Currently, our Solar Emergency Response Team (SERT) is in California to provide support by deploying clean energy to communities in need. So far, we have focused our limited clean energy resources on multiple partnerships that focus on different aspects of the preparedness and recovery of disaster relief.
As summer comes to a close, a new door opens. The largest mobile solar generator microgrid Footprint Project has ever built is bringing mobile, sustainable power to communities in Puerto Rico.
The completion of this microgrid is crucial for the island’s disaster relief recovery. As back-up diesel generators continue to fail when communities deprived of power need it most, a solar generator microgrid will provide reliable, sustainable energy to people who no longer have to depend on a failing central power source.
Severe weather forecasts indicate a brutal 2020. The U.S National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted 13-19 named storms, the majority of which will become hurricanes before reaching landfall*. As resources are already stretched thin in response to COVID-19 and the economic fall-out, first responders are concerned about what this means for disaster relief in places that are still recovering from past environmental emergencies. Recovery has been especially difficult on the islands of Puerto Rico.
In April of this year, the Footprint Project partnered with Global Response Management (GRM) to power the COVID-19 Clinic for the Matamoros Refugee Camp. The Footprint Project provided a solar tent and trailer which became the first operational Solar Powered COVID-19 Clinic supporting doctors and medics.
Disasters exacerbate disparities. From Hurricane Katrina to the pandemic to Hurricane Ida, food insecurity is perpetuated by New Orleans’ high rates of poverty and vulnerability to extreme weather events.
We sat down with PV Magazine to discuss the Maui wildfires, decarbonizing disaster response, and duck curve financing.
When fires devastated communities on Maui in August, we watched in horror as the news traveled across the Pacific, reports growing deadlier and more devastating by the hour. Never having been to Hawai’i, we began to strategize about how we could help.
Early this spring, a series of tornadoes devastated several communities in rural Mississippi. We joined forces with local partners requesting emergency power: Delta Health Center in Rolling Fork, the Fannie Lou Hamer Center for Change in Eupora, and the Zion Baptist Association in Winona. These hubs would go on to serve as foundations of recovery and resilience in their communities.
Tucked away in the hills of the Russian River Valley near Cloverdale, CA, the Northern Sonoma County Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) is a shining example of effective use of cleaner energy in disaster response. The team of industrious firefighters stores, maintains, and frequently deploys one of Footprint Project’s solar trailers to emergency sites and shelters.
From FOX8 local news in New Orleans
A few months ago, long before a tropical depression that would become Hurricane Ian formed in the Caribbean, the United Methodist Committee on Relief decided to invest in resilient power solutions for their disaster response teams.
Three Sonoma County fire stations are now equipped with a new emergency response tool: mobile generators powered by the sun.
At Footprint Project, we focus on deploying solar generators to disasters in the domestic U.S. and Puerto Rico. Logistics, program sustainability, cultural competency, and overall need have always pointed us in the direction of our own backyard when it comes to building back greener - until Russia invaded Ukraine in February.
