Together New Orleans Collaborates With Solar Alternatives to Launch Solar-powered Community Shelters

New Orleans has long been known for its vibrant culture and unique architecture, but it’s also known for its vulnerability to hurricanes and other natural disasters. To combat this, Together New Orleans and Solar Alternatives have teamed up to launch the Community Lighthouse Project, which aims to create 86 solar-powered neighborhood shelters across the city.

Broadmoor Community Church and Bethlehem Lutheran Church’s Solar Panel Systems

The first two resiliency hubs in Broadmoor and Central City were recently unveiled at the Broadmoor Community Church and Bethlehem Lutheran Church. These shelters are designed to serve as safe havens during extended emergencies, providing residents a place to cool down, rest, warm up, and even access food distribution services. They are powered by Canadian Solar 405W panels, Yotta DPI-1200 microinverters, and Unirac SolarMount racking systems, with four Tesla Powerwall 2 batteries for power storage, an automatic load control SPAN panel, and two monitoring systems.

The two resiliency hubs can provide up to 20kW of continuous power and serve as community resiliency hubs during power outages. They can power the churches for up to 17 hours, including air conditioning, deep freezers, and refrigerators. After a major storm, they will provide reliable power for cooling, phone charging, meal preparation, and communications for two weeks or more. They will also reduce the churches’ utility costs by approximately $168,000 and $178,080 over their lifetimes and reduce carbon emissions by as much as 33 acres of mature forest annually.

Solar Alternatives, founded in 2008, is the Gulf South’s leading solar power and microgrid design-build firm, providing solar and battery backup engineering, installation, and maintenance for commercial and residential facilities. The company’s industry-leading electrical engineers, project managers, and procurement experts worked with Community Lighthouse to develop this energy management system.

The Community Lighthouse project showcases the strength of community-driven initiatives to enhance residents’ lives and create more equitable and sustainable neighborhoods. Two more resiliency hubs will be operational over the next three months, with a goal of having 16 in place by the peak of the 2023 hurricane season.

If you’re interested in learning more about how Solar Alternatives can help you switch to clean energy, give us a call at (877) 776-5258 to speak with one of their solar specialists.