Prioritizing Equity in Program Development: How to Build a Resilient Power Technical Assistance Fund

Resilient solar+storage systems can enable community-serving organizations to provide essential services during power outages, and these systems can provide year-round cost savings. Affordable housing developments, emergency shelters, community centers, fire stations, and other critical service providers are excellent candidates for resilient solar+storage systems, but figuring out how to acquire these systems involves time, money and expertise. Clean Energy Group’s (CEG) Technical Assistance Fund (TAF) was established in 2014 to fill this resource gap. Over the past 10 years, CEG’s TAF has supported over 175 communities in their quest for resilient power. In this webinar, CEG staff discussed how to establish an effective and equitable technical assistance program.

This webinar also featured a presentation by staff at the Washington State Department of Commerce on their Solar Plus Storage for Resilient Communities program. This program awards planning and construction grants, and offers direct technical assistance to eligible communities. In its inaugural year, the program awarded over $35 million to communities for project predevelopment support and implementation funding, including 44 feasibility studies since May 2023. Panelists outlined the framework driving their technical assistance approach, and discussed the lessons learned in their first year.

Panelists:

• Marriele Mango, Project Director, Clean Energy Group
• Seth Mullendore, President and Executive Director, Clean Energy Group
• Anna Adamsson, Project Manager, Clean Energy Group
• Jill Eikenhorst, Solar Programs Supervisor, Washington State Department of Commerce
• Kate Pedersen, Energy Resilience Specialist, Washington State Department of Commerce

This webinar is part of Clean Energy Group’s “Celebrating 10 Years of Technical Assistance” series. Since 2014, CEG’s Technical Assistance Fund (TAF) has awarded over $1.5 million to 175 community organizations, affordable housing providers, critical service providers, municipalities, and Native Nations in support of their efforts to build local resilient power resources. Over the next year, CEG will be celebrating this milestone through publications that highlight various aspects of resilient power development.