Recent economic concerns have inspired even more interest in renewable energy solutions among Native Americans. In 2007 TWP and Lakota Solar Enterprises presented workshops in reservation communities in four new states: the White Earth Reservation (MN), Skull Valley Reservation (UT), Cherokee Nation (OK), and United Tribes Technical College in Bismarck, ND. Three of these were completed in partnership with Winona LaDuke and her organization Honor the Earth. During each workshop, one family received a solar heating system from TWP. These families’ experience–greater warmth and comfort, coupled with their lower heating bills–demonstrated to tribal leaders how renewable energy can directly help entire communities.

Now that the Tribal Lands program is active across such a wide geographic area, we decided that the time was right to move into the next phase of helping tribes increase their renewable energy knowledge and capabilities. In October of 2007 TWP and LSE broke ground for the new Red Cloud Renewable Energy Center (RCREC) at Pine Ridge, a training facility where Native Americans can come for hands-on instruction in solar heating and other renewable energy applications. With help from our partners at Re-Member, a nonprofit working to improve housing for Pine Ridge residents, we plan to add residential quarters for visiting trainees. Our goal is for RCREC to grow to be a gathering place where Great Plains tribes can share renewed hope for the future, along with their growing knowledge of renewable energy technology.

The grounds at RCREC are now home to the LSE manufacturing facility, a strawbale office building, demonstration solar heaters, wind turbine, greenhouse and organic garden, sweat lodge, and a pair of bison from the Red Cloud herd. Our dream and our goal is that RCREC grow to become a resource and gathering place where tribes can share a wide range of renewable energy solutions.