Thousands of households on the Navajo Nation lack electricity. But efforts are underway to bring power via off-grid solar systems to residents in some of the most remote areas of the reservation.
Nolan and Sarah Huskon stand next to two newly installed solar panels outside their hogan in the high desert north of Flagstaff. Despite living only a few miles from powerlines, it is their first time with electricity here.
“Everything’s just right there at your fingertips. Like, you just walk into the house and flick a light and your light’s on—you don’t have to go and start pumping on the lantern,” says Nolan with a chuckle.
The Huskons are in their mid-60s and herd sheep and cattle on land that has been in their family for generations. And until June they depended on a generator for lighting and electricity, which was expensive, noisy, dirty and unreliable.
“We run out of gas, so we have to fumble around in the dark looking for flashlights, looking for the kitchen matches. Really, it does help,” says Sarah.
They now have a refrigerator and no longer have to make daily runs into Cameron or Flagstaff to buy blocks of ice for their coolers. The new system saves them hundreds of dollars on fuel and other expenses. A ceiling fan spins overhead, and they plan to hook up a TV.
“I’ve still got to put the antenna up,” says Nolan.
“Oh, we love, every year we watch ‘Survivor.’ We never miss ‘Survivor,’” says Sarah with a laugh.
Before the installation, the Huksons were one of the estimated 15,000—or about a fifth—of households on the Navajo Nation without reliable electricity. Now their hogan is part of a growing number of homes with off-grid, battery-storage solar systems from the Flagstaff-based company Navajo Power Home.
“I think it comes down to bringing it all back to our homelands and helping our people. We’re just so honored to be able to do that,” says the company’s General Manager Chanse Foster.
She says Navajo Power Home has installed 270 of these systems so far and interest has spread mostly through word of mouth. The company says there is no waiting list and homes can be outfitted within about a week. The most popular plan costs $160 a month—a fraction of what the Huskons were previously spending.
“These are our relatives,” says Foster. “We know each other, we’re like family so it feels really good to be able to bring power and possibilities back to our homelands.”
Foster hopes to reach 1,000 customers by the end of next year with the help of donated solar panels from the technology manufacturer Qcells, and a $5 million Inflation Reduction Act grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. It is part of a major push by the Biden-Harris administration to boost self-determination and tribal sovereignty through renewable energy.
“A lot of what we’re doing with the 5 million is to bring the capacity into the Navajo Nation so that they can do this for themselves,” says Jigar Shah, director of the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office.
Shah says lacking electricity is a major quality-of-life issue and these types of systems could be a game-changer in remote Indigenous communities.
“As we figure out what to transition to, solar power with battery storage is becoming the go-to solution in the state of Arizona,” says Shah.
Several off-grid projects like the one run by Navajo Power Home have launched in northern Arizona in recent years. Solar industry analysts say they’ve chipped away at the number of homes lacking power.
“Off-grid solar and battery systems make a lot of sense in a handful of specific applications and very isolated homes that are likely never going to be connected to the electrical grid as we think of it,” says Karin Wadsack, a renewable energy expert who’s worked in tribal energy for 15 years.
She is concerned, however, about so-called solar orphans—people who are left without support when companies go out of business or leave. And the systems do have limitations in what they can power. Still, she says these initiatives can provide tribes with technical training and jobs along with other benefits.
“Certainly, Navajo Power Home seeks to make a profit. It also seeks to deliver some measure of energy justice through its programming,” says Wadsack.
Off-grid systems cannot address every need for electricity on the vast Navajo Nation. But they are a way to help close the electricity gap on tribal lands, and for some families they offer a potentially dramatic transformation to daily life.
