Energy Strand 2024

T3 stands for Teaching Through Technology. It is a STEM-based academic program that teaches high school students leadership and technology skills. This year's T3 Alaska Summer Program was broken into a beginner program and advanced program. In the advanced program, students had the opportunity to explore and solve problems in three strands: Energy, Ocean, and Climate. The summer program takes students from all over Alaska into new environments to tackle issues communities around the state are facing and learn about how they can improve their own.

Our strand focused on energy — electricity, power, thermal energy. Our field trip began in Kotzebue, then continued in Fairbanks.

We arrived in Anchorage from our hometowns and got settled into the University of Alaska Anchorage dorms. We got to know each other and played games. Soon we learned our itinerary and organized into our three strands. On the second day, George R. taught us the basics of power, and then we prototyped our "nanogrids" - tiny power systems consisting of solar panels, a charge controller, battery, and an LED light. Next, we discussed our strand's field trip to Kotzebue and reviewed the schedule for those days. Finally, we all went shopping to prepare for the trip and gather supplies.

On our final day in Anchorage, ACEP interns Arana and Kemi taught us how to make ArcGIS Story Maps. We also discussed how the Kotzebue solar array affects plant life. During winter, snow drifts insulate the ground, keeping soil just above zero degrees Celsius during winter, and keeping the ground cool as temperatures rise.

Soon it was time to begin our field trip in Kotzebue.

A large focus of our strand's program was microgrids. Microgrids are power systems such as towns that have their own generation and power draw, but run on their own—disconnected from a larger power grid. Since many Alaskan communities are so remote, most of them are microgrids. Kotzebue is one such community, and we traveled there to learn about the challenges they face and solutions they are using to power their community.

Energy in Kotzebue is provided by the Kotzebue Electric Association, with 12 megawatts of diesel generators and 3 possible megawatts of renewable energy production. Kotzebue is used as a testing ground for integration of renewables in remote locations.

We toured the KEA Diesel Power Plant with Rocky Jones. We saw how the utility control power production, monitor each system, and sink excess power. We saw their 12.5 MW diesel power system and 1 MW battery system.

We learned why Kotzebue is pushing the envelope on renewable power in Alaska: it cost the city $1.2 million to refill their diesel storage this year. Diesel is incredibly expensive in remote Alaskan communities—sometimes $8 or more a gallon—especially because in Kotzebue it is only able to be delivered by two barges in the summer before the sea freezes over. Renewables could save remote communities millions and provide cleaner, more sustainable energy.

Plant supervisor Matt Lazarus showed us around the Kotzebue water treatment plant. It sources water from Devil’s Lake and Vortac Lake and puts it through an extensive water treatment process that takes several hours to complete. The source water goes through multiple micro- and nanofilters and goes through several chemical processes to purify the water, balance the water's PH, and kill any leftover bacteria, viruses, and parasites that could remain in the source water.

The treatment plant is nearly brand new, and we learned about how they have been troubleshooting issues with the new facility. We learned about the interesting and unique problems and stress caused by the high volumes of high pressure water, and the solutions being implemented. We also learned about the impacts source water has on the purification process and the excess oxidation and filtering required.

The renewable energy farm in Kotzebue produces 3 MW of combined wind and solar power. The farm contains active and inactive wind turbines from decades ago up to now.

To drive to the energy farm, you have to cross an active airport taxiway. We then hitched a ride from KEA's truck with tracks to the renewable energy farm.

KEA had been seeing issues with their solar panel array, so we walked along the back of the array and inspected the solar panels using thermal imaging cameras.

Agrivoltaics is the integration of solar panels and plants together. We studied how the solar arrays in Kotzebue affect the plant life and microclimate around them.

We marked off sections of ground directly under the panels, 15 feet away, and 90 feet away. We picked blueberries as the target plant, so we counted the amount of plants in each square, measured their heights, measured 5 leaves from each plant, and took soil measurements such as temperatures and depth to permafrost. We then organized our data and made graphs.

Work in progress!

Work in progress!