Natural Resources Canada announced nearly $7 million for eight projects across the three territories. Its project backgrounder assigns $260,000 to the Municipality of Resolute Bay for a planned 15-kilowatt solar system on its municipal garage; $410,625 to Kivalliq Alternative Energy Ltd. for front-end engineering and design of an Arviat hybrid renewable-energy system; $729,434 to the Hamlet of Chesterfield Inlet for a 134-kilowatt rink-roof solar array; $99,000 to the Kitikmeot Heritage Society for embodied-carbon analysis of Cambridge Bay’s planned Kuugalak cultural research campus; and $1,440,245 to Nunasi Corporation for wind-resource work in Baker Lake, Whale Cove and Chesterfield Inlet. Source↗

The funding supports diesel-reduction and energy-planning work in several communities, but it does not mean that all five projects are newly starting or will immediately change local power supply. The federal record says the Resolute Bay system will be installed and the Arviat project will complete engineering needed before procurement and construction. It describes the Chesterfield Inlet solar installation, Kuugalak analysis and Kivalliq wind assessment as completed work. Source↗

Resolute Bay’s planned garage solar project and Arviat’s engineering study are the active implementation items identified in the release. The federal document gives no construction date, procurement date, generation forecast or projected diesel savings for either project. Nunasi’s completed wind assessment is said to have enabled Baker Lake to enter construction planning and helped assess feasibility in Whale Cove and Chesterfield Inlet; it does not announce construction approval for those communities. Source↗

The $2.94-million Nunavut total excludes a separate $2,807,398 Yukon University project that is based in Whitehorse but includes northern grid modelling, outreach and training intended to support community-led renewable generation in Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. The July 29 announcement is later than Atiilu’s June 22 coverage of a separate $17.2-million federal Nunavut clean-energy package. Source↗