Renewables Advancing Community Energy Resilience
A community partnership to advance solar energy and community energy resilience
About Renewables Advancing Community Energy Resilience
The Renewables Advancing Community Energy Resiliency (RACER) was awarded to the City of Duluth in April 2023 by the Department of Energy, Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO). The award brought close to $1 million in funds to develop Duluth’s solar future while creating a toolkit for other municipalities to utilize. Being the only municipality to be awarded funds across the country, the City is also excited to provide a community solar and storage planning toolkit for other cold-climate cities.
The City of Duluth worked with community partners to understand how and where solar photovoltaics and battery storage should be deployed to strengthen community resilience in the face of extreme weather events. SETO is providing all funding for the research and development of this project and is not requiring the City to expend any matching funds. This includes funding for grant and project management, community input and research, economic and social analyses, and site evaluation and assessment.
Ecolibrium3, as the co-principal investigator, has conducted community-based participatory research (CBPR) to understand the community impacts of natural disasters. They conducted surveys, one-on-one conversations, and focus groups to drive the community voice aspect of the grant and determine which sites and assets are important to the community.
Resource Library
The following resources were created through the RACER project
Solar Siting Rubric– The Solar Siting Rubric is best used to evaluate and rank larger (~40kW+) sites that could be suitable for solar PV and storage development. It is designed to assist owners of municipal and public infrastructure to evaluate projects and understand how solar developments can offset costs. It is recommended that the rubric be used in conjunction with community conversations to understand community factors that may impact project acceptance and implementation.
Duluth, MN Outage Tabletop Exercise- Tabletop exercise scenario, brief, and evaluation.
Duluth, MN Community-based Organization Tabletop- Tabletop exercise scenarios and briefs. Includes “persona” worksheets that were added to amplify vulnerable populations.
Moorhead, MN Tabletop Exercise– Moorhead, Minnesota tabletop exercise book developed as test of the Resilience Planning Toolkit. Disaster scenario included a tornado that resulted in cascading critical infrastructure failures.
SETO Session Poster- Mid-project poster for Solar Energy Technologies Office review.
Duluth Minimum Resilience Standards- Ten community-based minimum resilience standards that identify most vulnerable populations, negative impacts during power outages, and individual and community-based strategies for building resilience.
City of Duluth Site Assessment & Evaluation for Solar PV & Storage- Solar siting workbook for Duluth sites that includes initial rubric evaluation and revised scores. Demonstrates tool application and results.
Community Resilience Survey Results- Final survey questions and results used to inform selection menu for minimum resilience standards and prioritized actions.
Resilient Power Site Evaluations and Design– Site evaluations and system designs or top five ranked solar sites identified by the CIT using the Solar Siting Rubric and initial site investigations. Sites include a city reservoir cap, two fire halls, community center, customer service/maintenance building.
Resilience Planning Toolkit- Final project deliverable designed and tested to guide capacity-limited communities in the development of their own integrated resilience plan.
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