REAP is made up of a coalition of over 75 dues-paying member organizations that are at the heart and soul of our mission. Throughout the year, we will be highlighting some of these members in our Meet the Members series. Join us in learning more about the Taġiuġmiullu Nunamiullu Housing Authority (TNHA) from CEO Griffin Hagle.
What is the Taġiuġmiullu Nunamiullu Housing Authority?
We are a tribally designated housing entity serving six Iñupiaq communities across a remote, roadless region the size of Minnesota. Our mission is to excel in the delivery of opportunities for affordable housing that empower, build and sustain vibrant self-determined communities on the Arctic Slope for generations to come.
How does clean energy align with your mission?
Energy is a large component of our built environment and plays an especially important role in housing affordability. Providing opportunities aimed at self-sufficiency for “generations to come” commits us to consider present and future energy access, cost burden, and reliability in the course of project planning and development for beneficiaries who are generally below area median incomes. One of the often overlooked success stories of the last decade is that rural America, including Alaska Native villages, is on the front lines of the shift to low-carbon electricity. We believe that the energy transition, the housing affordability crisis, and the global climate emergency present opportunities for a more unified approach that makes better use of the limited human and economic capacity available to meet such challenges.
What inspired TNHA to join REAP?
We have pioneered the use of renewable energy systems in our region (solar thermal) and plan to expand into heat pumps, solar PV, combined heat-and-power, and battery storage in upcoming projects. Our Alaska-based construction team is second to none in their expertise with cold-climate building science and energy efficiency.
What recent activities or projects would you like to share with the REAP community?
We are renovating a 29-unit affordable housing complex for tribal members in Utqiaġvik. We are fully electrifying the units by converting fossil gas stoves to induction. This eliminates generation of carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, and nitrogen dioxide in the units, and greatly reduces the risk of kitchen fires, which have been a problem in the past. Six tenants have moved back into renovated units so far, each receiving a starter kit of compatible cookware. We are also studying the integration of a combined heat-and-power system to boost building energy efficiency and provide uninterrupted power during local grid outages.
In Wainwright, we are in the design phase of a conversion of a former armory building built in the 1990s to a community childcare center. The Village of Wainwright, which owns the facility, is an ETIPP recipient, and as their project developer, we are able to receive technical assistance from national lab experts at no cost to the tribe to pursue ambitious energy design measures. The goal is to provide the tribe with a comfortable, healthy indoor environment that is simple to maintain, inexpensive to operate, and thermally resilient, meaning that it will maintain safe temperatures for a longer period than a conventional building would during power outages. The ETIPP team is also helping us analyze options for battery storage and on-site renewable energy that could help reduce or eliminate the facility’s diesel consumption during the summer and shoulder seasons.
Stay up to date with the Taġiuġmiullu Nunamiullu Housing Authority:
If you are interested in becoming a member of REAP, click here to apply or contact REAP’s Outreach Director, Donovan Russoniello, at drussoniello@realaska.org.