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Submited by City of Tenino

At the May 28 Tenino City Council Meeting, Councilmember Dave Watterson announced that the renewable energy initiative project formed between the Tenino School District, the City of Tenino, and Portland Energy Conservation, Incorporated (PECI) and known as TIER (Tenino Innovation & Education through Renewables) has been nominated for the “Visionary of the Year” award bestowed by the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA).

“The fact that we even got nominated is impressive enough; that we are one of the top three finalists just goes to show what can be accomplished with the right people” says Watterson.

The program began in March of 2018 when the City, the School District, and PECI signed a Memorandum of Understanding that appointed PECI as the Project Manager.  The PECI team conducted an energy inventory for renewable and smart grid hosting capacity in Tenino and analyzed electrical meter day for the community to assess which projects would be most beneficial.  Then PECI move the early stakeholders toward coalescing around a vision, strategies, objective, and a work plan for the project.

These efforts led directly to a large Department of Commerce grant for the TIER project, which is centered around the Tenino School District and a “grid modernization project” in order to create a Hosting Capacity Analysis that leads to the rapid interconnection of distributed energy resources so that energy consumers can have choices about how their energy needs are met.

The grant funds are to be used to develop a local energy infrastructure to produce and store energy locally and to benefit the K-12 education program being developed in the Tenino School District.  The ultimate goal of this project is to produce carbon-free power generation and storage, improve infrastructure resiliency, and provide economic growth in and around the City of Tenino.

The winner of the Visionary of the Year award will be announced at a gala dinner during the 2019 Grid Evolution Summit on Monday, July 29, 2019, in Washington, D.C.

For more information, please visit the PECI website and access the TIER Grid Modernization Page.

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