Kalu'wetolilh: Assembling Infrastructures of Indigenous Energy Sovereignty in the Mad River Valley

Abstract

Renewable energy infrastructures are increasingly developed by Indigenous communities to achieve energy sovereignty amidst settler-colonial landscapes shaped by infrastructural ruination and climate change. The Blue Lake Ranchería in Northern California is recognized as a leader in this pursuit, following the development of a solar microgrid championed as a model of Indigenous energy sovereignty. Situated among broader conversations regarding local energy autonomy, the “Blue Lake model” is currently promoted throughout the region as a path toward community-based control over energy production. However, the Blue Lake model resists conflation with the concept of energy “autonomy,” demanding a new conceptual approach to Indigenous energy sovereignty. Though owned and operated by the Blue Lake Ranchería, the project was initiated, designed, and commissioned alongside a range of state and private-sector actors. The Blue Lake model is now anticipated to be a replicable and scalable solution, expected to circulate beyond its tribal and territorial boundaries amongst a diverse array of Indigenous communities in Northern California and beyond. Drawing upon Science and Technology Studies, Critical Infrastructure Studies, and Indigenous Studies, this article deploys a systems analysis approach to explore the formative histories and infrastructural components of the Blue Lake Model as a new regime of Indigenous energy sovereignty, locating infrastructure as a site of relational articulation between Native and state interests.