California tribes lose federal funding for a solar microgrid project
California tribes lose federal funding for a solar microgrid project in October 2025, when the Trump administration marks an 88 million dollar Department of Energy grant for cancellation. The money was meant to build TERAS, the Tribal Energy Resilience and Sovereignty project, a set of solar and battery microgrids, systems that can disconnect from the wider power grid and keep running on their own during an outage, planned along the Hoopa 1101, a 142 mile Pacific Gas and Electric power line in eastern Humboldt County that already ranks among the least reliable lines in the state. The Hoopa Valley, Yurok and Karuk Tribes depend on that line for power, and the tribal partnership says it is continuing the work and looking for other funding.
This project dramatically improves energy resiliency on our reservation and represents a major step toward our goal of energy sovereignty.
Joseph L. James, Yurok Tribe Chairman. Source 1.
A 142 mile power line and a 4 tribe partnership building their own power
The Department of Energy announced the grant in August 2024 through Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships, a federal program funded by the bipartisan infrastructure law that pays for projects meant to keep the power on during storms and wildfires. The plan was built by the 4 tribes with the Redwood Coast Energy Authority, Pacific Gas and Electric and the Schatz Energy Research Center at Cal Poly Humboldt, and calls for 3 tribally owned solar and battery microgrids strung along the Hoopa 1101 circuit, plus a fourth demonstration expansion at Blue Lake Rancheria, aiming to cut outage hours by 90% and add over 20 megawatts of new renewable capacity by 2030, at roughly half the cost of burying the line underground instead.
Tribal governments are the Hoopa Valley, Yurok, Karuk and Blue Lake Rancheria Tribes. Utility and energy partners are Pacific Gas and Electric and the Redwood Coast Energy Authority. The research center is the Schatz Energy Research Center at Cal Poly Humboldt.
Show the numbers
| Tribal governments | 4 |
| Utility and energy partners | 2 |
| Research center | 1 |
The funding cut, and what the project still costs
In October 2025 the award became 1 of nearly 8 billion dollars in green energy grants the Trump administration moved to cancel nationwide, across 16 states, the Times Standard reported. A Department of Energy statement quoted by the paper said the projects failed a financial review, were not economically viable, and would not deliver a positive return on investment for taxpayers. Total project cost across all funding sources runs to roughly 200 million dollars, so the cancelled grant never covered the whole plan.
And in the event that they do terminate, the group is very much committed to continue working and seeking alternative funding.
Eileen Verbeck, Redwood Coast Energy Authority deputy executive director. Source 4.
The cost to bury the line instead is described as more than 1 billion dollars by the Redwood Coast Energy Authority, shown here at its 1,000 million dollar floor. The 87.6 million dollar figure for the cancelled federal award comes from a House Appropriations Committee Democrats list, more precise than the 88 million dollar figure used earlier in this article for the 2024 announcement.
Show the numbers
| Cancelled federal award | 87.6 |
| Total project cost | 200 |
| Cost to bury the line instead | 1,000 |
The project keeps moving in 2026
Just under a year later, in September 2026, the Schatz Center is soliciting engineering firms for 3 new megawatt scale community microgrid projects in Humboldt County, describing the funding now as a mix of federal, state and other grants, with an engineering budget of approximately 1.5 million dollars and a response deadline of October 16, 2026. The solicitation document never uses the name TERAS and never names the Hoopa, Yurok or Karuk Tribes, but it lists the same 3 microgrid count in the same county from the same center, right after the 2 projects that the center names in its own TERAS materials as earlier work, a continuation the sequence of events points to even though no document confirms the project kept its original name. Target commercial operation is the fourth quarter of 2029, a year ahead of the 2030 target set when the federal award was still in place.