The village of Hughes was able to run its grid on strictly solar power for a five-hour span of time last month. On Tuesday, April 18th, from 2:30 PM to 7:50 PM the town of Hughes was silent. The ever present rumbling of the diesel generators that provide light and power to the community was absent and no exhaust was billowing from the stacks.
Shortly after, First Chief Wilmer Beatus of Hughes called TCC’s Infrastructure Division Director, Dave Messier, saying, “Hey Dave the generator’s aren’t running, but the lights are still on, is this thing working?” Despite the power plant being silent all the lights were on in town and the village switchgear showed 480Volts of AC power at a smooth 60 Hz being sent out to the village electric grid. Electricity generated from the community’s 120kw solar array and 356kwh battery system were providing the Village of Hughes with 100% renewable energy for over 5 hours. This isn’t the first time the community has achieved “diesels off” status; they ran in that mode for well over 200 hours during the summer of 2022. The project began in late 2016 when the Hughes Village Council, with support from the Tanana Chief Conference Energy program, was awarded funding from the Department of Energy Office of Indian Energy.
Over the following 5 years, TCC and the community of Hughes spearheaded the state’s first high penetration solar PV-diesel system, learning many important lessons along the way that have fed directly into the success of similar projects in the Northwest Arctic Borough. During the Summer of 2022, Hughes was able to successfully prove that when the sun is shining, this system can provide the entire community’s electric load with solar and battery power and fully “form the grid” with no diesel generators running. Last year the solar panels in Hughes produced over 44,000 kWh which displaced nearly 10% of the electricity generated over the course of the year, allowing for tremendous savings and reduced reliance on imported diesel fuel. To be precise: 3820 gallons of diesel were avoided. “TCC is confident we can more than double the solar PV produced with some ongoing modifications to the microgrid controller,” says Eddie Dellamary, TCC’s Rural Energy Specialist.
The successes in Hughes have led TCC to work with additional communities across the interior in seeking state and federal funds to pursue the same type of diesel-PV-battery system in similar, isolated electrical grids across the Interior as we work hard to ensure the momentum continues. All the while the community members of Hughes will continue to enjoy the tranquil moments of silence as the solar array and batteries work to provide Hughes with the resilience needed for life along
the Koyukuk River.