When extreme weather events knock out electricity, people are often cut off from food, water, and other necessities. Google is investing some money towards helping communities in Southwest Virginia be more energy resilient.
By the end of this year, two sites in far Southwest Virginia will become community resilience hubs, which means they’ll keep running electricity during blackouts.
“We’re doing solar as well as battery backup at both locations,” said Adam Wells, regional director of community engagement with Appalachian Voices, which is partnering with Google on the project. They selected Appalachian Sustainable Development as one of the locations for the solar panels. Located in the Scott County town of Duffield, ASD stores, sorts and distributes locally grown food.
“We want to make sure that even in a grid outage that food stays fresh, and they’re able to keep their distribution activities going,” Wells said.
The second location is about 40 minutes away, in Dungannon, where a town hall and a former train depot serve as a central gathering space.
“They have community meetings,” Wells described. “They have cake walks and dances there as well, so it’s really in the middle of town.”
During emergencies, residents will be able use the site to get information and resources, like food and water, and possibly also connect to Wi-Fi.
These resilience hubs will be partially funded by grants and loans through another group, called Invest Appalachia. Google provided a $700,000 thousand dollar grant to Appalachian Voices to support these two projects and potentially others in the region.
We fund initiatives that support our neighbors across the U.S. with energy efficiency upgrades like insulation and new windows, which directly lowers electricity bills,” said Kaitlin Savage, who works with Google. She added their company is also investing in similar energy affordability initiatives in Ohio, South Carolina, Georgia, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Texas.
