Seven community-based nonprofits and affordable housing developers have been selected to receive grants from Clean Energy Group’s Resilient Power Leadership Initiative, as part of the Resilient Power Project, to build their organizational capacity on the benefits of solar and energy storage (solar+storage) technologies.
The Resilient Power Project, a joint initiative of Clean Energy Group and Meridian Institute, works to deploy solar+storage projects in affordable housing and critical community facilities, with the goal of ensuring that the most vulnerable communities have access to the economic, health, and resiliency benefits that solar+storage can provide.
For this pilot program, Resilient Power Leadership Grants have been made to the following organizations working in the areas of affordable community housing, environmental justice, energy equity, and sustainability:
- California Environmental Justice Alliance (www.caleja.org), Oakland and Huntington Park, CA
- The Greenlining Institute (www.greenlining.org), Oakland, CA
LINC Housing Corporation (www.linchousing.org), Long Beach, CA - Preservation of Affordable Housing (POAH) (www.poah.org), Boston, MA
- Sust’āinable Molokai (www.sustainablemolokai.org), Kaunakakai, HI
- THE POINT Community Development Corporation (www.thepoint.org), Bronx, NY
- WE ACT for Environmental Justice (www.weact.org), New York, NY
The work of these organizations and how they will use their awards can be found at www.cleanegroup.org/ceg-resources/resource/resilient-power-leadership-awards.
“Incorporating a resilient strategy is a key component of creating healthy, efficient, and affordable housing,” said Julie Klump, vice president of design and building performance at POAH. “The grant will help us focus on the incorporation of resilient strategies at one or more current projects and across our portfolio.”
The Kresge Foundation, The JPB Foundation, and Surdna Foundation are supporting Clean Energy Group’s effort.
“The Kresge Foundation is pleased to support the Resilient Power Project and this pilot program,” said Lois DeBacker, managing director of Kresge’s environment program. “These grants will build local knowledge and place-based innovation to deploy clean energy technologies and to address environmental and equity concerns within low-income communities. Increased access to clean energy technologies, like solar+storage, can reduce greenhouse gas emissions while making communities stronger, more equitable, and more resilient to the changing climate.”
“Low-income communities often experience disproportionately negative impacts from dirty power generation such as diesel generators during power outages,” said Dana Bourland, vice president of JPB’s environment program. “By increasing clean energy generation, through solar+storage, these populations are not only protected from power outages, but they will also experience a reduction in harmful emissions.”
“There are hundreds of resilient solar+storage projects now in development or deployed in the U.S., as more companies and consumers are becoming aware of the benefits that solar+storage systems can offer,” said Seth Mullendore, project director at Clean Energy Group. “Unfortunately, very few community-based organizations have the internal capacity to move solar+storage projects forward or to advocate for policies that could lead to greater resilient power deployment in their communities. This is particularly true for nonprofits that serve low-income communities, which are most in need of cost savings and resiliency benefits from solar+storage, but often have limited resources available to access new technology solutions.”
Through the Resilient Power Leadership Initiative, Clean Energy Group hopes to seed long-term, community-led programs that further advance energy equity and environmental justice. To support the grantees’ work, Clean Energy Group will develop targeted resilient power webinars, project and policy development resources, and other related tools and materials. These resources will be publicly available at www.resilient-power.org to assist other communities.
Clean Energy Group will host a free webinar on Thursday, April 6 to review the Resilient Power Project’s recent activities and to provide an overview of the myriad informational resources available on the project’s website. Learn more at www.cleanegroup.org/webinar/building-resilient-communities-with-solar-storage.
News item from Clean Energy Group