Standing Rock’s Wind Project Puts People First — Episode 208 of Local Energy Rules

Joseph McNeil:

We’re willing to work with anybody else about what we’ve done, how we’ve done it, because it’s not something that we’re trying to sell. This is a gift and more frontline communities need to be moving into this space so that we can change the outlook and at least what we expect from energy systems that are developer centric, business centric, profit driven, back getting to a place where communities are standing first in that space instead of investors.

John Farrell:

Smack in the middle of the Dakotas on the border between north and south, the SAGE Development Authority of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is working on Anpetu Wi wind project, whose name means first rays of the morning sun. Unlike most large renewable energy projects on tribal lands, this project will purposefully align tribal values of sovereignty, no harm to the environment or areas of cultural significance, and it will provide financial resources to support long-term development for the tribe. The key is ownership, and in November, 2023, my two guests, Joseph McNeil, CEO of SAGE Development Authority for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, and Christina Hollenbeck, CEO of Justice Capital, explained how they’ve structured the project to maximize the benefits and control for the Standing Rock Tribe. I’m John Farrell, director of the Energy Democracy Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, and this is Local Energy Rules, a podcast about monopoly power, energy democracy, and how communities can take charge to transform the energy system. Joseph and Christina, welcome to Local Energy Rules.

Christina Hollenback:

Thanks.

Joseph McNeil:

Thank you. Great to be here.

John Farrell:

So I love to start off my podcast just kind of asking how people got into the work that they’re doing now. So maybe if I could start with you, Christina, and just ask kind of what motivated you to get into doing clean energy development? Why work on the capital stack, as some people like to call it, for clean energy?

Christina Hollenback:

I started out in a really, I guess I reverse engineered my position, which was as a water protector, as someone who believed deeply in community sovereignty and community ownership and really trusted and believed in frontline communities all over the world to lead the just transition, I realized there’s a huge gap and the gap was actually structuring those deals, both the social capital as well as the very legalese economic structures that extractive industries have really perfected, right? But there wasn’t an entity to be a stop gap and support frontline communities to structure those deals, structure the capital stack in a way that would honor their vision, their values, the equity that they have in those projects and ensure that community governance and community benefit were core to those structures. And so that’s where Justice Capital founded and now as we both convene investors to be able to operate and partner with community partners like SAGE, it’s always an honor and then working with folks like SAGE to help them structure and raise the capital that they need to be able to win.

John Farrell:

Wonderful, thank you, Christina. And Joseph, what motivated you to get into clean energy development? Why are you helping develop a 235 megawatt wind project?

Joseph McNeil:

It goes back for myself looking at turbines, going up all around the reservation in North and South Dakota back in the early 2000s and asking my brother, why aren’t we doing that here? Because he was the chairman of the Tribe at that time. And he said, well, that’s a good question. Let’s explore that. How do we do that? Then it got me involved in tribal politics and then soon thereafter we had some money to write a grant for an RFP and then discover for ourselves what the developer scenario looked like and it looked like a land lease deal. That was it, that at that time we decided it wasn’t really going to be the route we were going to do. There needs to be more for us that we can build our own capacity so we can be self-sufficient and that’s the goal is to bring electric energy, renewable energy to our people that costs less because we deal with some extreme forced dependency issues that are over almost two centuries old.

So we can’t continue to live like this and we do have the tools and toolbox per se to do this kind of work in a sovereign way. It’s just exercising and finding partners to help us to come to a place where we can really build something solid and institutional public power authority that breaks the mold. There’s no reason we should be dependent on anyone else’s energy, particularly with the wind that we have and what we learned from the first go around with developers, the RFP was that, and I say this to everyone that asks about the question I said, you wouldn’t go to Saudi Arabia, put up drills and say, Hey, I’m going to give you a great land lease deal on all that oil we’re going to pull out. We’re the Saudi Arabia of wind. Why do you think that we would want less? So in that instance really drove home the motivation to move forward and I’m happy that us as a Tribe and folks on council had looked at this in a real comprehensive way as a strategy.

John Farrell:

So Joseph, could you describe a little bit for people who might not be familiar, where are the Standing Rock Sioux Lands located and to describe a little bit of this wind project? How big is it going to be? How many turbines?

Joseph McNeil:

Yeah, so if you take North Dakota and South Dakota, most people call them the Dakotas. We are smack in the center of both of those. We straddled in North Dakota side, south central and South Dakota side, north central about the size of Connecticut. And when you take a look at our wind capacity according to NREL, we’re in the high forties, high to mid forties as far as wind capacity goes. And what we’ve looked at as well as other tribal nations like to the south of the Cheyenne River, they’ve looked at doing wind as well, is how do we develop that into a way that’s going to be substantial as a commercial project? The goal is to do a project and then build renewable energy assets separate from that for our communities. But we’re looking at roughly 235 megawatts. We have the potential to generate between 4 to 500 megawatts in our current area. The only reason we’re at 235 is because of the restrictions on the KV line to sell our power commercially, which is a 345 KV line. Southwestern Power states and dictates how much power you can put on the line at that time. So this one project 235 megawatts, about 56 turbines, and we’re looking at a four and a half megawatt turbine.

John Farrell:

That’s great. Could you, Christina, talk a little bit about how Justice Capital is collaborating with SAGE development on the project?

Christina Hollenback:

Yeah, absolutely. So Justice Capital, you could think of us as an outsource chief investment officer or chief strategy officer to SAGE and Anpetu Wi being the first of many projects that SAGE is leading to lead the just transition and renewable energies in the region. Anpetu Wi is also our first project to support them on and so we support them on structuring the capital and engaging with different governmental agencies, et cetera, around ensuring that they have the terms and the conditions to make sure that they’re able to deploy their capital into the project in a way that also attracts investors and attracts others to come in on the project while not giving away ownership. And extractive ownership models are prevalent all over frontline communities, but certainly in tribal communities. And so we’ve structured SAGE’s support for Anpetu Wi in such a way that maintains SAGE’s values and maintains the benefit to the Tribe and the nation and her people and also maintains the vision and value of SAGE in terms of also their partnership and their ownership in the project as well.

Joseph McNeil:

So Christine brings up a good point here that I did bring up was that the name of the project is called Anpetu Wi, and in our language Anpetu is day and Wi is the son. So together that means the first raise of the morning sun and it was well thought of one of the elders who used to work in reservation resource before he passed and he thought about this project in a way that is revelatory, that is bringing about a new day is like the prayer of a new day for us to move forward and that’s what we do traditionally, is we’ll go out pray when the sun arises for guidance and strength new day. So Anpetu Wi is the name of the project, 235 megawatts. Thanks Christina.

John Farrell:

Yeah, that’s wonderful. Now both of you have talked about this idea about ownership and both in the structure of the capital but also in terms of, you mentioned Joseph that some of the early offers that you had to do wind development on Standing Rock lands were really just like a land lease structure. So maybe there would’ve been a private developer who comes in, they own all the turbines, they own all the electricity and they would’ve essentially just rented some of your property in order to host those turbines. Can you talk about why ownership is so important here in terms of both the financial value but maybe in terms of as well as Christina mentioned some of these alignment with values for the community?

Joseph McNeil:

I think for us when we look at increasing our ownership stake in the project, initially it was spending the riskier dollar upfront proving the feasibility and pre-development. That’s doing the met tower readings, getting met towers up and we currently have five up, we’ve just relocated two of ’em to another area so we can expand and increase our net capacity factor. And land control cultural studies, environmental studies that runs the gamut from aquatic studies to avian studies and then gets into U.S. fish and wildlife, those types of things, but also the transmission studies. So that’s that real riskier dollar that increases our ability to invest into our project. And let’s say we spend 10 million on that, that could be valued up to 30, $35 million because it’s the riskier dollar upfront. So based on the NREL studies and what we’ve known for, it seemed to be a good, I don’t want to say a good bet, but it was really good money well spent in this space and that was meant to be our ownership.

Now as IRA rolls out, there’s an ability to have a direct loan for tribes now in place of ITC or PTC funds those tribes could not play into previously because we couldn’t get tax benefits. So in this place it creates much more value for us to increase our ownership stake by using government funds and low interest loan to buy into our own project to a greater degree. That means 20 to 25 years of real revenue coming into us so that we could rebuild our infrastructure, our schools, housing, home mortgages, provide financial institutions for our people to invest in the entrepreneurship, have entrepreneurship built into our educational system K through 12, and then afterwards into college so that we can rebuild our workforce and then start other industries here at Standing Rock that make sense.

Hemp is something that I look at and say there is a market for the future. We can make paper out of that or cardboard out of that. That’s an industry that’s long lasting can provide jobs for generations. And water and hydrogen, we just sit on the Rosa River here. There’s a lot of opportunity there for renewable agriculture growth and then for we always say the buffalo has always been our lifeblood and still is, but to put some money in reinvesting into that to create larger herds so that we can take care of our people and to also revitalize our culture through interpretive center, cultural museum that provides an ability for us to tell our own story, to tell our own history and repatriate our items that have been out in Smithsonian and Harvard and other places that have taken basically from us so that we can get these things back and tell our own history through our own voices. Not a western lens, but a Lakota lens in our own homelands to talk about our relationship with the earth and that spiritual connection that we have as people, more ancestors to our children yet to come.

There’s a connection and a story to be told there, not just for us, but I think for most of the world. We’re all indigenous to a place around the world — where you come from John, your ancestors come from across the sea over in Europe somewhere. There’s a connection spiritually to you to those lands mean something. So we all have a connection to the earth and we all need to seek that commonality so we can understand and live together generations to come. So for me it’s multifaceted to how this can be beneficial far beyond what we’re doing by simply putting up a wind farm.

Christina Hollenback:

I think when we look at traditional models of development, they are always extractive to frontline communities and as Joe was mentioning, here’s a land lease deal, here’s a percent, right, on this deal, rather than shared prosperity, shared ownership, even when there’s real value that SAGE is bringing to the table, being in relationship to the permitting and taxing authority for the project, having 2.5 million acres of land. So if one location for that turbine is not the right location, we got some other land that we might be able to put the other turbine on. So there’s real opportunities that working with tribal nations offer, but the relationship has always been extractive. It has never valued those opportunities that nations offer and it’s to be very frank, not just devalued, it’s extracted from the value that they bring to the table.

And so I think really what this is ushering in is a more community centered paradigm of development and ownership where it’s not to say that developers aren’t also going to get paid for their work. It’s not to say that investors are not going to get paid back for investing in the project, it’s just saying that you’re not going to do so to extract from in this case the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. In other cases, as this type of model could be replicated in other places, another nation or another frontline community, it’s saying that actually we can do this in a way that creates shared prosperity, that creates real ownership for the nation and that frontline community that the developers and investors are partnering with. And we can do so in a way that doesn’t mean that anyone is excluded any further from the shared prosperity that can come through.

John Farrell:

One of the things we’d love to talk about, and Christina you just touched on this, it’s really helpful, is that idea of the land. So Joseph, could you talk a little bit about, there was an initial plan for like here’s where the turbines are going to go, but you have a mix of different types of land that are available to you and to the tribe. Could you talk about just one of the things I found fascinating in our conversation that sort of led to us doing this interview was how you had to work through all those different things and how you respected cultural issues and community issues about the land that a developer would either steamroll over – an outside developer – or that they would find it as a big roadblock. And that’s when you talked about the investment that you’re putting up front here is that you’re finding a respectful way to deal with all those things. So could you talk a little bit about when you identified the land that you were going to use for the turbines and how you’ve accommodated some of these different cultural and environmental issues?

Joseph McNeil:

Sure, thank you for that question. When we first came into the project looking at the maximized wind capacity that we had was up on the hilltops in an area west of Fort Yates. We sit right along the river on a North Dakota side of Standing Rock called the Porcupine Hills. And the original project was designed to sit there roughly 26, 27 turbines were going to be located there of the 56 some odd turbines. And in the configuration and as we went through the process, we went through micro siting with our THPO, tribal historic preservation officers who do our cultural work and we cleared all of the sites, but as we come to doing it phase by phase is that okay, now we have to design the roads and now we have to design the interconnection lines, collection lines, then it was going to be too much. Then we realized at that point, THBO realized at that point, and said this is going to disturb the cultural feel and possibly some sites because we practice strict avoidance, not mitigation, we won’t move anything, we won’t come so close, we’re going to strictly avoid things.

So we had to move it and it proved out to be a good thing because just this spring when the long year bat study came through, they were flying all through that area anyway, so one way or another those turbines were going to get off the hill and those were 26 turbines that we had to move and I said, well that’s fine. We can be like water, just find the next available place to move to. And aquatic studies and features became an issue in that space. So we moved again. We’ve done significant shifting of the project as we’re going through these phases over the last few years. Our ability to look at more tribal land is one of the benefits that we have.

There are a couple of different types of tribal land which are in trust. One is land that’s owned by the Tribe and other is land that’s owned by tribal members. And then there’s the third kind which is actually there’s two other kinds land that’s simple fee status, which is around the country, people own, it’s private property. And then the government also owns or the state owns land that it can either hold in trust or fee status. So those are the three major types that we deal with tribal allotted and then fee land. And so we shifted and we moved looking at tribal land first allotted land thereafter and then fee land because back in 1887 – before 1887, we had all of the land, but the Dawes act in 1887 said that we’re going to the federal government to break up tribal lands by partitioning into them into individual parts. Checker boarding the land gave us a real difficult way to go after that so we couldn’t have a large land base bases we had previously to aggregate resources on.

So that’s where the fee land comes into play and we just go by the regular practices that a developer does in the fee land places and then we had to create with the Bureau of Indian Affairs wind energy evaluation leases to do met towers and then wind solar resource leases that would act as land option leases and fee simple for tribal lands and allotted lands. So we had to create those documents in that space to help the Bureau of Indian Affairs and DOI facilitate leasing of those lands moving forward and those things that they existed for solar down south, but they didn’t exist for wind up north. As far as Bureau of Indian Affairs goes, and I say BIA because that’s the agency that regulates our lands within our borders. We’re still in trust. We still have to report to an agency that could say yes or no. That’s some of the tough stuff that we’ve always had to deal with since colonization. And this is again going back to us being sovereign and expressing that ability to do so. We have to play the game and do it well.

One of the important things that I like to say about this project is that we don’t want to be a unique unicorn even though we are using the spear of that unicorn to push through places where it hasn’t gone before, but we are just a simple boring project that is one, investible, safe and it’s got great wind capacity just like any other project does. And our interconnection queue study is moving right on along. We’re more than halfway through, so it’s proving itself over and over again for the last few years. And I think when I hear from other developers that have been in this space for certain projects for 10 years, we’re four years in roughly three to four years in of activity and we’re talking to developers in about being a partner instead of just buying the project out. And it’s resonating because they see a way forward not just with this as a new thing, a partnership, but with other tribal nations where there hasn’t been development because everything’s been built around tribes, all the transmission. And now we’re looking at where do we get more energy from tribes.

John Farrell:

I just love the way that you’ve talked through this in terms of there are components of the typical project development process which you’re taking on as a way of securing more ownership, like figuring out where the turbines are going to be located, doing the wind studies, doing the cultural studies, doing the environmental assessment. And what I love about it is that it’s very much a genuine analysis of is this going to work for us, for our community and not just can we get here? How close can we get, how many feet? I think as one of you said, it’s not about mitigation, it’s just about avoiding those problems, but also to appreciate too that you have additional layers, right? Like a private developer who’s looking to just using fee land doesn’t have to go to the BIA and work with them on what are the procedures. So you don’t want to be a unicorn, but you do have some unique things and yet here you are going through that work on behalf of potential project partners to make it easier for investors. I just think it’s worth noting that you are not only facing up to some of these challenges that might be unique to your project, but you’re also addressing them proactively in a way that hopefully also lays the ground for future projects. So now if there’s a project maybe in another tribal lands in the Dakotas or in the upper Midwest, you’ll have covered some of the ground about how does this work in a way that they could follow.

Joseph McNeil:

True and talking about how we’re facing these challenges, in one aspect on fee land, we are going to have to deal with the North Dakota PSC. That’s where we don’t want to be anything special. We want to be a normal everyday project moving through its way. And then on the trust land side for the tribe, we had to work with Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to create a utilities code that stands and holds water just like any state code would for renewable energy development and wind energy. It has all of the same components and heightened components for community safety, species safety and cultural safety. So those are the things that are more elevated in our code. It gives our nation as Standing Rock the ability to stand toe to toe with the state and come into agreement instead of be superseded by a law, by the state, to say that they have control of all energy projects within their boundaries. Because we exist before their boundaries, but we needed to make sure that we had law to stand toe to toe. So we’re going to have to go into compact. Now how many of the developers have to deal with compacts? But these are the things that we’re ironing out beforehand as we move into the project.

John Farrell:

I just want to touch on that. I find this both just fascinating to learn about, but I think important for people to understand in terms of the challenges you face around regulation and sovereignty. So here you have the standard state regulatory body that regulates electricity development, the Public Service Commission in North Dakota on typical private property. Their rules apply for how you site energy resources and permit energy resources and what you’re saying, what I hear you saying is those rules could have applied on tribal lands, but if you want to be able to exercise your own sovereignty, your own decision-making around that, you basically created your own code similar to that regulatory code through the public Service commission that regulates that itself. So it’s an additional piece of regulatory infrastructure you have to create, but it’s essential for having the meaningful sense of control and ownership that you want because without it, you’re just, you’re going to be subservient to whatever that commission has set up for the rules.

Joseph McNeil:

Correct. And it was something where we took this, oh geez, I forget how much that code cost. It wasn’t cheap. And explain it to our council, which wasn’t a great leap at all for them to understand and for us to understand, and our communities to understand – not just council, but our communities to understand, that we are moving in a space where we’re increasing our ability to be sovereign and that’s the whole name of the game we move into. Eventually when the revenue starts coming in where we’re building distributed energy systems adjacent to communities and SAGE is now becoming a public power authority that is creating energy and billing our people at a lower rate. And that’s the whole goal of this, is to use the revenue to build systems so that our people can afford energy at a lower rate and still have a successful business.

Then these laws that we created serve multiple layers of regulatory authority for us to exist and govern ourselves. So this creating these institutions that has been critical for us to move into this space and we’re willing to work with anybody else about what we’ve done, how we’ve done it, because it’s not something that we’re trying to sell. This is a gift and more frontline communities need to be moving into this space so that we can change the outlook and at least what we expect from energy systems that are developer centric, business centric, profit driven, back, getting to a place where communities are standing first in that space instead of investors.

John Farrell:

We’re going to take a short break. When we come back, I ask Joseph and Christina about how they’ve put together the financing for the project, the challenges of interconnection, and how we could change policy to make subsequent tribal and community energy projects more viable. You’re listening to a local Energy Rules podcast with Joseph McNeil, CEO of the SAGE Development Authority for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, and Christina Hollenbeck, CEO of Justice Capital.

Hey, thanks for listening to Local Energy Rules. If you’ve made it this far, you’re obviously a fan and we could use your help for just two minutes. As you’ve probably noticed, we don’t have any corporate sponsors or ads for any of our podcasts. The reason is that our mission at ILSR is to reinvigorate democracy by decentralizing economic power. Instead, we rely on you, our listeners. Your donations not only underwrite this podcast, but also help us produce all of the research and resources that we make available on our website and all of the technical assistance we provide to grassroots organizations. Every year ILSR’s small staff helps hundreds of communities challenge monopoly power directly and rebuild their local economies. So please take a minute and go to ilsr.org and click on the donate button. And if making a donation isn’t something you can do, please consider helping us in other ways. You can help other folks find this podcast by telling them about it, or by giving it a review on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. The more ratings from listeners like you, the more folks can find this podcast and ILSR’s other podcasts, Community Broadband Bits and Building Local Power. Thanks again for listening. Now, back to the program.

John Farrell:

You’ve touched a little bit on how did you get the money together to do the pre-development for this project, and I was hoping to go into that in a little more detail to understand kind of what money, what capital did the Tribe itself have available? Is, you have money coming from philanthropic sources, is there, you mentioned federal, the Inflation Reduction Act IRA, that there’s maybe some money there that can help. How are you putting that together and maybe if you could help us understand how much of that is unique to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and maybe how much of that is stuff that might be available to other tribal communities that are trying to do this kind of community owned project development?

Joseph McNeil:

Remember the Dakota Access Pipeline? That for us was a natural thing to do. That for us was part of our DNA, standing for the water and protection of the water primarily. Because that pipeline was less than a mile from my wife’s hometown and where our kids play and where we get our water, but our relationship to the water and our relationship to the earth means something great. And during that time, we had a lot of folks who come through and ask what can they do? A lot of foundations came through while we were already writing grants to do pre-development work in this space. Our current chairwoman, Janet Alkire was working in that area for land operations and energy development and the then chairman Dave Archambault was getting folks coming through and asking about what they could donate to it. And so he said, let’s put some of this money to this project because he knew those were real potential there. And we want to thank ’em for that because it’s still moving forward.

So that’s philanthropy and they’ve been greatly helpful in us being able to hire the best in class partners in that space. We brought on UL, which used to be AWS Truepower out of Boston, which does a lot of wind energy design, power plant design in the Dakotas and around the country. We had other great consultant that came from GE and Tennessee Valley. We were able to bring in best of class. So when we were able to say that these are our folks that we have working with us, people understood, oh great, then we know what you’re talking about is true. So other foundations are able to come on and say, okay, we can see these other foundations that started working with us and we want to be helpful as well. We’re able to bring in with Christina and working with Justice Capital and then also other partners that we have with Baker Tilly to continue to write foundational grants and then also federal grants.

Christina’s work with Justice Capital has a mix between the two foundational philanthropic partners and federal partners and then our folks at Baker Tilly have brought a lot of grants that work, a lot of tribes in that space to help us achieve federal grants. Like we got the tribal economic development capacity building grant, energy capacity building grant, which is like $475,000 to help us put into pre-development capacity building for SAGE. It’s just been a great relationship as we look at that space, but it’s never an easy thing because we’re still putting money into the project, into us working on our pre-development part of this.

And then also the need for us to be in the space as far as interconnection is a developer-centric thing itself, category itself. Developers that have large balance sheets could absorb a doubling in price of studies where we had to be responsive in 15 days of developer could said, I’ll just put a chunk of change down there and that’ll hold my spot in queue. We did all the pre-development work outside of that land control, environmental studies, et cetera, with cash. But it’s been working with those foundational philanthropic partners to be able to be that flexible to do that. And that’s not an easy thing and that’s where working with folks that understand that space and have relationship therein has been a great benefit for us to help us move stage by stage. And I think Christina can pick up the ball on that.

John Farrell:

Yeah, I’d love to hear some from you, Christina, and then come and circle back to that question about interconnection and whatnot. That is I think something a lot of people in the clean energy sector are talking about right now and understand the project. But yeah, Christina, please if there’s more you could talk about with this, that’d be lovely.

Christina Hollenback:

So yeah, just building on what Joe already shared, one of the things that I think a lot of folks forget in this work and sometimes even foundations forget it, is that really the grant making dollars are only 5% of their money. The 95% of their money is invested into projects and funds and different offerings all across the world to be very frank. And so what we made sure was based on the values and the vision that SAGE had already outlined, they were clear that they wanted to retain ownership, make sure that they were no harm, not low harm, right? There was a very clear vision that was outlined by the nation and by SAGE. So our ability to kind of filter investors through that and then as we partner with investors, not just talking about grant dollars, but talking about program related investments, right? Talking about the full breadth of capital that they have at their fingertips, which could range from grants or recoverable grants to PRIs and or if they’re not a foundation, maybe it’s a low cost catalytic debt that values the impact along with the financial return.

And then ultimately as we move in construction finance, we’ll need more market rate returns. But I think the way that this is structured, which is totally different, is that rather than thinking about some low cost debt or some grants to cap off a project, it’s saying, what if we right size the grants and the catalytic capital to the earliest stages of this, what will become a cash producing asset, to be able to ensure that SAGE and the Tribe maintain ownership and governance over the project to ensure their values can be infused through the project in perpetuity. So I think that the engagement with investors is really, really key and just can’t emphasize enough that this is built off of the no DAPL movement. I mean, there’s just, people know Standing Rock because of the movement that was led by young people on the front lines. And rather than there just being a philanthropic thread to pull for those folks that want to support what happens in the wake of no DAPL, it’s actually saying don’t just open up 5% of your portfolio, open up a hundred percent, because there’s a place for every different type of capital, every different source of capital has a place to be able to finance and support SAGE’s work and specifically with Anpetu Wi as one of those many projects in Sage’s ecosystem. And so I think in many ways it turns upside down the traditional capital structuring model, et cetera, to ensure once again that it’s aligned with the vision and values of SAGE and of Standing Rock and of the Lakota people.

John Farrell:

Thanks, Christina. I really just, I’m glad that you put emphasis to that and mentioned it twice about the advantage of those dollars coming up front to support pre-development and the values of the project around ownership and the long-term benefits. I think that’s been such a struggle.

Christina Hollenback:

Can I just be real specific there, John? In the end, it would be almost negligible in terms of the returns if we structured that at the end when we structure that at the beginning, for every dollar invested in SAGE at this stage into the impact. We project it will return $10 in community wealth building for SAGE and for the tribe. So what is negligible at the end is absolutely paramount at the beginning and now positions SAGE to become the lead investor in all of their future projects, which means they will not have to dilute their ownership in every future project. They will not have to give up their governance and ownership and be beholden to other outside capital desires and needs in every future project that SAGE does. So no pun intended, it is literally the wind in the sails for every other project in the ecosystem that SAGE has in development of which there’s many to really position the Standing Rock Zoo Tribe and the nation to be a regional leader in clean energy production and resiliency.

John Farrell:

That’s amazing. I want to talk about one specific area of impact that this early investment is having around interconnection. So people who are following clean energy generally have probably seen some stories about like, oh, interconnection is a big issue right now, especially with transmission. All of our big grids are very congested. So as Joseph, as you talked about early on your project, like many others, needs permission to connect to the transmission lines to sell its power on the electric grid. Can you talk a little bit about what’s involved in that specifically? So for people who are maybe not spending day to day doing this kind of development work, but then also how it’s been important to have – you referenced this briefly – about sometimes you have to have money on fairly short notice to hold your place in line to get on the grid, and that’s where some of this early investment has been so crucial.

Joseph McNeil:

Just as an example, when we first applied our application was $2,000 per megawatt. That was $470,000. Some of the folks that we had partnering with us at the time were like, great, we can help you out with that. And then with 20 days notice, roughly a month’s notice, we had 20 days to respond to a “true up” they called it of what the application studies were going to look like. So they wanted the initial applicants to put another $2,000 up. So we needed $470,000 within 20 days, and then it just doubled everything. The cost of everything doubled. So as we’re looking at the ability to do that, it was really important for us to have these kind of partners who were understanding and willing to listen to what does this dynamic that interconnection and developers have in this space and why are the costs doubling?

So as we dug down into this discussion, we talked to other attorneys who work in the space with SPP and MISO, in the area, they’re able to be able to have us have conversations with some other folks to discuss our ability to be in this space and be flexible in this space without harm to others. There’s a lot involved in all of these discussions, but for us to take this circumstance to foundations and or grant makers or impact investors that were working or looking at our project, it was kind of vital for us to say, hey, community hasn’t existed part in this part ever. I think that we’re the only commercial community project in this space at this magnitude of 235 megawatts. So for us to be reflexive and responsive in that took a lot of running, really, really did.

But we have a solid project. It always goes back to the simple bones of this. We have roughly 45 to 50% wind capacity in the area that we’re looking at doing, and our studies show us being in that space. And so that’s why we moved two out into a say newer area just adjacent to it so that we can increase that capacity a little bit because it just means more back to us so that we can utilize for community growth. But back to interconnection, it’s no joke from the larger cadre of folks and developers who operate in this space of interconnecting large power onto 345 kvs.

Also, how that tariff affects distribution on a local basis for smaller DERs to exist in community, all come through state regulated or translated commissions and bodies that vary state by state. So you don’t know what you’re going to get state by state and limit the ability to produce for your community. So on North Dakota side for Standing Rock, you can build a solar system that is roughly 10 kilowatt hours per house, and then after that it goes to the per rate, which is the avoided cost of power, the cost of coal, which is like 2 cents, and you can’t finance a project on that. So as we look at the system from top to bottom, it’s not built for communities to participate in. And as we look at more communities getting involved in this space, this is really the cutting edge of this and how do we get our voice heard to the legislatures and to the FERC in general to start looking at how they’re issuing a tariff and how states are translating that tariff to protect particularly communities coming up into this.

So if they’re putting money out saying, yeah, we’re going to do all this solar, you can do everything you want to. It feels like the biggest bonfire. It’s not a gaslight, it’s a gas bonfire, and they’re not just gaslighting us with this thing. It’s like, how do you get it done? And I think that that’s kind of the challenge that more I talk to people in the industry that are understanding what we’re doing. They’re like, how do you get it done? And we don’t have a magic pill to it. We’re just talk with folks all through throughout the value chain there, all throughout the regulatory chain about the uniqueness of our project and what it means to our people, and that resonates no matter where you go.

John Farrell:

I’d love to ask you in wrapping up about what folks who are working in this space, a lot of us do policy advocacy, some at the national level, some at the state level, some even at the local level. Some of us have relationships with foundations. As you were talking about Christina, they’re using just such a small fraction of their resources oftentimes. What should people be paying attention to? If you are someone who cares about this idea of equity in addressing climate change, who likes to see communities really get meaningful benefits and have meaningful say over clean energy development, what are things that we should be thinking about or trying to do in our advocacy work around clean energy and climate? I’ll go to you first, Christina.

Christina Hollenback:

Yeah, I think there’s a couple of areas. One is I think when we’re looking at the brass tacks around IRA implementation, which I think there’s a lot of policy and advocacy conversations, including folks like SAGE is really vital because what’s really happening is that, as Joe has said, SAGE is just setting precedent at every, I mean literally just moving the goal line across every single benchmark around this and IRA really opened up the opportunity for community ownership. But in the brass tacks, the rest of those infrastructures around FERC and other entities are still developer oriented. They’re still assuming a big developer is going to come in, own the project, do what they do. And so for us to take advantage of IRA, take advantage of the opportunities that this administration has put before us, really thinking about how as we’re making those fixes, how does it actually operationally get addressed? That’s one area on the policy side that I think is really key. And we’ll be having a memo that’s released early next year that we’d love for folks to take a look at for folks to amplify, et cetera around some of those brass tacks fixes that are really needed.

I think the other thing for those that are working with foundations or family offices or who are trying to deploy their capital in a way that is in alignment with what is sustainable, right, and good in the earth, but also what also is going to be the leadership of this just transition, which is indigenous communities all over the world, I think really looking at how are you assessing what risk looks like in this moment? So we’ve had conversations with some foundations, some investors that are like, well, it’s too risky at this stage. Well, the risk of inaction has to be calculated at this point when we’re also talking about climate change. The risk of inaction, the risk of this not going through is huge. And so I think that as we’re thinking about with foundations and other investors, what does it look like to be supporting frontline community led solutions? It means that you have to ensure that the grant dollars for them to have the technical assistance and support that they need to be successful is there and is right sized to the appropriate stage of development.

And then it’s also that we have to look at the full breadth of capital. We have to look at the full spectrum of capital and put it all to use towards the same vision and values that SAGE has outlined and that SAGE is a steward of because SAGE has been, SAGE has been, I won’t say appointed, but it is the trusted steward for these projects by the Lakota people and by Standing Rock. And so how do we as investors, how do we as foundations fall in line with that trust and how do we get skin in the game to actually own some of that risk so that the risk is not solely born once again by frontline indigenous communities as it has been in perpetuity, during colonization? So yeah, those are the two things that I would say are really game changers in terms of next steps. And then also just learn with us, rock with us every step of the way. SAGE is blazing trails. There’s a lot of awesome things about that. There’s a lot of challenging things about that. But one thing that comes from that is that we’re always learning. We’re always getting better, and we welcome partnership to get us there. So it’s an honor to walk with Joe and with SAGE and with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Lakota Nation, and glad to have others walk with us in a good way so that we can see more of these projects grow all over Turtle Island.

John Farrell:

And maybe the way I would ask this question of you, Joseph, is how can you make other projects that might follow in your footsteps and more boring, as you put it, and less novel and less groundbreaking? How can we make this simpler and more normal?

Joseph McNeil:

I think about the ability for us to find financial resources in such a little period of time and discuss how we are acting as a developer in this space instead of a developer. We looked at so many other ways. We said, geez, we wish there was a pool of money for tribes to pull out from. And I think as we take a look at what’s being offered out there and these loans, et cetera, direct loan, direct pay, I mean, these are all fantastic tools out there, but a lot of tribes and frontline communities that can aggregate their resources to do energy development need pre-development dollars. And if there’s an study that says in this area, this is a potential, maybe that’s all you need to qualify for a development pool of funds to get your pre-development work done, because otherwise you’re relying solely on a developer and them spending their money on developing your asset, and then it puts you back in that same position of having a developer-centric project. Then you’re end up leasing your land or having very small pittance and revenue derivatives from that project for 20, 25 years.

What they told us in the beginning, John, was that, okay, after 20 years, these turbines are yours. That’s great. Boy, we’re going to have how many years of revenue that’s all ours after that? Maybe five. Oh, that’s not so great. And then, then we have to make sure that we have enough money to tear these things down or refit them. So the cost benefit wasn’t really there because all the money would’ve been gone to refit the turbines. So you’re playing a long distance time game of duration, game of poker there and hoping for the best. But if there’s a pool of funds out there that can help communities do this upfront, then you know what your value is upfront. If that’s a loan, that’s even better because then those communities can own that asset and use it as their chips to start off in this game with like we did.

So everything that we’re doing, we’re happily willing to hand it over, help with other folks, and this is all around relationships as well. So folks that we’ve talked to, happily introduced them to folks that we talk to so that more people can do the same thing because we need this to be normalized. It needs to be normal that a developer isn’t the only one that can do this, and then the two developers out there, communities where it’s going to be moving forward, everything else is used up. What else is there? There’s congestions, there’s all of this out there, and tribal lands are, at least within this country and in this continent, one of the last places, best places to develop renewable energy assets from who else to partner with and think about it and being partners because it’s not just your investors. How much money do you need to make? My God, it’s just kind of awesome when you think about all the amount of money that’s going out there, what people are bringing, geez, our kids are going to inherit this and hopefully learn along the way that we got to do this together. That’s my whole thing about being good partners and finding good partners. When we started having a developer discussion, it was really about that partnership and it weaned away pretty quickly a lot of those developers who were interested in being partners all with the community.

John Farrell:

Well, Joseph and Christina, thank you so much for joining me to talk about this amazing wind project and an amazing model for community ownership for tribal nations. I’m eagerly following along in the development of this project, but also very interested to see how you’re going to be able to help change and make this kind of development more boring and typical for so many others to come.

Joseph McNeil:

We appreciate it.

Christina Hollenback:

That would be awesome.

Joseph McNeil:

I appreciate the opportunity to with your audience and welcome any queries and questions to us as folks have them.

John Farrell:

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Local Energy Rules with Joseph McNeil, CEO of SAGE Development Authority for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, and Christina Hollenbeck, CEO of Justice Capital. On the show page, look for links to more information about the project and about Justice Capital, whose purpose is to support financial structures that avoid extractive energy development. Also look for ILSR’S recent Report Advantage Local, which documents the social and economic benefits of community clean energy ownership, as well as a couple of older podcasts about community wind projects that were developed many years ago. Local Energy Rules is produced by myself and Maria McCoy with editing provided by audio engineer Drew Birschback. Tune back into Local Energy Rules every two weeks to hear how we can take on concentrated power to transform the energy system. Until next time, keep your energy local and thanks for listening.