What is INTENT Doing?
The Inland Northwest's energy systems face the growing challenges of adverse weather events related to wildfires, increasing temperatures, and accelerating energy demands in isolated communities. INTENT advances community-centric energy systems, markets and technologies by convening key partners in the region who are already doing this work. INTENT's partners bring advanced new technologies to solve global energy challenges, to include advanced long-duration storage and microgrid technology. These enabling technologies will be combined with a range of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) to provide a technological path to modernizing and decarbonizing the Inland Northwest's energy system.
INTENT—in partnership with its regional rural communities—will develop community base decentralized energy systems to address security and resilience risk resulting from highly exposed infrastructure to natural disasters like wildfires. The decentralized energy systems will reside on technology platforms including advanced energy storage and photovoltaic, geothermal storage and networks, fuel cells, microgrids and small modular reactors and communication networks, advanced sensors and data analytics for improved grid visibility and stability, and cybersecurity to protect decentralized grids.
How?
Since the beginning of 2022, INTENT has conducted individual outreach, held multiple in-person regional workshops, and released a request for information to gain consensus on key innovation roadblocks and the plan to realize the vision to enable sustainable, equitable and resilient power grids and energy systems.
Our partners have identified and refined six intervention projects that will have high impact on accelerating regional innovation. These will be our starting point for achieving INTENT's vision.
Look familiar? If you are doing work that aligns with any projects, we want to hear from you.
Get InvolvedBroader Impacts
In addition to INTENT's community-centric energy system approach to meeting Washington State's 2050 carbon-free goal, we also have impacts beyond grid decarbonization. INTENT is committed to community agency as a service organization. We will operationalize energy and environmental justice, so that past inequities are replaced with practices that grow community wealth, develop the local workforce, and increase energy-related educational opportunities. The local economy will grow as new companies are created and existing businesses expand. Our efforts will deliver critical national benefits such as protecting and enhancing national security. Deploying distributed, community-based assets protects the power grid against cyberattack, and local energy production and storage increases resiliency. A local energy supply is free from market influences that drive fuel cost volatility, mitigating supply chain risks. Renewables are not dependent on foreign supply, thus reducing our dependency on foreign energy supplies.
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This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Cooperative Agreement No. 2304058. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
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