The white folks in Walworth County don’t want solar power, but their Native neighbors across the river aren’t so easily duped by the fossil-fuelers. After six years on the air, KIPI Radio will someday soon run on the sun:
KIPI Radio 93.5 FM broke ground Monday on what will be the largest solar installation to date on the Cheyenne River Reservation.
The 100-kilowatt, 234-panel array represents a significant step toward energy independence for the tribally owned station and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe.
…Funding came from the USDA Rural Energy for America Program, the Alliance for Tribal Clean Energy, the Indigenous Power and Light Fund and the Hammond Foundation.
The solar array will offset a significant portion of KIPI’s electricity costs while enhancing broadcast resilience during power outages. Station officials say the project will ensure continuous emergency broadcasting and cultural programming for years to come [Todd Epp, “KIPI Radio Powers Up with Solar,” Northern Plains News, 2025.10.11].
Don’t tout that USDA money too loudly; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth might send in the Seventh Cavalry to take it back.
I wonder f the felon will make them put in a coal fired plant since he is making coal available again, even if no one wants it.
The cost of subsidizing, manufacturing, transporting, erecting, maintaining then removing and disposing of just one wind turbine eyesore bat and bird killer would take a thousand subscribers to energy self-reliance. Microgrid technologies are destined to enhance tribal sovereignty, free communities from electric monopolies and net-metering only gives control back to utilities enabled by moral hazard.
Utilities are not your friends so don’t tie your photovoltaic system to the grid but if you use it as a backup keep your own electricity completely separate from the utility that reads your meter.
Who is volunteering to broom the snow off?
Wind works pretty well here. Solar I dunno; if you don’t put the panels on good farmland, but rather pasture land, it can probably supplement a bit if you have a fire department willing and equipped for them in case something bad happens.
Bet none of the funding programs came from South Duhkotuh’s legislators in DC.
You fellows are just a bunch of negative nancys. grudznick thinks you should at least let these fellows give it the good old Wakpala try. Prolly ain’t failed yet.
The people of Potter are for it like its 1932.