Program: California Strategic Growth Council’s Climate Change Research Program
Grantee: PSE Healthy Energy
Funding amount: $868,528
County: Contra Costa, Los Angeles
Increasingly, Californians are coming face to face with climate change impacts as communities across the state experience catastrophic wildfires, record-breaking heat waves, and extended power outages. Meeting these historic challenges will require solutions that both lower greenhouse gas emissions and help California’s most at-risk communities adapt. One emerging approach is the concept of a community resilience hub: a facility run by, and serving, local community members offering a range of resources and services that help community members become more resilient in the face of disaster.
With funding from the California Strategic Growth Council’s Climate Change Research Program, PSE Healthy Energy is working with the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) and Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) to identify opportunities to build solar+storage resilience hubs at schools and community centers across California. Bolstered by a secure, clean power supply, such as solar photovoltaics paired with energy storage systems, resilience hubs can provide safe locations for people to charge cell phones when their power is out, cool down when temperatures spike, and breathe clean air on smoky days. For vulnerable populations who rely on electricity to power medical equipment, or who lack access to air conditioning or transportation for evacuation, these resources may be particularly valuable.
PSE is identifying sites statewide; evaluating the design parameters needed to meet critical electric loads in the event of earthquakes, wildfires, public safety power shutoffs, or other disaster-induced electricity outages; and analyzing demographic and vulnerability metrics for populations in proximity to these sites.
At the community level, APEN and CBE are working closely with environmental justice communities in Richmond and Wilmington to identify specific school and community center sites, develop community engagement strategies so the project team can incorporate and respond to community-specific needs and priorities into project designs. These findings will help inform PSE’s statewide analysis and will help provide recommendations for the development of resilient solar+storage systems at schools and community sites. This project will offer a framework for State climate mitigation and adaptation efforts to advance clean energy, promote public health benefits, reflect community needs, and equitably provide resilience for communities throughout California. Explore the Candidate Resilience Hub Mapping Tool (beta).