This course provides research-based and on-the-ground tools for community planners, grid designers, and business leaders to improve and implement stronger and more resilient renewable energy in Arctic communities. Through a framework combining renewable energy in microgrids, and Food, Energy, and Water (FEW) security and infrastructure, this course synthesizes concepts into a holistic approach to community planning, improvement, and resiliency.

• Explore infrastructure that supports food, energy, and water systems in remote, islanded regions, as well as connections among them.
• Compare existing and emerging renewable energy technologies and explore examples from Alaska.
• Examine underlying causes of food, energy, and water insecurity in the Arctic and northern rural communities.
• Analyze the interactions among food, energy, and water usage, for example, energy and water use in the production, transportation, and storage of food; energy usage in treating drinking water and wastewater; water demands for electricity production; appropriate food, energy, and water resource usage and allocation.
• Gain specialized expertise on a variety of Arctic energy issues, from engineering to social science to traditional community knowledge.
• Learn the key concepts with practical, Alaska-focused examples.
• Use real wind and solar data and various analysis tools to make community energy assessments.
• Apply your learning through case studies in each module.
• Learn from National Science Foundation-funded researchers and staff from a variety of disciplines at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the University of Alaska Anchorage, the University of Calgary, Stanford, and the private sector.

This project is funded by the National Science Foundation Award #1740075 InFEWS/T3: Coupling infrastructure improvements to food-energy-water system dynamics in small cold region communities: MicroFEWs.