Resilience on the Frontline: Ideas to Prepare Our Communities for Climate Change

Jun 15

View The CLEEN Project's Resilience Ideas

Top 3 vote-getters:

Resiliency Project: Solar and Storage Infrastructure for Critical Facilities

Contributor: Dawn Weisz

Summary: Proposes creating a program at the DOE to fund on-site solar and storage resources at critical facilities nationwide as part of a clean energy infrastructure package. Additional funding would be provided for projects that will reduce reliance on fossil fueled “peaker” plants during normal grid operations. Funding priority should be given to lower-income frontline communities most at risk of outages caused by severe climate events.

American Energy Resiliency Moonshot: Modernizing our Nation’s 70,000+ Disaster Shelters

Contributor: Andrew Burr

Summary: Proposes a 10-year public-private partnership to retrofit all 70,000+ U.S. disaster shelters with energy technologies to ensure they can continue operating during extended power disruptions from system shocks. The proposal lists the recommended steps: a White House task force with federal, business, and resiliency/emergency management leaders, scientific assessment of multiple technology packages to retrofit facilities (through national labs), assessment of all disaster shelters to determine proper technology packages, a pilot implementation with a manageable number of retrofits, and finally a large-scale rollout.

Mission Critical Facilities Renewal

Contributors: Timothy Unruh, Ben Evans, Jennifer Schafer, Joseph Womble

Summary: Proposes that Congress appropriate funds to make resiliency improvements along with efficiency upgrades to public buildings. Every $1 of federal investment in energy efficiency retrofits leverages at least $4 in private investment, and completing resiliency retrofits in tandem further increases the cost-effectiveness of the upgrades.