Amidus Resilience designs and delivers energy resilience solutions, especially for low-income communities.
Low-income communities and communities of color are disproportionately impacted by natural disasters. Economic and social limitations coupled with inadequate housing stock and community resources have made emergency preparedness and response enormous obstacles for these already vulnerable populations. The high costs associated with preparedness, such as investing in a backup power generator and maintaining food and water reserves, often results in low-income households being unable to adequately prepare for severe weather. When disaster is imminent, relocation or evacuation is also costly and requires access to transportation in addition to a social safety net of family or friends in nearby communities. Transportation is especially difficult for medically vulnerable residents, including elderly and disabled individuals and individuals reliant on electricity-dependent medical devices. For these households, extreme weather can exacerbate a pre-existing medical condition and an outage can result in a medical crisis.
With few other places to turn, residents often look to local community institutions, such as senior centers and medical clinics, for shelter, support, and relief. Unfortunately, these institutions are oftentimes unable to provide basic services due to their own energy, infrastructure, and resource limitations.
CASE STUDY
Jubilee Housing , a leading affordable housing and supportive services provider in Washington D.C., recognized the value resilience would bring to their residents and worked with partners to install solar and battery storage at the Maycroft Apartments complex. The resulting project, “The Resiliency Center powered by Pepco”, is the first of its kind in D.C. and demonstrates how solar PV paired with battery storage (solar+storage) can reliably power critical services for affordable housing residents in the event of an outage, while also delivering economic benefits to low-income households.
For case studies and project briefs, please click here.
