The Gund Institute for Environment today announced the winner of its new Impact Award, which provides up to $300,000 to interdisciplinary teams to transform established research into real-world change by implementing on-the-ground solutions.
The winning team—which includes University of Vermont researchers Mads R. Almassalkhi, Jayashree Raharam Yadav and Kathryn Hinkelman with the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences and Bindu Pannikar with the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources—will continue work in Alaska’s Northwest Arctic Borough to bring cheaper, cleaner energy to one of the coldest and most remote communities in the United States.
The Impact Award builds on the Gund Institute’s signature Catalyst Awards, which over their eight-year history have provided over $1.8 million in startup funds supporting 28 innovative projects and over 140 UVM scholars.
“We have been blown away by the success of the Catalyst Awards. In providing seed funding to interdisciplinary teams of UVM researchers, we’ve seen remarkable scientific advances like the creation of new low-cost water monitoring sensors and the Vermont Climate Assessment,” said Gund Institute Director Taylor Ricketts. “Our goal now is to reinvest in selected projects that are poised to expand implementation and impact. This project in Alaska has already led to real change on the ground, and we’re excited to support the team as it expands into new villages and helps bring energy security to thousands of Alaskans in the Northwest Arctic Borough.”
About the Project
Four years ago, with support from a Gund Catalyst Award, the UVM team partnered with municipal and tribal leaders, local utilities and private firms, and later on, University of Alaska researchers, to help the Arctic village of Shungnak lower energy costs by introducing renewable energy to the grid.
Located in Alaska’s remote Northwest Arctic Borough (NAB), Shungnak and other nearby communities face transportation challenges and high costs to obtain the diesel fuel that powers the generators they rely on for energy. The NAB made a year’s worth of community energy data available and helped the team create a series of electrical one-line diagrams and power system models to determine how renewable energy and electrical heat-pump systems could be used to reduce the community’s dependence on far-away fossil fuels and lower energy costs for the community. Their initial work indicated that Alaska’s unique subsidy structure and the available solar-and-battery hybrid system could support air-source heat pumps that accomplish both goals.
This March, a state disaster was declared in four communities in NAB after extreme cold triggered cascading failures across water, energy, and wastewater systems, resulting in power outages, frozen pipelines, loss of drinking water, and prolonged sewage disruptions, Yadav explains.
These failures exposed an important interdependency within the communities' infrastructure. The communities, long used to squeezing every bit of value out of expensive diesel fuel, had developed a system of capturing the diesel generators’ waste heat during the winter, and channeling it into heating their electrical systems, pipes, and water. The Borough is looking to reduce diesel dependency by expanding solar PV and other renewable energy resources. But replacing diesel generators without accounting for their waste heat could leave the villages without the excess heat source that helps keep critical infrastructure running during the winter.
The freeze spurred the realization that the new setup addressed only one of a set of inextricably enmeshed issues in the villages -, and the villages’ energy evolution would need to expand in scope if renewables were going to work.
“These problems aren't solved just by putting heat pumps in place or diagnosing electrical challenges,” said Almassalkhi, who is a Gund Fellow.
What's Next
With the Impact Award, the researchers now plan to expand the project both in scope and geographic scale.
The next step is to integrate four critical infrastructure systems that support community health and wellbeing: water, sewer, electric, thermal—as well as government and cultural systems—into a responsive energy hub synergizing all these interdependent parts of village functioning. And they plan to make this change across multiple Northwest Arctic Borough villages. The result, the researchers posit, will support upwards of 30% renewable energy use in this region by 2030.
Looking back on what he and his colleagues know now, Almassalkhi recognizes a common, but in this case inadequate, approach.
“We are engineers; we're good at solving this type of system,” he says. “[Engineers] focus on putting heat pumps in houses, measuring transformer overloads, and thinking that's the end of the story. We run simulations for a year and then we leave. Problem solved.”
Except the community’s resilient culture had introduced a variable not accounted for in any engineering calculation: the fact that “inefficiencies are put to good use in these communities,” says Almassalkhi. When Shungnak residents’ accustomed resourcefulness introduced a bit of unanticipated reality into the picture, the next step also came into focus.
Pannikar, who is also a Gund Fellow, says this is why an interdisciplinary approach is crucial.
“Between my colleagues’ engineering expertise and my social expertise, we have a really good interdisciplinary team working on different aspects of these issues,” she says.
Hinkelman, a Gund Affiliate, points to the research’s cultural considerations as a project strength.
“What’s special about the Impact Award and this project is the co-design framework,” she says. “Rather than outside experts coming in and telling communities what they need, this project places tribal community members, utility partners, and people who live and work in the NAB at the center of the process. They are the experts of their own needs, and our interdisciplinary team is there to support and help realize their vision.”
The Impact Award will provide three years of funding, but Yadav is already looking ahead to expanding it even further.
“Currently, we will be looking at the level of the Northwest Arctic Borough, but how can we scale this beyond the borough level as well?” she asks. “For Alaska, or for rural communities in other states?”
For now, the team is focused on getting these 11 villages onto a more efficient and functional energy grid.
“It's a small project, but it is wonderfully complex,” Almassalkhi says. “It’s a fascinating system to study. I really do think that the more we study it, the richer it gets.”
Learn more about the Gund’s funding opportunities, including Catalyst and Impact awards..
About the Gund Institute at UVM
The Gund Institute for Environment at the University of Vermont is a research center dedicated to understanding and tackling the world’s most critical environmental challenges. Driven by the belief that research should inspire action, the Institute takes a cross-sector approach to solving environmental issues with stakeholders from government, business, and broader society. With over 250 scholars in Vermont and across the world, the Institute brings together a network of internationally recognized researchers from diverse disciplines, including the natural and social sciences, business, health, technology, engineering, and the humanities.
About UVM: For People and Planet
Founded in 1791, UVM is the leading public university where discovery, creativity, community, and action coalesce to secure a thriving future for people and planet. Recognized among the nation’s top R1 research institutions, Vermont’s land-grant university attracts $240 million annually for groundbreaking research and enrolls approximately 14,000 students from 50 states and 75 countries. At UVM, students, faculty, and staff work together in pursuit of a healthier, greener future. Learn more at uvm.edu.
