Red Cliff, Wisconsin

Red Cliff Tribe Community Microgrid

The Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa is a tribal community located on the shores of Lake Superior in Bayfield Country, Wisconsin. The tribe operates the Red Cliff fish hatchery and the Legendary Waters Resort and Casino, as well as a health clinic. The remote nature of the reservation has caused the tribe to consider the possibility of developing their own microgrid comprised of solar, storage, and conventional generation. They envision augmenting some of their existing facilities with resilient power systems that could be used as a community resilience hub during a protracted natural disaster. The integrated resilient power system would also provide utility cost savings to the tribe during normal operation.

With our partners Chequamegon Bay Renewables and Baker Tilly, and with support from the Department of Energy Solar in Your Community Challenge, muGrid Analytics performed a techno-economic feasibility study which determined the optimal sizing and dispatching of multiple potential solar plus storage projects at the reservation. We performed a load analysis based on their historical and projected usage, determined the utility cost savings to the tribe, the resulting economic return, and then analyzed the resilience that these systems could provide when integrated with existing diesel generators that are already at the site.