Transportation within remote, Alaska communities that are inaccessible by road usually means burning gas or diesel. For the first time, however, researchers in two northern Alaska communities want to study how electric vehicles, including electric snowmachines, could be incorporated into their isolated power grids.
The Electric Vehicles in the Arctic study began this year in Kotzebue and in the Interior community of Galena. The National Science Foundation is paying more than $3 million dollars for the five-year study. Researchers hope to better understand the role and future of EVs in more remote areas of Alaska.
In August, the Alaska Energy Authority reported over 3,000 fully electric vehicles registered in Alaska. Only two are in Kotzebue, both owned by the local energy co-op, the Kotzebue Electric Association.
The study doesn’t promote EVs, but aims to better understand their usage in rural Alaska and clarify misconceptions about them.
“We hear a lot that they won't perform,” said Michelle Wilber, a research engineer for the University of Alaska Fairbanks and a principal investigator for the study. “People are worried that they won't perform in the super-cold.”
Jennifer Schmidt works for the University of Alaska Anchorage and focuses on the social components of the study.
“I think the other misconception is that it doesn't make sense to have EVs in rural Alaska because the plant is powered by diesel, you're just basically using another fossil fuel to charge these and so there really isn't the environmental benefits.” said Schmidt.
Schmidt said the reality is more complicated, and that even if an EV is powered by a diesel-burning electric utility, it’s often still more environmentally sound than a comparable gas vehicle. Although factoring in the mining required for EV batteries further complicates the tradeoffs.
The researchers chose Kotzebue and Galena for the study because both already use renewable energy on their electrical grids with more in the works.
Galena, for example, uses solar panels and has begun looking at how hydrokinetic, or river powered turbines, could be used during warmer months. In Kotzebue, both the KEA and Kotzebue’s tribe are continuing to build more solar and wind arrays to offset diesel generators.
Schmidt said there is very little research on vehicle usage in rural Alaska. She only knew of one survey by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, which asked just subsistence users about vehicle use.
The new study commissioned by the National Science Foundation, however, has a few components. The first is gathering baseline data.
During the first two years, Schmidt, Wilber and other local partners will track and log 19 people’s vehicle usage — whether by car, four-wheeler, snowmachine or boat. Participants will stow small metal trackers in their vehicles. Biologists use the same kind of trackers to plot caribou migrations, in part because they can still function at lower temperatures.
Participants won’t be tracked in real-time; they only use the data in aggregate.
“It's not the Iron Dog,” Schmidt said. “I can't see what people are doing.”
Participants could also receive over $800 if they participate in the full, year-long survey. Schmidt said the information can also be used by engineers with the project to look at how much energy the power-plant would need to integrate more EVs.
EVs aside, the vehicle use information is valuable in other ways too, for things like road-use patterns, or how to manage dust in the summer months.
“So, in Galena, they're very interested in using the information to provide statistics for grants going after funding to repair the road,” Schmidt said.
Another component of the study is purchasing electric vehicles chosen by the communities to see how they might realistically work in rural areas.
In Kotzebue, survey participants were paid $40 to evaluate and select the EV they thought would work best. Participants selected the all-electric Taiga snowmachine and Polaris 4-wheeler as the preferred winter and summer vehicles, which the researchers said were favored mostly for their mileage range.
The final component of the study – training a local workforce to maintain the vehicles once they are in their communities – is critical.
“The prohibitive costs of shipping it back to a dealership somewhere to get it worked on came up over and over again as a barrier to adoption of electric vehicles,” Wilbur said.
The researchers are working with the school districts in Galena and Kotzebue to develop a EV repair training program at no-cost to students, in coordination with the UAA’s Automotive program. They also hired a local research manager based in each community.