Archive for category: Energy Storage and Health

This year, those responsible for maintaining public health and safety face a new and unprecedented challenge: how to protect communities when a power outage coincides with COVID-19.

Last week, the East Coast of the country suffered through another damaging round of power outages from another hurricane, this one Isaias

Last year, with technical support from Clean Energy Group, Massachusetts became the first state to officially incorporate behind-the-meter battery storage into its energy efficiency plan, and utilities began enrolling customers across the state in a groundbreaking pay-for-performance program.

Wildfire and hurricane season is here and with it comes an influx of weather-related power outages. The health implications of power outages this summer are further compounded this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As we look forward to an uncertain future with COVID-19 and energy security, it is important to develop new solutions that will put resilient solar and storage within reach for everyone, including those most vulnerable to power outages and the health impacts that could result from them.

As we evaluate and re-evaluate the undoubtedly substantial and lasting impacts COVID-19 will have on our work and the work of our partners across the country moving forward, it is more evident than ever that resilient power is a critical component to improving health outcomes in the event of a crisis like the world is currently experiencing.

Battery storage has become a key resilience technology in California, reflected in a major policy shift on the use of state incentives.

Energy storage capacity installed this year is expected to top 600 megawatts, more than double the amount of storage deployments in 2018, and annual deployment numbers are forecast to increase another sevenfold over the next five years. Unfortunately, only a small fraction of these storage installations have been developed to the benefit of underserved populations most in need of the economic and resiliency benefits that storage can provide.

The devastating California wildfires and related power outages are already leading to new approaches to energy resiliency that rely on battery storage technologies. This past week, a new model has emerged to accelerate the adoption of solar and storage systems for resilient power.

This month millions of people lost power in California. The blackouts were not due to a natural disaster, but rather the result of utilities, primarily Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), intentionally suspending power to hundreds of thousands of customer accounts in across California. Battery storage and solar PV could provide reliable backup power for those affected by the outages.