Powering Up the Navajo Nation: Glenn Steiger '70, '87
Glenn Steiger ’70, '87 is helping the Navajo Nation see the light — literally.
Steiger currently is the executive consultant for the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority (NTUA), providing professional oversight to NTUA’s major generation, power supply and transmission initiatives. As project director for the Kayenta Solar Project in Arizona, he has played an integral role in the development, construction and operation of the Kayenta I and Kayenta II Solar Facilities. Kayenta I is the first utility-scale solar project on the Navajo Nation reservation or on any Indian reservation within the United States. The two projects together produce 60 MW, which is enough electricity to power about 26,000 Navajo homes. The facility’s electric transmission line delivers energy across the reservation and into Arizona, California, New Mexico and Utah.
Here Comes the Sun (Panels)
A few years ago, the Navajo Nation’s electric utility, the NTUA, decided that it made sense to start to diversify its energy sources portfolio, primarily to look at renewable energy, which is abundant on Navajo Nation. Over 26,000 square miles, it is the size of West Virginia; very large, very spread out, located primarily in northern Arizona, but also into New Mexico and Utah. Its mission is ultimately to be able to serve all 320,000 residents of Navajo Nation with power. But today there still are 15,000 families on the reservation that, due to the vastness of the reservation, do not have power or water delivered to their homes. Part of the mission of NTUA is to provide water and power by ultimately building out the infrastructure to connect to these families, but it is extremely expensive. This creates a need to bring additional revenue to pay for the construction of facilities to serve these families, and also for creating critically needed economic development on the reservation. The development of renewable energy sources could provide some of that much-needed revenue.
Steiger had just retired as general manager/CEO at Alameda Municipal Power in California and had returned to Arizona. When he did, NTUA asked him to come to the reservation and oversee its power supply initiatives including the assurance that renewable projects would be developed, built and operated. “So we did, and it was a stretch at first to get people to want to come to the reservation to build renewable energy projects, because the folks that live there had never embarked on renewable projects of this magnitude before. So we had to go outside of the reservation to obtain the expertise to do it,” Steiger recalled. “It was a challenge at first, but we were finally able to get qualified contractors to come to the Rez. My first task was to make sure that it was permitted and financed properly. Once we successfully built the first Kayenta project, which is just under 30 megawatts, and as the very first large-scale solar project on Indian land, Kayenta I set the stage for where we are going now; the successful completion of a duplicate project to Kayenta I; the Kayenta II 30 MW solar project.”
Barriers to Providing Energy to Tribal Lands
Outside the Navajo Nation, one of the barriers to providing energy was the type of project itself, because large-scale renewable projects had never been implemented on any tribal land within the United States. “People can, at times, be hesitant to do business with a sovereign nation: Their laws and construction requirements are different, and their financial processes are a little bit different, so it creates a hesitation,” Steiger explained. “The barriers were: a) getting qualified contractors to want to come to the Rez and actually build these projects within the Nation’s parameters; and b) getting qualified financial institutions to make sure we were able to finance it because that’s obviously crucially important, too.”
“Within Navajo Nation, there was a fair amount of hesitation, too, because Native American people have three very, very important priorities: family, land and livestock,” he continued. “Anything that may create impact on any one of those, will, most likely get pushback. So obviously, if you develop a large solar project on 400 acres of land, it will have an impact on someone. The residents are spread way out, and even though they don’t own the land, they get a reserve from the reservation to live and raise livestock there. They maintain the grazing rights for their livestock. Each resident is given an allocation of acreage, which is usually at least 65 acres or more of grazing land. This means they have the rights for their livestock to graze on that land.
“In order for the utility to build a solar project, we had to be able to get the affected residents to relinquish those grazing rights, which can be difficult. There was also a bit of hesitation by the local government structure on the tribal lands to grant permission. Called a chapter, it is similar to a municipal government — so the chapter basically has quite a bit of influence on what you can do. So there was significant concern on ‘How do we know you will finish it?’ and ‘How do we know we are going to get some economic value out of that?’ For the Kayenta I project, gaining permission from the various participants was difficult; however, for the second project, Kayenta II, not so much. Those are the barriers for the project, but in general, it is our mission to continue to build out to serve the folks that don’t have power, while also serving our existing customers. Those barriers apply to our mission, too! Because it’s so vast and remote, it couldn’t be more opposite from New Jersey, which represents the ultimate extreme. Believe it or not, even though we’re the electric utility for Navajo Nation, the Nation itself can be hesitant to grant rights of way to its own utility to build lines or projects because, again, it impacts land. So those are some of the barriers.”
What was the most rewarding part of this project?
“In general, it was rewarding to be able to successfully complete the project and see it operate while knowing that, ‘Yes, we can do this, and we can do it on a much larger scale,’ he said. “That was a decent-sized project, but now we can expand where and build much larger projects. But the other thing that I find most rewarding in general: I’ve worked in this business my entire 50-year career, since leaving Newark College of Engineering (NCE). I’ve worked for PSE&G, I’ve worked for Jersey Central Power and Light, and a number of municipal utilities and I’ve always been accustomed to being a part of a utility where if the lights blink, people get quite upset. At Navajo Nation it’s completely different, you’re dealing with people that are just thankful to have any power at all — anything. And then, on top of that, to be able to know that what we’re doing helps to provide a higher quality of life is a wonderful feeling. When you see people that have never had power, and all of a sudden, they can turn a lightbulb on and have refrigeration, their faces light up, it’s extraordinarily rewarding! Yes, it’s very rewarding! That’s the main reason I do it.”
Plans are currently underway for the next two 100 MW solar projects on the Nation later this year. “Other tribal nations have contacted us and come over to see what we’ve done, to understand how we did it, what worked and what were our challenges. Most other tribal nations are smaller than Navajo, so it’s a little more difficult for them, but there is always a way to do it,” he said. “We very much encourage them to do it.”
Has his NJIT degree in civil engineering helped him in his career?
“Yes, it has. My partner, Barbara, and I were just talking about that, and obviously, I have never used the civil engineering piece of it. When I was taking my undergrad classes at NCE, I worked part time for two different civil engineering consulting companies with the expectation of doing hydraulic engineering after I graduated. But on a whim, I took an interview in my senior year with PSE&G and was hired to be a sales engineer. At PSE&G, I was thoroughly educated about the electric and gas utility industry, and from that point forward I have remained in the energy industry. My engineering degree has served me very well and, while I have never directly utilized my civil engineering skills, I am very grateful for my NCE/NJIT education.”
When asked if he can offer any advice to current NJIT students, Steiger said to “Be as flexible and as open to the possibilities that are out there, because you never know.
“In my case, I thought I was going to go down one path, and then I went down another. It has worked out very, very well,” he added. “Just be open to new opportunities, take some chances, that has always worked for me. There will always be challenges, but in general, the nice thing about having an engineering degree is that it gives you the ability to think logically and understand how the world works; it serves well for many of life’s situations.”
Steiger was previously the general manager of Alameda (California) Municipal Power, and the former general manager/CEO of Glendale (California) Water & Power (GWP), where he transitioned the utility through the integration of “smart grid” technology, water and energy efficiency. Under his leadership, GWP was the first utility in the United States to receive federal stimulus funding for its “smart grid” initiative, and was the first to be fully smart-grid operational for both its electric and water utilities.
He previously led the Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company (MMWEC), as general manager/CEO. Before joining MMWEC, he was general manager of IID Energy (Imperial Irrigation District), where he created the “Green Path” transmission project. In addition, he served in several leadership roles at Jersey Central Power & Light (JCP&L) culminating in leading the utility’s “industry restructuring” activities as vice president of Corporate and Competitive Affairs. Prior to JCP&L, he held the position of director of Engineering and Operations with Sussex Rural Electric Co-op.
Steiger has provided internationally recognized water/energy nexus and smart grid consulting services to utilities in Australia, Brazil, Thailand, China and numerous European countries. He was honored by GridWeek with its 2010 “Excellence in Smart Grid Deployment” award and by Intelligent Utilities magazine as one of 2011’s “Movers and Shakers.” In his role of “utility industry expert,” he has provided smart grid, demand response, renewable energy, energy efficiency and management business/operational strategy services to the energy and water industries. Steiger holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and a master’s degree in engineering management from NJIT. Additionally, he has completed advanced executive management work at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and is a licensed professional engineer.
As a member of the 2020 Alumni Weekend Reunion Committee, Steiger looks forward to his 50th class reunion next spring on the NJIT campus. “I’m really excited about it,” he said. “I’m looking forward to hopefully seeing some of the people I haven’t seen in 50 years, and even if not, just to be back here and enjoy what NJIT has become.”