Integrating renewable energy into diesel microgrids is framed as an engineering problem, but communities know the biggest challenge is local capacity. In remote communities where people already wear many hats, launching a renewable energy project can feel like taking on a second full time job, stretching limited time and energy even thinner.
Canada’s remote energy landscape shares many similarities with Alaska, which has about 200 isolated, diesel-reliant communities. With more than three decades of experience integrating renewable energy into remote diesel microgrids, beginning in communities such as Kotzebue in the early 1990s, Canada can look to its northern neighbours for lessons to guide the energy transition.
Alaska’s experience shows that clean energy transitions in remote communities depend on sustained investment in human capacity long before and long after the electrons start flowing.
Three lessons stand out:
1. Communities can’t shoulder the transition alone
The challenge: Opportunities to share planning, coordinate procurement and build local expertise are missed when communities work independently
In many remote regions, individual communities are expected to plan, fund, build and operate clean energy systems, largely on their own. This approach can create unmanageable, long-term burdens, especially for small communities with limited staff and capacity. It also leads to an uncoordinated regional response to diesel dependency resulting in uneven progress, competition for limited funding and duplication in effort that increases costs and slows implementation.
What Alaska has done
The Northwest Arctic Energy Steering Committee was created to address this challenge. In a region of 11 small, mostly Iñupiat communities spread over an area roughly the size of Newfoundland, the committee brings together representatives from each community, along with the regional government, Alaska Native organizations and utilities, to share, replicate and advance clean energy initiatives across the region.
Rather than replacing local decision making, the committee reduces the burden on individual communities by pooling planning capacity, sharing technical expertise and providing a consistent forum for community energy champions and power plant operators to learn from one another. This regional approach has enabled coordinated deployment of solar, battery storage, heat pumps and tribal-owned independent power producer projects in multiple communities.
The opportunity: Establish regional remote community coordination tables to advance knowledge sharing and coordination
While Canada has many strong examples of Indigenous-led clean energy leadership, most progress still happens through individual projects and short-term capacity building initiatives, which can lead to fragmented outcomes, competition for limited funding dollars and heavy lifting at the local level. Learning from the approach taken in Alaska, Indigenous-led regional energy steering committees that include utilities and regional governments offer a pathway to more coordinated planning in Canada. These committees could support collaboration across multiple communities, enable project coordination and economies of scale, unlock new financing opportunities, while also strengthening Indigenous leadership and long-term energy governance.
British Columbia’s Remote Community Energy Strategy (RCES) Working Group highlights the potential for more robust regional coordination. Formed in 2021, it brings together representatives from remote First Nations to advise the provincial government on diesel reduction strategies and energy policy. While the RCES Working Group plays an important role in shaping policy and supporting Indigenous leadership, it is primarily an advisory body and does not function as a regional coordination table that brings together communities, utilities and regional governments to jointly plan and implement energy projects in the way the Northwest Arctic Energy Steering Committee does. Creating regional steering committees in Canada represents a promising next step to enable more collaborative and scalable community-led energy transitions.
2. Embedded technical assistance reduces burden and risk
The challenge: Gaps in local technical capacity leave communities reliant on external consultants, increasing project management demands, costs and project risk
In Canada, federal programs such as Wah-ila-toos support the development of Indigenous clean energy projects by providing accessible funding for capacity building and capital expenditures. These funding programs, however, do not directly provide technical analysis or project planning support, leaving communities heavily dependent on external technical advisors for these services. While this model has improved access to capital, it can still place substantial coordination, procurement and oversight demands on small community teams at the early stages of their clean energy journey when decisions are complex and capacity is often most constrained.
What Alaska has done
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Technology Innovation Partnership Project (ETIPP) provides remote and islanded communities with technical assistance. Delivered by national laboratories working with regional partners, ETIPP offers resource analysis, energy modelling and planning support that helps communities evaluate options and chart project pathways without first needing to hire external consultants, thereby reducing administrative burden and risk.
The opportunity: Embed technical support alongside capital funding programs
Canadian institutions and organizations (universities, ENGOs, federal departments etc.) are well positioned to provide similar embedded support. Northern Energy Innovation (NEI) at Yukon University, for example, already works closely with utilities and communities to support renewable integration on isolated grids, undertaking applied research and grid impact and system studies on a cost-recovery basis. With targeted funding to expand capacity for direct, community-facing technical assistance, Canadian institutions and organizations could support a program similar to ETIPP by providing trusted, community-based resources and technical analysis and planning support.
Canada can also build on the experience of the Indigenous Off-Diesel Initiative (IODI), a federal program that provides Indigenous Energy Champions with renewable energy training, mentorship and funding for community energy planning and project development. Integrating embedded technical assistance alongside strong funding programs, much like IODI’s model of pairing training with planning support, could lower costs, reduce risk and accelerate community-led renewable energy transitions on remote diesel grids.
3. Skilled local operators are key to reliable energy systems
The challenge: Limited accredited training pathways make it difficult to develop and retain local operators with the skills required to run both diesel and renewable systems
In many remote communities, the utility employs staff for diesel operations while independent power producers hire staff for renewable operations. In small labour markets, this splits scarce talent, duplicates mobilization and supervision costs and leaves each team covering only part of an integrated system. Without standardized, accredited training that spans diesel, renewable and hybrid controls, communities miss the opportunity to build a single, cross-trained local workforce, a model that best fits small systems and tight budgets.
What Alaska has done
REAP’s Alaska Energy Training Group brings together organizations across Alaska’s energy sector to coordinate training, technical assistance and workforce development activities. The group meets quarterly to exchange information, learn from effective training models and explore opportunities for coordination.
Through the Alaska Energy Authority’s Rural Power System Upgrade Program and Power Plant Operator Training, Alaska has paired infrastructure investment with ongoing, hands-on operator training to run modern powerhouses designed for efficient operation and integration with renewables.
Alaska also builds local operations and maintenance capacity through the UAF’s Sustainable Energy training, which delivers workforce-oriented instruction on solar microgrids to remote communities, reinforcing post-commissioning reliability and operator confidence.
Delivered consistently over time, these programs support workforce retention, operational reliability and long-term system optimization in remote diesel communities.
The opportunity: Become a model of remote clean energy workforce training
A similar model could be adapted for Canada without needing to start from scratch. Northern Energy Innovation’s Community Energy Systems course, while more broadly focused, already follows a similar model in that it is co-developed with Indigenous partners, and offers practitioner-led instruction and in-community delivery. Building from this base, educational institutions could formalize an operator training and certification stream for remote power systems by taking cues from Yukon University’s Water and Wastewater Operator Program. This program, accredited through the Environmental Operators Certification Program, is centred around a modular curriculum that supports education at the pace of individual learners, and is available in communities throughout the Yukon, NWT and northern B.C.
Conclusion: Clean energy transitions start with people
Alaska’s experience reminds us that clean energy transitions in remote diesel communities succeed when they are designed around people, not just technologies. Regional planning tables, embedded technical assistance and accredited operator training all point to the same lesson — that human capacity is the foundation of community energy. Taking a people-first approach, Canada can move beyond one-off projects to more sustainable community energy systems.
