Archive for category: Energy Storage and Health

Despite not sustaining a direct hit, Hurricane Dorian still left parts of Florida flooded and over 170,000 people without power. In the past, a single extreme weather event has left hundreds of thousands of people in Florida without power, in some cases for more than a week.

As more people opt to receive medical care at home, access to resilient emergency backup power will need to be prioritized and made more accessible, especially to low-income households.

A new research project in Puerto Rico demonstrates that the home health care industry is potentially a new market for solar and battery storage.

Extreme weather and related power outages come with a price tag, but these costs are not typically accounted for when considering the potential benefits of a resilient power system. The result is that fewer solar+storage systems pencil-out to make economic sense than would be the case if the power resilience they provide was accurately valued.

When natural disasters strike, people suffer, and the worst hit are invariably the most vulnerable among us – the elderly, the disabled, and the economically and socially disadvantaged.

It is now time to consider another key benefit of storage—public health, especially the power of energy storage to reduce pollution in marginalized communities.

New findings from NREL and CUNY provide more evidence that there may be a better, cleaner, and more economical way to protect residents when the next disaster strikes – solar+storage.

Four new case studies, authored by the Clean Energy Group with support from the Northeast Electrochemical Energy Storage Cluster, showcase fuel cells in resilient power systems.

When it comes to reliable energy technologies to protect against power outages, there is a disparity between the haves and the have-nots. Call it “resilient power inequality.”

Like the proverbial canary in a coal mine, the well being of the most vulnerable in our population—the disabled—during severe weather events may serve as an indicator of how well we are planning to protect the general population.