By Mike Buza
Michigan has been suffering from several power outages from increasingly intense weather storms. The people who suffer the most are low-income persons. The following is an article outlining possible ways to help low-income communities deal with the effects of these storms.
One of the biggest demographics that suffer the most from power outages is low-income communities and communities of color. They do not have resources for generators and other resources that can help to mitigate the loss of power. When these communities lose a large amount of food because of a power outage, it is a tremendous financial strain, especially when individuals live in food deserts.
Michigan has the potential to help low-income people be less impacted by the loss of power. One of the legislature's proposals is to enable community solar. Community solar can be used where people do not have access to rooftop solar because they live in a shaded area or an apartment. They buy or lease solar panels from a community array and have the metered electricity deducted from their bill. Making solar available on monthly payments can make it affordable or even pay for itself.
In a blog, the Department of Energy says, "…distributed solar energy systems—such as rooftops and community solar—can increase the overall resilience of the grid of the communities it serves." This is especially true when paired with a battery. Batteries make electricity available when the source of renewable energy is not producing.
Green Mountain Power of Vermont subsidizes battery purchases by customers. You can pay as little as $55 a month for ten years to have a battery installed in your home. After that period, the customer can continue to use the battery for free during emergencies. This brings the cost within reach of lower-income people. A state government can subsidize it further for low-income customers. The benefit to the utility is it uses part of the battery's stored electricity during high-demand times. Michigan would be wise to adopt such a concept.
Modern batteries have several functions that can be especially helpful with grid resiliency and have features to make them more economical to the consumer. They can save electricity during low-cost periods and discharge it during high-cost times. The costliest electricity is usually when the grid is under the most strain. This can make bills more affordable for low-income people. They can also monitor whether conditions fully charge when inclement weather is predicted, which can help people maintain electricity when there is a power outage.
A recently passed piece of Michigan legislation (Public Acts 108 & 109 of 2023) provides financial tax incentives to place solar developments on brownfield sites. Since many of these brownfield sites are in low-income neighborhoods, it helps increase the grid resiliency in these areas. These brownfield sites are particularly suitable for community solar. Generally, they need to be bigger for the economies of scale needed by utilities, but their size is attractive to community installations.
Consumers Energy recently announced that they are installing 120 automatic transfer reclosures. These devices help reroute power to minimize the areas affected by power outages. If you are near a place of power generation source, it is more likely you will maintain power. Brownfield sites are most often in areas of low income. If brownfield sites are used for solar installation, many low-income people are near power sources, meaning they are less likely to lose power during storms and outages.
Taking these concepts further, it is possible for a solar installation to serve as a microgrid. Microgrids are a small-scale electricity network connecting people to an electricity source. If you have a community solar plus storage installation connected to an apartment complex, this could serve as a microgrid. If it is an apartment complex geared toward low-income households, it could serve to insulate the most vulnerable during power outages.
Some of these concepts are covered in proposals already in the legislature. Some of them need to be introduced. Please get in touch with your State of Michigan Legislators and ask them to vote for all the current clean energy bills. Time is very limited this year to get them passed.
If you have any questions or comments on this article, please get in touch with Mike Buza at theoriginalzuba@yahoo.com.