ASHEVILLE, N.C. — After the remnants of Hurricane Helene ripped through western North Carolina, hundreds of thousands were without power for weeks. Some are still waiting for power to be restored.
Disaster relief groups have brought in whatever technology they could to supply power, from traditional fossil fuel generators to small solar and battery systems.
To Lorenzo Kristov, an independent energy consultant based in California, using renewable technology for emergency response is a promising sign, but he believes community resilience takes a more proactive approach.
“I think that states, that every state really, and the federal government ought to take this up as a high-priority project,” he said. “Create community resilience centers everywhere in the country. It’s a no-brainer, you know, because planning them in advance is better than just doing them as a response.”
Building your own backup power
Kristov has worked in energy policy for decades, and firmly believes in democratized and distributed energy opportunities. He sees solar and battery storage a massive step forwards towards a future in which power is made in or near the communities that use it.
“When you own them locally, then you can have a lot of control over how they’re designed,” he said. “Who gets to use them? What are the features that you want to build in?”
Often these types of features function as microgrids, which are small-scale, local energy systems that can “island off” or function independently of the greater grid in case of disruption or emergencies.
Channel 9′s previously explored the concept at a Hyde County farm, but another smaller-scale example can be in a home with solar and battery storage capabilities.
Sami Kirdar has such a system in his home. He got it installed five years ago, because he wanted to avoid extended power outages and have a sense of ownership over his energy.
“In 2012 we went through hurricane Sandy, did not have power for six days I had some friends who were out for over a month,” he said. “It was a very painful experience.”
Now living in Charlotte, he said his solar and battery system has been a reliable source of backup power. It even tracks usage in the house to mark times when the house is operating completely independently.
Often the system is making up for outages of a few minutes or an hour, but sometimes, like on Sept. 27, when Helene ripped through the city, the system took over for more than a day.
“We didn’t feel it. If didn’t really affect us at all,” Kirdar said.
Even without solar charging, battery storage technology can take power in from the grid and release it during emergency outages to power certain appliances in your home, like the fridge or microwave the same way you would use a fossil fuel generator. Increasingly, certain EVs are allowing bidirectional home charging that would allow users to tap into their car’s battery to power parts of their home in an outage as well.
Prioritizing community resilience
Kristov would like to see systems like that on a much larger scale at places like schools and churches which are traditionally designated as shelters or support centers in case of emergency.
“Another approach that I’ve been taking is to work with local governments, city planners and school districts to think about building extensive solar, storage, kinds of microgrid structures, and have them be owned by the school district, or have them be owned by the city,” he said. “It needs to be places that can take in a couple hundred people, and then maybe have kitchen facilities that can serve some food, that you know, provide heating or cooling or whatever is needed.”
That way, when needed, the power and on-site resilience are already there or can be rapidly ramped up in a crisis.
The issue is, building up these microgrids can be expensive and in most cases, it’s on the owners to make that initial investment. If you want battery storage for your home, it costs around $10,000, a home solar system is around $20,000-40,000 depending on the size and for a school or larger shelter, it would be even more.
Some of that cost can be recouped through lower energy bills, but that takes years and the upfront cost has to come from somewhere.
“I think it’s something that every state ought to be funding for every community,” Kristov said, “Because we really can’t predict anymore what kinds of disasters are going to happen in what places.”
What will it take to build?
Legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act sets aside some funding for these projects through tax credits and programs like the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, but Kristov believes initiatives need to be more targeted and more urgent.
He also supports policy change to allow large solar owners to sell their power for a profit to their neighbors to help offset the cost of construction, through things like a community solar system although this is largely illegal in states like North Carolina and South Carolina, due to laws restricting third-party energy sales.
“The benefits are potentially huge, and it takes, I think, a larger coalition of perhaps elected people and school boards across the state to start lobbying their legislators to get the barriers out of the way,” he said.
Kristov believes disasters like Helene should serve as a wake-up call. The technology to shore up our local energy grids is available, but unless we put them in place ahead of the next disaster, once again, thousands of people will be left powerless.
“We better count on the climate getting worse,” he said. “So how do we prepare for local communities to be more resilient and for people to be able to sustain themselves when these things, these events happen?”
(VIDEO: ‘Everybody has needs’: Parts of Avery Co. remain without power after Helene)
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