A coalition of about 50 churches and other community institutions launched more than 10 solar-plus-storage resilience hubs in the New Orleans area.
The solar-plus-storage installations provide power year-round. If the grid goes down due to a hurricane, they will provide emergency power for cooling, refrigeration, phones and portable batteries.
Joshua Cox, CEO of the nonprofit solar developer, Community Power South, said that Hurricane Laura in 2020 and Hurricane Ida in 2021 caused dozens of deaths in Louisiana due to power outages. He spoke during a webinar hosted by the nonprofit, Clean Energy Group.
In 2005, over a thousand people died in the New Orleans area from all causes due to Hurricane Katrina.
Following Hurricane Ida, church groups and other institutions formed Together New Orleans to create resilience hubs, which they call community lighthouses.
Image: Together New Orleans
The largest community lighthouse, shown in the image above, pairs 167.4 kW dc of solar with 440 kWh of battery storage across three buildings at New Wine Christian Fellowship.
During a grid outage, Cox said the solar and battery systems at the 10 resilience hubs are operated in a way to conserve power for the highest value needs. “For example, if the grid is down for 14 days and some days are cloudy, these solar and battery systems will conserve energy on cloudy days, delivering less energy than if it was a sunny day.” But they will still power “critical functions” such as powering a refrigerator or the air conditioning in a room operating as a cooling center.
Together New Orleans has a goal, Cox said, of creating “a place that is within a 15-minute walking distance for everyone in the city of New Orleans to go when there is a storm.”
Marriele Mango, a project director with Clean Energy Group, said in the webinar that the organization offers technical assistance and modest funding for a solar-plus-storage feasibility analysis, for community-serving organizations with a facility that can host resilient power.
In Florida, where hurricanes also cause loss of life, the Florida Association of Community Health Centers has facilitated screening studies for solar-plus-storage resilience hubs at seven Florida health centers.
The nonprofit solar developer Community Power South was launched by Together New Orleans and its affiliate Together Louisiana, which previously developed community lighthouses and now focus on policy and advocacy work.
Together New Orleans and Together Louisiana are affiliates of the Industrial Areas Foundation.
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