NW Institute for Community Energy

Update, Fall 2008:

Press coverage:
Portland Students Mobilize for Neighborhood Utility
Students Promote a Thermal Energy District in Southeast Portland

Through the NICE, Jesse Hough, along with co-coordinators Lacey Riddle and Nathan Jones, “took education from the blackboard to the blacktop, creating green summer jobs and highlighting the determination of a grassroots effort for inclusive change.” The NICE instilled the Sunnyside neighborhood with renewed optimism for a groundbreaking community energy project, helped create a non-profit home for the project, and laid the groundwork for critical funding. The organizers also put together a comprehensive guide for implementing similar projects around the country. This guide, coupled with a partnership with Minnesota-based Summer of Solutions is already laying the foundations for ten more Institutes for Community Energy in 2009. 

See the Institute for Community Energy Workbook

The Project:

The Neighborhood Institute for Community Energy, Portland, OR, runs a continual summer "think-and-do tank" institute that engages students to help advance an innovative, community-owned, thermal district energy system utilizing low carbon energy supplies to provide space heating and cooling and domestic hot water to a mixed residential/commercial neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. In partnership with Portland State University, Midtech Energy and the Cascade Climate Network, the project identifies and tackles obstacles to implementing a sustainable neighborhood energy system.

The Winner:
Jesse Hough is a junior General Science major at the University of Oregon. He has led and formed multiple groups that are actively working for a sustainable future. He has served as the chapter chair of the UO OSPIRG group, co-directed the UO Survival Center, worked to bring a bike library to the UO campus, sat on the UO Environmental Issues Committee and started the Sustainability Coalition on campus. Jesse is not only active on his campus; he's also working to engage other campuses in the youth climate movement through the Cascade Climate Network, which he co-founded in 2007. Jesse has extensive experience organizing large events and especially enjoys empowering others to make positive change.

The 2008 Focus Roots Fellowship pilot, Project Slingshot, was made possible by our partner Clif MOJO, the sweet and salty trail mix bar.