay Indians near Alpine, California. The loan guarantee covers 90% of the loan for the Viejas Enterprise Microgrid project, said Nicole Reiter, vice president of development at Indian Energy, a Native American-owned developer and systems integration firm that’s developing the project.

This effort is the first to be offered a commitment through the Tribal Energy Financing Program, which was expanded and provided new loan authority under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

The California Energy Commission (CEC) earlier gave the microgrid project a $1.2 million grant to study long-duration, non-lithium ion energy storage for the microgrid.

“This commitment by the DOE not only represents an incredible milestone for our microgrid project with the Viejas, it represents an even more important milestone for our people as a whole,” said Allen Cadreau, principal at Indian Energy. “This is truly tangible value provided by the U.S. government in support of Native America and our perseverance toward true sovereignty.”

Additional federal funds are also helping tribal communities. Six tribal microgrids are being built on Native American lands thanks to a $39 million investment from the tribes and DOE.