Indigenous communities are leading renewable projects
Chief Gordon Planes, David Isaac and Steven Muzzo on creating a sustainable energy system upon Indigenous philosophies.
Chief Gordon Planes (right) shares insights alongside David Isaac at the 2022 Indigenous Partnerships Success Showcase.
“We’re here to talk about the sunrise industries and really what a historic time for not only First Nations, Indigenous communities in Canada, in Turtle Island, but really for the world,” says David Isaac, when introducing a fireside chat at the 2022 Indigenous Partnerships Success Showcase (IPSS).
“Because, as everybody’s aware, we’re in real-time climate change.”
Isaac, who is President of the W Dusk Energy Group, was moderating a discussion with Chief Gordon Planes (Hya-Quatcha) of the T’Sou-ke Nation, and Steven Muzzo, CEO of OZZ Clean Energy during the OZZ Clean Energy Fireside Chat at IPSS 2022.
The T’Sou-ke Nation, located on BC’s Vancouver Island, has demonstrated its leadership in the innovative use of renewable energy: for more than a decade, the Nation has been generating electricity from solar panels.
The community was also planning to “put wind turbines on Vancouver Island, 100 of them, 300-megawatt project with EDP renewables,” says Planes, but the project has not yet come to fruition.
“The province didn’t need the power. They were building Site C. And I just thought about it, and I said, ‘Well, we live on an island. We’re separated from the mainland. It wouldn’t come out of the taxpayer’s pocket, and it would be a benefit for us to work together on Vancouver Island to strengthen ourselves into a new economy to make that transition.’ I see the opportunities and maybe that opportunity isn’t now. Maybe that opportunity is in a few years from now.”
As CEO of OZZ Clean Energy, an Ontario-based renewable energy company focused on residential and commercial solar development, Muzzo also sees opportunities that others haven’t yet recognized. “Every day of the week, we’re putting up buildings that are based on 1970-1980-engineered drawings. Not much has changed. We get frustrated in the process.
“How do you future-ready a building? Infrastructure becomes critically important. We look at these high-rise projects that sit on small parcels of land. We don’t have the ability to put megawatts of solar into the ground there. So, we have to think about energy within the design of the building.”
Muzzo says quite often buildings have multiple communication networks — to provide internet services and support smart metering and IOT (Internet of Things) initiatives like leak detection — that are redundant.
“It’s really about getting everyone in a room together and thinking it through more intelligently and building it right from the start. But build it in a manner where you can then think about the future. You can add other products and services in from a sustainability and energy efficiency perspective that’ll just make that project a better project for the long term.”
Thinking about the future for Indigenous peoples, says Planes, also involves drawing lessons from the past.
“My elders taught me how our older people used to live off the land... and it was done in a way that was simplistic, very easy life because it was passed down through hundreds of years of teaching.... We never forget that because those lessons learned... those are gifts.
“And when you think about the work we did with our solar voltaic project, it wasn’t about solar. It was about the old way of our people. And to match that with food security because you have to add everything together within your territory and think about it.... Those teachings that I was able to obtain as a small boy growing up are so key to our survival. But going forward, it’s going to be key for our young people to learn and then that’s going be the foundation for us to go forward.
“I always like what the elders said: ‘You do it for your children and your children not born yet.’ When we did our solar project, we as a community got together and we said, ‘What kind of project should we do?’ And the elders said, ‘Do a project for the children and the children will lead the way.’ So, we did a solar project and it’s been awesome because we feel they’re the ones that’ll make that shift. They’re the ones that’ll make those decisions. They’re the ones that could speed things up.”
Muzzo believes that renewable energy presents “this incredible opportunity for First Nation groups to take advantage of this infrastructure and own it long-term... to create long-term revenue opportunities that they can profit from. And that’s really just about planning. It’s just a small investment in time to create a lifetime of opportunity.”
David Isaac says three out of five clean energy projects in Canada are either led or co-led by an Indigenous community. “It’s really exciting to be able, as an Indigenous person, to be part of a historic time, to actually be part of an emerging sector that aligns with our Indigenous world views and traditional beliefs and in our value and respect of the land.”
“Indigenous communities... are really creating circular economy... sustainable living. The way things are trending, it looks like this Indigenous concept of design and economy are really going to be essential, not just for Indigenous people, but really the world at large.”
This article was originally published in Rights & Respect, Issue 2.
