Responding to Energy Insecurity in Arctic Housing Using Community-Based Participatory Research

Rural communities in Alaska face many housing challenges. Existing housing is generally older, overcrowded, inefficient, and poorly equipped to withstand extreme weather conditions. These challenges result in a high energy burden on homeowners, as well as indoor environmental quality challenges. While there has been substantial efforts to support weatherization to mitigate energy inequality in these communities, the efficacy, service life, and homeowner use of such energy efficiency improvements can be better understood in order to drive further improvements to such programmatic efforts. This project will collaboratively work with Alaska-based organizations RurAL CAP, REAP, and AHFC, among others, using a community-participatory research in Unalakleet, Nome, and Quinhagak. This research will evaluate the effectiveness of energy efficiency improvements in these communities, evaluate how well the improvements align with homeowners values and behaviors, and identify any misalignments. The results of this research will include identification of existing effective solutions and their field-validated service life, as well as suggestions for improvements to such energy efficiency solutions that may increase the acceptance by homeowners, while also effectively reducing homeowners energy burden.