Hatch: Renewable Solutions for First Nations Communities

Holly Brown and Nathan Killeen from Hatch join the show to discuss
how the company is tackling some of the most difficult energy
issues. Their team works to bring renewable energy to remote areas,
often working with First Nation's communities to create an energy
system that works for them. Engineers with a global focus, the
Hatch team helps to create renewable energy projects that benefit
communities of all sizes. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our
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www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Allen
Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host,
Allen Hall, along with my co host, Joel Saxum. Today, we're diving
into the renewable energy initiatives of Hatch, a global
engineering powerhouse that's been shaping industries for nearly
seven decades. While Hatch is known for its wide ranging expertise
in metals, minerals, And infrastructure will be shining a spotlight
on their cutting edge work in the renewable energy sector, from
solar farms to wind turbines and battery storage, Hatch is at the
forefront of the clean energy revolution. We'll explore how this
employee owned company is leveraging its vast engineering
experience to tackle the complex challenges of transitioning to
sustainable, sustainable, And in this episode, we'll discuss
Hatch's projects with First Nation communities in Canada and how
they're helping communities around the world access cleaner, more
reliable energy. Our guests are Nathan Colleen, Wind Power Lead at
Hatch and Holly Brown, Senior Environmental Consultant at Hatch.
Nathan and Holly, welcome to the show. Holly Brown: Thank you,
Allen. Nathan Killeen: Very nice to be here. Allen Hall: First off,
I think we should introduce people that are not familiar to hatch
to all the thing that Hatch does. And if you haven't been on the
website, you should go check it out. It's hatch.com. But Holly, you
want to give some description of all the things that Hatch. Does
do. Holly Brown: At Hatch we refer to ourselves as entrepreneurs
with a technical soul. So what that means is we're really a group
of people who are passionately committed to the pursuit of a better
world through positive change. So I think a unique differentiator
for Hatch is that we embrace our client's vision as our own, and we
partner with clients to develop ideas that are smarter, more
efficient, and innovative. We have a global professional network of
over 10, 000 people. We're in about 150 different countries all
over the globe, and we have three primary sectors that we work in,
and that's metals and mining, energy and infrastructure. We're
unique in the sense that we're employee owned and independent,
which means we're free to bring our best thinking to our clients
business needs, and our exceptional diverse teams combine not only
the vast engineering and business knowledge, but we work in close
partnerships with our clients to develop. market strategies, manage
and optimize production for their businesses, and really develop
new game changing technologies for design and deliver of complex
capital projects. I think in summary, we tackle the tough, right?
So we provide holistic solutions in this space. Another key portion
of that we'll talk about later on is the community engagement and
social performance. Directly working with the First Nations and
indigenous communities that's their land and we want to make sure
that we deliver the project, not only to our clients needs, but
also to the local communities and that'll create lasting success
for the project in general. Our. Exceptional diverse teams include
technical entrepreneurs and technical solutions to our client's
challenges. And so those optimized practices across environmental
protection economic prosperity, social justice, as I mentioned
before, and cultural vibrancy. So we really want businesses and the
ecosystems and the communities to thrive both now and into the
future on our projects. Allen Hall: Yeah, and I want to get to some
of the projects you're doing, but I think being in renewables, you
have firsthand experience, both of you, of some of the complexities
that are involved there. And I know when we had talked previously,
we're talking about a specific project that was pretty complicated.
So that's where I want to pick both of your brains today about
renewable projects and getting out to some more remote places. And
how Hatch has evolved that way, and maybe, can we have Nathan
describe what's happening with First Nations and the work that
Hatch is doing there? Nathan Killeen: And what we're doing with
some of these First Nations, multiple First Nations These are very
tough environments. A lot of the, these communities are remote.
They're dependent on diesel gen sets. Fuel is very expensive. It's,
it's a fluctuating commodity. So a lot of these projects are the
incorporation of, energy storage, solar and wind. And the project
that we're going to speaking about today combines all three. And
obviously, this helps on multiple fronts. It's, it's obviously the
people. The nations that we're working with, this is their land,
their environment. It's their, it's a sense of ownership. It's a
sense of independence that we're working with them, beyond just
the, first principles of saving money and helping the environment.
It's also the empowerment that this gives these people's, In the in
multiple locations, it's not only, obviously there's the
difficulties of dealing in these environments. You have limited
construction schedules, you're integrating different technologies.
So one of the things that we really. Emphasizes, we have a micro
grid solution and we're able to tie these things together. So it's
just as, Holly said, it's we're working with the communities, to
provide them that energy independence that they're looking for.
Joel Saxum: So these projects like they like something like this in
the Northwest territories it's a renewable development project.
While it may not be a. 200, 300 megawatt project. It is a project
on steroids, right? Because you're dealing with so many
complications, logistics, complications stakeholder complications,
there's just so much involved in it. And that's where patch
thrives, right? Because you guys can, it's a one stop shop. You
come in, you have the technical expertise, you have environmental
expertise, you have the civil expertise. Like it's all there.
Nathan Killeen: Can we do the turnkey projects? Absolutely. We're
there, we can do standard solar front end design, owners,
engineering, independent engineering, but where we really excel is
these multifaceted projects that are, Harsh environments,
technically difficult, we have a great stakeholder engagement, a
great relationship with these communities. It's a project on
steroids. There's not many companies, consulting companies that can
execute to the level that we can, because we understand this area.
We have good engagement with the communities and we're really, I
think we like to tackle the tough. Joel Saxum: Yeah. Yeah. I'll
give you two, two, two examples, like for the listeners here of my,
from my network of. Working in remote Canada. I worked in oil and
gas exploration, right? So Nuiqsut, those kinds of places. Like
I've been there in the winter time and just getting food there for
the crew, it takes dedicated personnel. The other one I like to say
a lot is I have a really good friend. His name's Joe Welter, a
great civil engineer. But he worked for a company for six or eight
years and they built hockey rinks. That's what they did. That's
they traveled all over the world, building hockey rinks. And they
did a ton of them fly in hockey rink building in Northern Canada.
Like in these remote places and the stories he would tell about,
not only are we fighting logistics and getting materials and stuff
here, but we're also fighting like bears off. And then, and he
said, there's nowhere to you got a crew here building stuff and
these kinds of things, there's nowhere to stay. You're sleeping in
some kid's bedroom. Like he's done that before. These are, those
are really out there problems, but. You guys having that knowledge
and knowing how to work within these situations really brings a lot
of value to the client as well. Yeah, we have an entire division
related to bear mitigation, that's, Nathan Killeen: you mean Joel
Saxum: Those are problems we don't deal with in of, developing a
wind farm in Texas. You don't have to worry about bears taking
people out. Nathan Killeen: Yeah, I think the most I ever had to
contend with, working on wind farms in Iowa was maybe the
occasional white tailed deer at about, three or four hundred yards,
Joel Saxum: not very voracious. Allen Hall: I was involved with a
project on the airplane side of modifying airplanes to haul diesel
fuel. Up to the Northwest Territories and the Canadian government
was involved in that. And at the time, I just remember thinking,
we're hauling like maybe 50 gallons of diesel fuel out to these
remote areas. How expensive that was. It was crazy expensive. So it
makes sense now for those remote areas to get a hold of Hatch. And
to put in a wind and a solar and a battery storage system to get
the dependency off diesel fuel and lower the cost. I think
everybody misses how much Joel Saxum: cost that is. Yeah, when you
factor the logistics in of diesel fuel for a genset in Northwest
Territories,