By Sarah Townes September 20, 2024
This kitchen is inside one of the dome homes on the Red Cloud Renewable property. (Credit: American Solar Energy Society)
The American Solar Energy Society (ASES) and Red Cloud Renewable (RCR) have embarked on a groundbreaking solar housing project called Project Tiošpáye, aimed at empowering the Oglala Lakota Sioux Tribe in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. This initiative represents a significant step toward sustainable living and energy independence for the community.
The collaboration was sparked by a double question: “Does ASES have any Native American mentors? And/or is your team educated about Native communities so that if Native students wanted to participate in the Mentor Match program, they could work with a culturally literate mentor?”
This query came from RCR at the Oglala Lakota Sioux community called the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. For 16 years, this nonprofit has provided renewable energy training to more than 1,000 Native American students in solar heating, off-grid and grid-tied solar systems, tiny homes and reforestation from a campus at Pine Ridge.
RCR specifically asked about ASES’ Mentor Match program, which connects energy professionals with those seeking to further their professional development in the energy field.
Urgent Call to Action
The answer to the question was “No.” This raised important issues given the critical energy and health needs in Native American communities across North America. So, the ASES team began to educate ourselves.
We learned of the forced and failed federal assimilation policies like the Indian Removal Act, the Indian Reorganization Act and the Indian Boarding School policy which have had lasting traumatic impacts, contributing significantly to contemporary challenges such as poverty and violence.1 These brutal policies disrupted traditional ways of life on every level, leading to systemic inequalities that persist today.
Prior to colonization, the Lakota were the southernmost of the Great Sioux Nation peoples, seven powerful Teton bands that moved with the migrating buffalo herds, which numbered over 30 million, in what is now the Dakotas, northern Nebraska and southern Wyoming.2 The buffalo was their sacred animal and supplied most of their material needs.
Today, substandard housing, persistent poverty, historic and intergenerational trauma with consequent health outcomes, and lack of consistent and affordable energy all contribute to a dire quality of life for the Oglala Lakota Sioux, as they do for many Native populations.
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation has the lowest life expectancy in the United States, 15–20 years below the national average.3 It has a median per-capita income of $900 per month, a sixth of the national average.4
Arsenic and uranium contamination in local water contributes to cancer rates over five times the U.S. national average.5 Diabetes is 800% above the national average; alcoholism is 550% greater; infant mortality is 300% higher; suicide of teens is 150% higher; and homicide is 80% above the U.S. average.6
Learning of these conditions, ASES made a commitment to pursue a grant that could provide support to a community lacking sufficient, consistent and affordable energy and clean water.
We applied for an Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem Solving (EJCPS) Grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The grant initiative is a response to Executive Order 14096, emphasizing the federal government’s commitment to rectifying historical injustices and supporting affected communities like the Oglala Lakota Sioux.7
ASES received a $500,000 EPA grant under the EJCPS program to bring solar-generated electricity and other solar technologies to homes and buildings on Pine Ridge. In addition, the grant supports training Native peoples in solar installation and sustainable building practices.8
We called it Project Tiošpáye, a Lakota word which means an intergenerational, compound family unit that is the foundation of traditional wellness. It refers to home and community in the bigger sense, where extended families may remain together for life in cooperative living arrangements out on open land. There is a sense of peace, security and pride around this concept on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
The Western model of land ownership imposed upon Native people by the Dawes Act of 1887 massively disrupted communal living for the Lakota people, one of many factors forcing families into the current decrepit housing system. Tiošpáye offers a return to that which was taken away.
The key to this project’s success is Native leadership, provided by Chief Henry Red Cloud, founder and executive director of Red Cloud Renewable, and his team. Recognized nationally for his work many times over, Chief Red Cloud has been honored at the White House twice under two different administrations.
Red Cloud Renewable Projects
One of the major programs RCR hosts is the Solar Pre-Apprenticeship Readiness Program, which trains solar professionals and leads to North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners certification.
At the most recent program, participants included members of the Cheyenne River, Rosebud, Standing Rock and Pine Ridge tribal nations.
RCR has also undertaken two other significant projects. The Native-to-Native Energy Sovereignty Project is a path to net zero emissions through energy retrofits, electrification and onsite renewables for Pine Ridge residents. The Bridge program trains Native women in solar installation and energy entrepreneurship.
Both projects develop a well-trained Native workforce, help to remove cultural barriers in the industry, and use tools and techniques appropriate to local housing stock and remote locations.
Housing on the Pine Ridge Reservation
One current challenge facing Native people at Pine Ridge is poor housing stock, primarily trailers and older houses and cabins, coupled with the high cost of heating and cooling poorly insulated homes in an extreme South Dakota climate. It can dip down to -18°F in the winter and up to 109°F (and climbing) in the summer.9
Kerosene, propane and wood, the most commonly used fuels for heat, further degrade indoor air quality in homes that often already face mold issues.
These fuels are expensive, and impoverished families sometimes have to make the painful choice between ‘heating and eating.’ There are incidents of people freezing to death in their homes because of power losses.
These fuels also increase the carbon footprint of the tribe and prevent energy sovereignty by forcing the tribe to rely on kerosene and propane from the fossil fuel industry. This dilemma is especially unwelcome because South Dakota tribes are very concerned about this issue. For example, in the Dakotas, the Lakota Sioux people of Standing Rock Indian Reservation gained international acclaim in their long-standing fight against Energy Transfer Partners and the Dakota Access Pipeline.10
U.S. federal government funds are available to indigenous communities through legislation, including the Inflation Reduction Act and within that the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF). The GGRF is a $27-billion initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and revitalize historically impoverished communities. It is administered through the EPA. Sizable initiatives are also available through the U.S. Department of Energy and other federal agencies.
A privately-funded housing project is being implemented by RCR with the nonprofit InOurHands, constructing energy-efficient, two-story aircrete dome houses in each of the nine districts of Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Some will be shelters for unhoused people, some will be residences for families living in poverty, and a few will be housing for pre-professionals undertaking training at the RCR campus. Each of the privately owned domes will have solar provided at no cost to the residents through Project Tiošpáye.
The domes can be built in less than a week and are somewhat visually reminiscent of traditional teepee life. They are affordable, scalable, fireproof, tornado-proof, and, with care, repellent of pests and mold. Just one eight-inch space heater operating intermittently on the ground floor warms the building all night, even with snow on the ground outside.
Such structures efficiently use solar-generated electricity, as well as bringing greater solar and workforce training opportunities to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. So they provided the perfect impetus for ASES to support RCR’s efforts.
The dome houses provide a long-requested opportunity for residents to return to homestead living, to the home fire of traditional life, out on the open land and away from the dangers, pollution and frustrations of the townships.
The Need for Solar Power
Project Tiošpáye aims to overcome the challenge of no electricity supply by adding off-grid solar power to at least a few remote new homes, including insulated battery backup energy storage.
The project also aims to use solar power generation to address other challenges, including clean drinking water. We know that solar distillers can purify water by removing arsenic (see Fig. 1). New Mexico’s Sandia National Laboratory is being consulted to determine if it can also remove uranium.
Another challenge for the community is a lack of fresh and healthy food, as evidenced by high rates of diabetes. As part of the program, solar water pumps will provide easier water access for gardening and at least one solar refrigerator will provide affordable food storage.
We will include young people in our project through our partnership with the Red Cloud High School. Students will participate in various trainings and installs, bringing them much-needed hands-on experience, economic opportunity and inspiration for a positive future.
Providing youth with knowledge and experience in clean, green energy is key to success in these climate-critical years. We hope that this project will serve as a pilot to show what’s possible for affordable net zero living on the reservation. We also hope that future funding opportunities will be drawn in to deploy these models at scale. And Project Tiošpáye will provide professional experience for Native installers and business owners to prepare them for future opportunities.
This project has been eye-opening from that first question posed by RCR to the ASES staff. It has provided an important path toward directly assisting communities in ways that could have a profound impact on the quality of life on Native lands and actively support the vision of a thriving, sustainable future for all.
This is an edited version of an article published by New Energy World. Ella Nielsen provided assistance with the drafts.
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About the Author
Sarah Townes joined the American Solar Energy Society team in 2016 to promote solar energy and sustainability in our beautiful world. She is our CFO. She also started the Zero Emissions Network Program to do direct climate justice projects, of which Tiošpáye is the latest.