Updated: March 6, 2024Under a newly announced federal grant, every household in the Northwest Arctic Borough would receive a heat pump to alleviate the cost of energy, and every village in the regionIn late February, the U.S. Department of Energyacross the country funds to lower energy costs and support the deployment of clean energy. The Northwest Arctic Borough is receiving around $55 million, with grants funded by the 2021 federal infrastructure law.
Another benefit of heat pumps is their ability to filter air and help improve residents’ indoor air quality, “especially if they’re running woodstoves as their alternate,” Nordlum said.that heat pumps sometimes have temperature limitations for operation and struggle to provide heat on the coldest days.
“The price of fuel in the villages is so high. I think it’ll help it make it more sustainable for people to live there,” Nordlum said. “I think for Alaska, it’s definitely gonna be the first kind of big deployment of heat pumps that I know of.”The grant will also fund solar arrays and battery systems in the Northwest Arctic.
For each village, the revenue is “going to vary a little from community to community,” Mathiasson said. “It will depend a little bit on the cost of fuel and what their electricity is selling for, and it varies several times during the year.” In some Northwest Arctic villages, diesel fuel can cost as much as $18 per gallon, according to NANA, and most villages are powered by diesel generators.