Resilience for Free: How Solar+Storage Could Protect Multifamily Affordable Housing from Power Outages at Little or No Net Cost

Three years ago this month, Superstorm Sandy knocked out power to over eight million people along the East Coast, stranding residents and threatening lives because of the lack of electricity to power critical services such as elevators, heating and cooling systems, communications, and other life-supporting technologies. Elderly, disabled and low-income residents are most vulnerable to the impacts of power outages and extreme weather events. Resilient power technologies such as solar combined with energy storage can keep critical services powered with the grid goes down, protecting residents from what could be a life-threatening situation.

Now, a new economic analysis indicates that solar+storage systems not only make sense for affordable housing projects, they are also economically viable. The report, “Resilience for Free: How Solar+Storage Could Protect Multifamily Affordable Housing from Power Outages at Little or No Net Cost,” uses real project data to examine the financial case for installing solar+storage systems to support critical common area loads in multifamily affordable housing buildings in New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. The report concludes that with the right market structures and incentives, solar+storage systems can provide a positive economic return on par with energy efficiency or stand-alone solar.

In this webinar, report authors discussed the report and its findings. Their presentations were followed by a Q&A with the audience.

PANELISTS

• Rob Sanders, Senior Finance Director, Clean Energy Group
• Seth Mullendore, Project Manager, Clean Energy Group
• Henry Misas, Senior Project Engineer/ Solar Specialist, Bright Power

This webinar is a presentation of Clean Energy Group’s Resilient Power Project. For more information, please visit www.resilient-power.org.