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Baltimore Church Is the Latest Solar+Storage-Powered Resilience Hub
This in-depth piece from Grist describes how Empowerment Temple, a predominantly Black church in Baltimore, is creating a resilience hub for the surrounding community by installing a 120-kilowatt rooftop solar array paired with almost 500-megawatt-hours of battery storage. “Low- to moderate-income communities are normally the places where, when disasters hit, they have the least amount of resources,” said Lenwood Coleman, chief program officer at Groundswell, a nonprofit solar developer working with the City of Baltimore to plan and design the more hubs. Clean Energy Group provided early stage technical assistance for the initial assessments for this project.
The City of Baltimore is working with partners to add more resiliency hubs, such as the recently completed one across town at City of Refuge, a nonprofit that has already utilized a solar+storage system. That group is also seeing significant utility bill savings that can be redirected to other programs that serve the community. The article also outlines policy efforts across the country that support resilience hubs powered by clean energy.
Advocates Call on FEMA to Build Solar+Storage in Puerto Rico Rather Than Rebuilding the Same Dirty Grid
When power infrastructure that relies on fossil fuels is wiped out, an opportunity arises to rebuild with technology that is cleaner, more resilient, and less harmful to vulnerable populations. This guest column in Canary Media makes the case that federal funds deployed to restore power to Puerto Rico, which is still struggling after 2017's Hurricanes Maria and Irma, should focus on rooftop solar and battery storage, technology that is more flexible and able to respond better to severe weather than fossil fuel infrastructure.
Oregon National Guard Completes First of Two Microgrids
A National Guard Armory in Oregon has completed a microgrid consisting of 225 kilowatts of solar, a 128-kilowatt-hour Blue Planet Energy battery and a backup diesel generator to power its 40,000 square foot facility during an outage. In Oregon, major threats include wildfires and earthquakes. The facility can now serve as a community resource, such as a Red Cross shelter, during an outage.
Footprint Project Deploys Solar+Storage in New Orleans and Works to Change Community Expectations
As New Orleans continues to recover from Hurricane Ida, the nonprofit Footprint Project is deploying solar and battery storage combinations in the city's most vulnerable neighborhoods. "They're used to being short of breath because all of the thousands of people who live on nebulizers and CO2 machines sit in the dark.... They're used to being uncomfortable. And what's happening is we can show them a different way," noted Footprint advisor Richard Birk. In addition to serving basic needs, Footprint is trying to bring a vision of hope and a better way to power a community that has been devastated both by storms as well as by the fossil fuel industry itself that contributed so greatly to the current conditions.
New Illinois Law Supports Solar+Storage on Former Coal Plant Sites
The Governor of Illinois has signed the Coal to Solar and Energy Storage Act, setting a 100% clean energy goal for 2050 and supporting the development of solar+storage at six retiring coal plant sites (with standalone battery storage at three additional plant sites). Utilizing these plant sites allows the usage of existing transmission lines and interconnections.
International: Solar+Storage Is Increasing as a Decarbonization Tool in Germany
The German Federal Network Agency, which regulates electricity in Germany, announced that it's latest RFP (called a tender) for innovative energy projects attracted only solar+storage projects in this most recent round. “Innovation and climate protection in the energy sector are increasingly and inextricably linked to the topic of energy storage," noted Urban Windelen of BVES. Efforts are now underway to improve regulatory conditions for battery storage.
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