This Nunavut community will soon flip the switch on a solar transition
- Jennifer Wilson for CBC News
- Apr 23
- 4 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
Written by Jennifer Wilson for CBC News
Published April 24, 2025
The pervasive, rattling buzz of diesel generators is a daily feature of the Arctic landscape. Especially in the remote communities that pepper the vast tundra of Nunavut.
That's because the territory holds the dubious distinction of being one of the few places in Canada that still relies, almost exclusively, on imported fossil fuels.
But the needle is moving, ever so slightly, as more and more Nunavummiut look to solar energy to offset their diesel use, emissions and costs — including the first solar project in Nunavut's history big enough to power large parts of a community.
The Inuit hamlet of Naujaat sits right on the Arctic circle, facing the icy shores of Hudson's Bay in Nunavut's northern Kivalliq Region. Home to around one thousand people, Naujaat is about to flip the switch on 2,500 solar panels — enough to power 130 homes, or about 60 per cent of the hamlet.
By next spring, Naujaat residents are expected to be able to ditch diesel generator sets — for the summer months at least — and power parts of their community on solar energy alone. Blaine Chislett is preparing a 'Coming of the Light' ceremony to mark the solar project's debut.
He says below the constant hum of generators, there's a serene silence that he's excited to hear.
"Our current generations will be able to hear the silence that our ancestors once did back when they were nomadic people," said Chislett, the manager of energy and sustainability at the Inuit-owned Sakku Investments Corporation. "To have that silence, to touch back into our ancestry, to feel what they felt, back a millennia ago…. It just gives me tingles."
Chislett spearheads renewable projects in northern communities, and he's heavily involved in the Naujaat project, which the hamlet council named the Ikayuut Solar and Energy Storage Project. Ikayuut means "help" in Inuktitut.
Project planners say Ikayuut will help the community reduce its diesel consumption by 30 per cent, or 400,000 litres per year, and cut carbon dioxide emissions by about 30,000 tonnes over the next 30 years.
Chislett says the thought of normalizing solar power for younger generations of Inuit gives him "goosebumps."
But the project also keeps him and his team up at night. He says they feel the pressure to get this first one right, to show people it can work reliably.
With up to 24 hours of daylight in the summer, seasonal solar-powered electricity may seem like a slam dunk in the North.
However, energy in Nunavut is tricky, said Martha Lenio, the president of the Arctic Renewables Society, based in Iqlauit, and the system has been hard to change. In part because the harsh climate makes reliability the No. 1 priority for the utility, and diesel has long been the most reliable option.
Lenio explains that the territory runs on 25 closed microgrids, many of which were built in the 1970s and already well past their lifespan. That's made the utility provider hesitant to integrate new technology into these aging and precarious grids.
But now is a hopeful time for advocates of wind and solar energy in the North, according to Lenio, and she says the new projects are creating jobs.
"It's starting to get there," she added, "but it's been hard."
Lenio, who also sits on the board of Qulliq Energy Corporation (QEC), Nunavut's sole utility provider, says there were no renewable energy policies in place when she first began working in Nunavut in 2016.
But over the last decade, the territorial government has introduced a series of programs and grants to allow individual homes, cabins or community buildings to install solar panels. And they've proven very popular.
"People want to make this transition to renewables. They care about the environment, they care about the cost of energy and they want to do the right thing," said Lenio.
The success of home solar led to the rollout of the Independent Power Producers program in 2019. It allows community-level renewable projects such as the one in Naujaat, developed by Inuit-led companies who meet the technical requirements, to produce wind or solar electricity and sell it to QEC. The electricity then joins the local grid and displaces diesel produced power.
The program has had a rocky start. Capital costs in the north are extremely high, and potential producers have complained for years about a lack of clarity from the government and QEC around the rules and implementation of the program. Chislett and Lenio both hope the momentum of the Ikayuut project can act as a blueprint for how to get renewables up and running on a larger scale in remote communities.
Alongside the moves being made through the IPP, the Government of Nunavut is replacing many of the aging microgrids with newer, smarter systems that create opportunities for renewable energy to be integrated more easily.
And Sakku Investment Corporation is already working toward breaking ground on more community renewable projects. Chislett says he'll soon turn his sights to Ikayuut's sister project, a solar array in Coral Harbour which has just received approval from the hamlet council.
"It's about time to do something phenomenal and have my ancestors look down on me, like theirs did on them, and give a congratulations," he said.
Click here to read the CBC article
About Kivalliq Alternative Energy
Kivalliq Alternative Energy (KAE) is at the forefront of the clean energy transformation in Nunavut's Kivalliq region. Our mission is to develop renewable energy-generating sources that boost energy independence for remote communities. Our projects nurture community benefits, grow local capacity and lay the foundations for Kivalliq’s clean energy future. KAE is an Inuit-led partnership between Sakku Investments Corporation (SIC) and Northern Energy Capital (NEC).
Follow Us
For more information about KAE and the Ikayuut Solar and Energy Storage Project, please visit kivalliqalternativeenergy.com
For project updates and upcoming events, follow KAE on Facebook: KivalliqAlternativeEnergy
