**Title**: Energy in the North - Bertha Prince
**Date**: June 4, 2025
**Participants**: Amanda Byrd, Bertha Prince


00:00:00:00 - 00:00:03:18 [Bertha Prince] How do you survive in a rural community where there costs are three times the price of Anchorage or the rail belt?

00:00:07:42 - 00:00:14:17 [Amanda Byrd] This week on energy in the North, I speak with Bertha Prince, executive director for Nuvista Light and Electric Cooperative, a nonprofit that seeks to reduce energy costs and provide renewable sources of energy to the people of western Alaska. Bertha is from St. Mary's, a community on the western Yukon River, and is one of around 30 communities in the Yukon Kuskokwim Region served by the Alaska Village Electric Cooperative and 17 independent community and tribally owned utilities. Bertha lives and works in Anchorage, serving her region, and is a member of the 2025 Energy Leadership Accelerator cohort and was in Kotzebue during the first Alaska Leadership Lab when I spoke to her. I began the conversation by asking Bertha how her region generates power.

00:00:52:08 - 00:00:53:45 [Bertha Prince] All of our communities are run and operated by diesel power plants,

00:00:57:25 - 00:01:02:22 [Amanda Byrd] But it's been recently, maybe the past ten years or so that you've had renewable energy.

00:01:02:22 - 00:01:04:57 [Bertha Prince] The Channink wind group is the major driving force of the region. They've done a lot of wind projects with Intelligent Energy Systems, IES, based in Anchorage. So they've been putting up wind turbines in communities and batteries and incorporating solar. Now.

00:01:22:27 - 00:01:23:53 [Amanda Byrd] And has that changed the community appreciation of energy?

00:01:26:38 - 00:01:31:35 [Bertha Prince] In the communities that are operating their own utilities, they're seeing the benefits of like an IPP in place because they're getting part of that funding back into the communities. We're paying $1.25 a kilowatt hour. So our region Has its challenges of its own with higher electricity rates, because we're more rural and the fuel is harder to get delivered there.

00:01:56:34 - 00:02:00:48 [Amanda Byrd] So right now we're in Kotzebue and we're here with the ELA.

00:02:01:56 - 00:02:03:31 [Bertha Prince] There's a variety of people from Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Alaska, Minnesota. I think we all have something in common where we're working towards
 reducing energy costs in these microgrid systems.

00:02:15:50 - 00:02:20:01 [Amanda Byrd] What's your hope for the communities that you serve and for St. Mary's?

00:02:20:01 - 00:02:21:59 [Bertha Prince] We would like to see affordable energy. For instance, Kotlik Alaska, they're closer to the Bering Sea on the lower Yukon. They're paying
$400 a month for water and sewer. Yes.

00:02:32:52 - 00:02:33:59 [Amanda Byrd] That's astounding.

00:02:33:59 - 00:02:37:52 [Bertha Prince] I mean, how do you survive in a rural community where there costs are three times the price of Anchorage or the Railbelt?

00:02:42:00 - 00:02:43:04 [Amanda Byrd] It must be very difficult.

00:02:43:06 - 00:02:44:36 [Bertha Prince] It is difficult. So we're trying to help our communities reduce their energy costs to make it affordable. I mean PCE is helping, but we need more renewable energy systems to help our communities reduce those costs.

00:03:00:01 - 00:03:06:00 [Amanda Byrd] And do you think renewables, locally sourced renewable energy does actually help? 

00:03:06:00 - 00:03:07:03 [Bertha Prince] Renewable energy does reduce the fuel costs for the utility. But where are the benefits for the residential payers. And should be a mix of the heating element in there reducing, residential heating costs. The communities on the Kuskokwim side don't have the luxury of cutting down trees for wood heat. So, we need to find innovative ways to reduce our energy costs. We need more trained rural people in these positions where they can operate and manage their own systems.

00:03:45:18 - 00:03:49:37 [Amanda Byrd] Bertha Prince is the executive director for Nuvista Light and Electric Cooperative, and I'm Amanda Byrd, chief storyteller for the Alaska Center for Energy and Power. Find this story and more at uaf.edu/acep.