High-Speed Internet Improves Solar Panel Output on Tribal Lands

The Forest County Potawatomi Community of Wisconsin had been generating electricity to run its community center using solar panels for years—they just didn’t have an accurate way of tracking their energy usage. Thanks to an Internet for All grant from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), they now do. NTIA’s Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program (TBCP) awarded the Forest County Potawatomi Community $125,232 to provide reliable high-speed Internet service to the Tribe’s solar arrays. The broadband component is critical to the success of the project, ensuring that Hauber and Lange can accurately monitor and store data. The solar panels produce enough energy to charge the building’s energy usage during the day. Before NTIA funded the program, Lange would have to physically drive out to the solar panel site to make sure everything was functioning properly. Data from the solar panels were stored in USBs, which only held 30 days of info. And, with slow download speeds, data collection could take upwards of 2-3 days' worth of time to collect. Now that everything goes through their own secure network, the Tribe is no longer dependent on an outside manufacturer or data company to understand how the solar panels on the community center are working, and do not lose any of their data.  

(March 22, 2024)