{"id":310749,"date":"2021-09-14T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-14T10:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grist.org\/?p=546322"},"modified":"2021-09-14T10:30:00","modified_gmt":"2021-09-14T10:30:00","slug":"baltimore-is-hooking-up-a-black-megachurch-with-some-serious-solar-battery-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/09\/14\/baltimore-is-hooking-up-a-black-megachurch-with-some-serious-solar-battery-power\/","title":{"rendered":"Baltimore is hooking up a Black megachurch with some serious solar battery power"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Empowerment Temple, a predominantly Black megachurch in Baltimore\u2019s Park Heights area, is a place neighbors can often go for free meals, school supplies, and drive-thru COVID-19 tests. Soon, they\u2019ll also be able to visit the long, beige building to charge cell phones, refrigerate medications, and cool off (or warm up) during the next power outage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
City and state agencies are providing<\/a> hundreds of thousands of dollars to equip the Maryland church and other facilities with solar panels and battery storage systems \u2014 creating \u201cresiliency hubs<\/a>\u201d that serve vulnerable communities following extreme weather events or grid failures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA hallmark of our ministry is, \u2018How can we help people in distressed situations?\u2019\u201d said Anthony Robinson, a church member and leader of the nonprofit Economic Empowerment Coalition, which is helping implement the clean energy project. \u201cWe see this as an opportunity to be of service to the broader community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Construction is set to start this month on a 120-kilowatt rooftop solar array, which will supply electricity to banks of batteries at the church. Should tornadoes and flash floods knock down the grid \u2014 as they did this month in Ida\u2019s wake<\/a> \u2014 the building will become a pocket of energy in the neighborhood, which is largely low-income. Like other Baltimore resiliency hubs, Empowerment Temple will be able to also use the systems to help lower their own electricity bills by selling excess solar power to the utility company and drawing from the batteries when grid power is expensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The church\u2019s battery will have a capacity of nearly 500 kilowatt-hours, which is a measure of how much energy the system can store or discharge in an hour. (The average home in Maryland uses about 975 kilowatt-hours per month, according to 2019 data<\/a>.) In practice, that battery capacity means Empowerment Temple can bank three days\u2019 worth of backup power to keep lights and appliances running in a designated common area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLow- to moderate-income communities are normally the places where, when disasters hit, they have the least amount of resources,\u201d said Lenwood Coleman, chief program officer at Groundswell<\/a>, a nonprofit solar developer working with the City of Baltimore to plan and design the hubs. The partners are identifying up to 30 more sites that could host solar-plus-storage systems, along with solar installer Suncatch Energy and technology provider A.F. Mensah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The initiative \u201callows us to look at churches and schools as a place where people can comfortably come during brownouts or blackouts to get support they would not normally get,\u201d Coleman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n