The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community (SMSC), a federally recognized Native American tribe in Minnesota, was awarded a $180,000 Project Grant from the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs under the Tribal Energy Development Capacity (TEDC) Grants program (CFDA 15.148). The grant funds will enable SMSC to conduct a feasibility study on installing a community-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) system with energy storage to provide secure, reliable, and resilient power to tribal enterprises and community members. The study will analyze the tribe's current energy loads, identify opportunities for solar generation to meet those loads, and quantify the financial savings and environmental impact over time. The goal is to explore the techno-economic feasibility of deploying distributed solar PV with storage on tribal lands to improve energy resilience, expand development opportunities, and progress towards the tribe's long-term objective of achieving carbon neutrality by 2035.
Generated 2/25/25, 4:54 AM