Power savings take stage
Teresa Chilkowich hopes to reduce energy consumption in the region
Joseph Tunney
Northern News Services
Thursday, August 4, 2016
LIIDLII KUE/FORT SIMPSON
If you were walking the streets of Fort Simpson during the Dene National Assembly this year, you may have noticed Teresa Chilkowich with a few odd looking gadgets on her.
Teresa Chilkowich, left, showing Herb Norwegian, grand chief of Dehcho First Nations, the energy-saving "rocket stove," which uses excess heat to energize a USB port. - Joseph Tunney/NNSL photo
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Chilkowich is one of the five regional community energy co-ordinators at Arctic Energy Alliance, and was out with gear designed to teach people about energy consumption.
"That resonates a lot with me," Chilkowich said. "Helping people move along their paths (toward energy reduction)."
Outside the assembly, Chilkowich's booth showcased her gadgets, including an oven that channels excess heat into charging a phone and a "sLEDgehammer" energy bicycle, designed like a carnival's strongman sledgehammer game, where the participants had to pedal harder and harder to get a row of lights to illuminate to the top.
Coming to events like this are just one of many ways Chilkowich and her organization hope to teach people how much energy it takes energize the objects that surround us.
She said the biggest way she makes an impact in the Deh Cho is by becoming a familiar face, something she thinks she has accomplished in the almost five years she's lived here.
Chilkowich and her organization also work with governments and commercial businesses to teach them how to save energy, and maybe a few bucks as well.
A few weeks ago, Chilkowich and her organization hosted an ice cream party to celebrate the installation of solar panels on the Fort Simpson recreation centre.
The panels are supposed to save the centre 8,000 kilowatt-hours annually, which is expected to generate between $6,000 and $6,500 in savings.
She's planning a similar installation for the community government building in Jean Marie River at the end of August.
The solar panel installations are just one of the nine energy conservation projects her organization has been working on across the NWT.
Chilkowich's office is in the Dehcho First Nations office building and she said the Fort Simpson location has helped her receive guidance and input about the best way to reach out to particular people in the community.
Additionally, she said the principles about reducing energy are in line with Dene principles were important to her even before she came to the Deh Cho.
"Working on behalf of the Earth," she said. "It's always been a significant focus for me."
