by Rachel Cerato
In our last blog, we talked about energy resilience and microgrids. An important distinction that we discussed in the first blog is between community and energy resilience. Microgrids are a great example of energy resilience: they keep the electricity on for us in times of crisis. But sometimes, when long-term emergencies occur in our communities, keeping the power on isn’t enough. That’s where community resilience comes in! As a refresher, community resilience is “the ability of a community to utilize available resources to respond to, withstand, and recover from adverse situations.” This extends beyond energy and considers things such as housing, shelter, food, and emergency services. Energy is an important part of this equation, but let’s dive a bit deeper.
To start, community and energy resilience share goals of providing continuous electricity. Guaranteeing reliable electric service in strategic buildings is where communal resilience comes in. Microgrid technologies can technically be applied to any building that fits the structural and space requirements… but from a community well-being perspective, it makes the most sense to add them to critical facilities. Critical facilities may include many different types of buildings, but the best explanation is that they are places that are “critical to the health and welfare of the population and that are especially important following hazard events.” Places like fire stations, police stations, hospitals, and shelters are traditional examples of critical facilities.
However, when we talk about community resilience, a better building to focus on is a resilience hub. According to The Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN), resilience hubs are “community-serving facilities [that] support residents, coordinate communication, distribute resources, and reduce carbon pollution while enhancing quality of life.” They can meet many different physical and social goals but a common characteristic is that their efforts take place in a trusted physical space, such as a community center, recreation facility, or multi-family housing building.
The reason why resilience hubs are more geared towards community resilience (of which energy resilience is a part) is that they look at what a community needs in an emergency from a more holistic perspective. The Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN) has been exploring the core components of resilience hubs. A building can be considered a resilience hub if it has or works towards establishing:
- Services & programming that “build relationships, promote community preparedness, and improve health and well-being” (USDN).
- Channels of communication within and outside of the hub that are reliable during emergencies.
- Physically strong and resilient buildings & landscapes in all conditions.
- Reliable power and a backup source that can be used during an emergency, is cost efficient, and sustainable.
- Functional operations, such as personnel and processes, for all situations.
So, resilience hubs are crucial to community resilience. While critical facilities are also aptly named, resilience hubs support their community in specific and impactful ways.
Let’s look at an example of a local resilience hub: the Cambridge Community Center (CCC). CCC has been a staple of the community for over 90 years and offers programming for the community, teens, and K-8 kids. However, they weren’t fully considered a resilience hub until the Covid-19 pandemic started in 2020. CCC opened a food and supply pantry in April of 2020 that offered groceries and supplies to around 700-1,000 households weekly–it’s still going strong! They also opened a computer lab to help support young people going through virtual schooling. Clearly CCC covers the foundational areas, as defined by USDN, of services & programming, communications, and operations. Climable is working with CCC, American Microgrid Solutions, Clean Energy Solutions, and others to make sure that the building and power supply are as reliable and resilient as possible –through a microgrid!
Community resilience and resilience hubs are becoming more and more critical as we continue to consider future emergencies and the ways that we can support each other through more than just reactionary responses. This idea isn’t just central to Cambridge and the Greater Boston Area, but the whole world as well! When the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (commonly known as COP27) began in November 2022, USDN attended to talk about resilience hubs and highlighted CCC as a prime example. (Check out the video below!)
Climate change is a scary subject, and it’s okay to be overwhelmed. But never give up hope! Energy and community resilience are only the tip of the iceberg of what advocates, activists, and organizations are doing to help support people and the planet. The most important thing that we can do as individuals is learn about the issues, support those who are making a difference, and keep working as hard as we can! It takes a community to make true resilience.