At a Glance
This update covers July 2026 for the RESCO project.
The project scope is now set. We completed value engineering of the preliminary designs and budget, right-sizing the project from four sites to three and optimizing battery energy storage system (BESS) deployment to align with available funding.
The Tribal Council approved the revised scope, and detailed engineering design is now underway.
• Completed value engineering of the preliminary designs and budget
• Refined the project scope from four sites to three, optimizing BESS deployment to align with available funding
• Secured Tribal Council approval of the revised scope
• Began detailed engineering design for the three approved sites
What’s Happened
July was the month the project made its defining decision. The value engineering effort took the preliminary designs and site-specific budget estimates developed in June and tested them against the funding actually available.
The honest finding: the budget could not deliver four complete, well-built systems.
Rather than stretch the money thin across all four sites, the scope was refined to three sites with optimized BESS deployment, ensuring each remaining location receives a fully funded system built to last.
Just as important is how the decision was made. The revised scope was reviewed and approved by the Tribal Council, keeping the community in the driver’s seat on a choice that shapes the project’s footprint. With that approval in hand, detailed engineering design is now underway. The concept-and-estimate groundwork from June is exactly what made this a deliberate, evidence-based decision rather than a scramble.
“Three complete systems beat four compromised ones. The Council saw the numbers and made the strong call.” said Mary Pierce, PMP, Program Manager and Lead Project Manager
Where This Puts Us
The projectject now has what every project needs before serious money moves: a firm scope, community approval, and detailed design in motion. Grant expenditure stands at 4%, which remains consistent with this early phase, and the value engineering completed this month means the dollars still ahead are matched to a scope they can fully deliver.
The net effect of July is certainty. The question of what gets built where has been answered.
Next, attention turns to detailed engineering design for the three approved sites, translating the optimized concepts into construction-ready plans.
As detailed design matures, the project moves naturally toward the steps that follow it: firming up equipment requirements, sequencing procurement, and preparing each site for delivery. The forward look stays directional at this stage, and the priority order is clear.
Design comes first, and everything downstream now has a fixed scope to build against.
