One of the most critical lifelines for survival for many citizens in a community stricken by disaster is the electrical grid. Without power, food spoils in refrigerators. Without power, one cannot recharge a cell phone, which may be a critical means of seeking help. Without power, one may freeze in the dark.<\/p>\n
Last Thursday, February 26, I participated as a panelist in a webinar<\/span><\/a> hosted by the American Planning Association<\/span><\/a> as part of its involvement in the U.S. Department of Energy\u2019s<\/span><\/a> SunShot Solar Outreach Partnership<\/span><\/a>. With two other speakers, Robert Sanders and Stephan Schmidt, I helped explore solutions to such helplessness through what is becoming known as solar resilience. The idea is simple: through a combination of solar photovoltaic systems and battery storage for the electric power produced, critical facilities\u2014and even homes in vulnerable neighborhoods\u2014can rely instead on solar power that does not need to rely on a functioning grid to power the buildings to which it was connected. Instead, it can provide reliable backup electricity in a crisis for shelters, hospitals, and public safety facilities like police and fire stations. Communities no longer need to be at the mercy of an electrical power grid that can fail in an emergency, as happened in Hurricane Katrina and, more recently, Hurricane Sandy.<\/p>\n My colleagues certainly have done their homework. Stephan Schmidt, now a planner in San Luis Obispo County, California, researched the topic in depth while a graduate student at California Polytechnic State University<\/span><\/a> (Cal Poly) in San Luis Obispo. He is the author of a very thorough guide for local governments, Solar Energy & Resilience Planning<\/span><\/a><\/em>, that discusses the technologies, practical benefits, and financing for such projects. The publication details numerous examples of the successful applications of solar technologies with battery storage in facilities like the Public Safety Building in Salt Lake City<\/span><\/a>, completed in 2013 and now the largest net-zero facility in the nation. Net zero, a concept also being applied to many schools in innovative jurisdictions, means that the building\u2019s solar photovoltaic system generates \u201cnearly as much energy as it uses in operations.\u201d That is to say, it draws little or no power from the grid.<\/p>\n The big question facing developers of such facilities has been financing. Solar power historically has involved high up-front costs, even as it has brought down the actual generation costs because of the fact its fuel source is sunlight rather than fossil fuels (coal, oil, or natural gas). That is the expertise of Rob Sanders and the Clean Energy Group<\/span><\/a>, a national nonprofit advocacy organization working on clean energy and climate change issues. The group has created a number of resources to highlight means of financing solar electric power development<\/span><\/a>. One useful guide it has produced is Resilient Power: Financing for Clean, Resilient Power Solutions<\/span><\/a><\/em>. It details financing and ownership solutions to bypass systemic roadblocks that might otherwise impede progress on solar resilience. For instance, with $200 million of federal Community Development Block Grant\u2014Disaster Recovery<\/span><\/a> funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development<\/span><\/a> following Hurricane Sandy, the state of New Jersey in 2014 created the nation\u2019s first Energy Resilience Bank<\/span><\/a> to underwrite the development of resilient power at critical facilities throughout the state and minimize the potential for major power outages. It is clear that some vital lessons are being learned.<\/p>\n Jim Schwab<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of the most critical lifelines for survival for many citizens in a community stricken by disaster is the electrical grid. Without power, food spoils in refrigerators. Without power, one cannot recharge a cell phone, which may be a critical means of seeking help. Without power, one may freeze in the dark. Last Thursday, February […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[179,81,272,222,258],"tags":[276,275,24,278,45,274,263,8,277,10,119,7,273],"class_list":["post-301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate-2","category-disaster-2","category-renewable-energy","category-resilience-2","category-technology","tag-cdbg-dr","tag-clean-energy","tag-climate","tag-critical-facilities","tag-disaster","tag-electric-power","tag-hud","tag-hurricane","tag-photovoltaic","tag-planning","tag-resilience","tag-sandy","tag-solar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":302,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions\/302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}