**Title**: Energy in the North - Jenn Miller
**Date**: September 4, 2024
**Participants**: Amanda Byrd, Jenn Miller


00;00;00;38 - 00;00;06;36
[Jenn Miller] If we were to do a solar farm, it could create an opportunity for a new farmer to get easy access to land.

00;00;06;36 - 00;00;12;37
[Amanda Byrd] This week on Energy in the North, we speak with Jenn Miller, co-founder and CEO of Renewable IPP, a utility scale solar development, construction, and operation company based in Anchorage. We were at their 8.5 megawatt Houston solar farm and we spoke about how solar projects in Alaska are growing, and can also be the site for growing food.

00;00;26;21 - 00;00;41;08
[Jenn Miller]
in 2018, We brought on our very first pilot project in Willow. It's 140 kilowatts. A year later, we turned around a 1.2 megawatt expansion at the same site. And then most recently, we completed this solar farm here, which is the eight and a half megawatt Houston solar farm.

00;00;41;08 - 00;00;42;52
[Amanda Byrd]
That's a huge amount of solar.

00;00;42;52 - 00;00;47;49
[Jenn Miller] So we got started by putting solar, doing our own DIY projects on our rooftops. Actually, myself and my business partners, we all come from oil and gas. And when we did the solar projects on our houses and we'd seen the prices come down in solar, we saw how cost competitive it could be. And we really wanted to have a bigger impact. And that's why we focused on this utility scale model where we could do one or two projects, do them well
Our mission is to deliver renewable energy that is also cost competitive and helping suppress the prices for Alaskans.

00;01;14;13 - 00;01;16;48
[Amanda Byrd] Alaska has some of the highest energy costs in the nation.

00;01;16;48 - 00;01;24;00
[Jenn Miller] For the Willow in Houston projects, we sell power wholesale to manufacture electric association. And so we have long term contracts that establish the price for that power. And currently the Houston project is selling power for 10 to 20% below MEA's current cost of generation.

00;01;32;44 - 00;01;36;40
[Amanda Byrd] MEA is a co-op, so they're not profiting from purchasing power from you.

00;01;36;41 - 00;01;37;45
[Jenn Miller] As co-ops, do not hold profits. And so when they save money that passes directly through to their members. And so it goes on to, yeah,  the Mat-su community.

00;01;46;40 - 00;01;48;56
[Amanda Byrd] I bet they love being powered by renewables.

00;01;48;56 - 00;01;51;58
[Jenn Miller] In general, the response has been really positive. And I think what's neat is as folks come to see the solar farm and they see just like it has a very low visual impact, it's quiet. I know for Willow and Houston, they're both very proud to be hosting these projects in their communities.

00;02;05;32 - 00;02;10;42
[Amanda Byrd]
And now the local farming community can benefit from co-locating solar with agriculture.

00;02;10;43 - 00;02;21;16
[Jenn Miller] Yeah, we're extremely grateful to the ÌÀÄ·ÊÓƵ and the Alaska Center for Energy and Power. They have really led the way on this agrivoltaics  research project in applying for a Department of Energy Farms grant. When we do Alaska solar farm design, we space our rows very wide compared to lower 48 because we want to avoid in a row shading. But what's really neat about that have these large plots of land in between the rows. And so now we can look at farming that land and increasing our land utilization for projects. 

As we look at diversifying our energy portfolio here in the state, we are looking at things like wind and solar, and those are lower density energy generation forms. You know, if you think about a coal plant or a gas fired power plant, very high density, you can power a whole city with one plant in a small area, whereas a solar farm or a wind farm, they're more spread out. And so because Alaska doesn't have a lot of land by the road system, by the grid, that's desirable both for farmers and solar developers. And so we want to look at reducing competing needs and figuring out if we can actually, find some synergies where if we were to do a solar farm, it could create an opportunity for a new farmer to get easy access to land.

00;03;24;54 - 00;03;27;11
[Amanda Byrd]
And solar power is really growing across the state.

00;03;27;11 - 00;03;30;57
[Jenn Miller] Ah, yeah. So it's a it's an exciting time here in Alaska where we are. You know, the state as a whole is looking to diversify its energy generation. And so, you know, right now you kind of heard our trajectory. We started with 140 kilowatts, 1.2 megawatt, eight and a half megawatt. Now we're looking at projects that would be tens of megawatts. And I know other developers are looking at, you know, hundreds of megawatts.

00;03;48;26 - 00;03;56;03
[Amanda Byrd] Jen Miller is a CEO of Renewable IPP. And I'm Amanda Byrd, chief storyteller for the Alaska Center for Energy and Power at UAF. Find more stories and information about ACEP at uaf.edu/acep