National Geographic’s September 30 story on microgrids and climate resilience, “Going Off the Grid to Deal With Climate Disasters” by Meryl Davids Landau, opens with a photograph of the tribal microgrid the Paskenta Band of Nomlaki Indians is building with OATI. The cover caption names OATI and the Paskenta Band, and the story discusses the tribe’s microgrid work in Northern California.

The Paskenta Band of Nomlaki Indians microgrid under construction. Photo taken by Brian Ramirez of New Era Electric in partnership with SitelogIQ, Inc.

Why tribal microgrids are part of the resilience story

The article lays out the pressure in operational terms. Severe weather is striking more often, the grid it strikes is aging, and the communities at the far end of long lines wait longest when it fails. Many tribal lands are remote and served by older equipment and transmission lines, and the article reports outages there that run from hours to days, even in good weather. Talia Martin of Tribal Energy Alternatives puts the stakes in one line: “This is about social justice and energy sovereignty for tribes.”

What the Paskenta Band is building

The Paskenta Band of Nomlaki Indians is building a microgrid with 4.5 MW of solar and two battery systems, run by one OATI GridMind® controller.

The panels are the part a camera sees. A microgrid is only as resilient as the controls that decide when it separates from the utility, which loads it carries and when it reconnects. On the Paskenta site, that control layer is the OATI GridMind® controller, coordinating the array and both battery systems as one microgrid.

OATI GridMind® controls reach beyond tribal land. Otter Tail Power’s 1 MW, 6 MWh battery at the University of Minnesota Morris will run on the OATI GridMind® platform, and microgrids were one of the three themes OATI brought back from IEEE PES GM 2026.

From the build

Construction photos and drone footage from the site show the system going in: piles and racking set across the field, panels installed row by row, and trenching for the conduit that ties the array and storage together.

Wide aerial view of the Paskenta solar and storage microgrid site during construction, with mountains on the horizon
The site from above during construction. Photo taken by Brian Ramirez of New Era Electric in partnership with SitelogIQ, Inc.
Steel piles and solar racking rows at the Paskenta microgrid construction site
Piles and racking going in across the array. Photo taken by Brian Ramirez of New Era Electric in partnership with SitelogIQ, Inc.
Drone footage of trenching and conduit work at the site, May 2026.

Hear it from the Paskenta Band in Threads of Connectivity

Threads of Connectivity, a documentary distributed by NatGeo featuring OATI, tells the Paskenta story in the tribe’s own words, with Chairman Brandin Paya and CEO Damon Safranek.

From Threads of Connectivity.
Watch Threads of Connectivity

Read the story

Read the full story in National Geographic: Going Off the Grid to Deal With Climate Disasters.

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