Energy resilience is a challenge for the state of Maine, which in 2020 experienced the highest number of outages in the U.S.
In fact, in 2023, the Penobscot Nation was out of power for five straight days.
In December 2023 and January 2024, three winter storms killed four people and yielded $90 million in damage to public infrastructure alone, according to the state climate plan.
Two microgrid projects intend to help out, one that will store solar owned by the Penobscot Nation in a battery and release it to serve critical facilities. A second microgrid project proposes using tidal power and solar to ensure the island of Eastport will weather outages.
The Penobscot Nation has a long-term goal of deploying 1.2 MW to 1.4 MW of solar on rooftops – at a cost of $5 million – and store that power in batteries to provide resilience and yield economic gains, said Michael Burgess, economic and community development director at Penobscot Nation.
Right now, only one half of 1 MW of solar is operating on the reservation. The Penobscot Nation will pay for 10% of the costs of the new solar and has a federal Department of Energy (DOE) grant to pay for the rest, he said.
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https://www.microgridknowledge.com/community-microgrids/article/55245739/proposed-tidal-and-solar-microgrids-for-tribe-aim-to-help-outage-heavy-maine