Palisades Microgrid, Beach Homeless Housing On PPCC Agenda

PACIFIC PALISADES, CA — A proposed solar-powered microgrid will be up for discussion at the next Pacific Palisades Community Council meeting. Resilient Palisades hopes to reduce power outages and promote clean energy in the neighborhood, by connecting businesses, homes and other buildings onto a communal microgrid.

The meeting will start at 6 p.m. on May 13. The Zoom link is available here.

Ryan Craig, Co-Lead of the Resilient Palisades Clean Energy Resilience Team, previously outlined plans for the microgrid to Patch.

"Not only is the Pailsades a fairly isolated community, but we're underserved in terms of electricity," Craig said. "LADWP five years ago tried to put in an additional distributing station, but neighbors rose up and didn't want it. They recently put out a request for proposals seeing distributive energy resources for the Palisades, and in our view, the answer has to involve solar, and should involve a microgrid."

Microgrids have garnered increased attention recently, especially in the wake of February's winter storm in Texas that caused massive power crises across the state. A handful of microgrids currently exist in the country, but Reslient Palisades aims to be one of the first to place a grid in an existing community, and the first to do so in Southern California.

"We're working with a group called EcoBlock, which is affiliated with [UC Berkeley], and they're doing a microgrid in Oakland," Craig said. "We're leveraging their learnings to do it down here, the first one in southern California."

Most of the project will be privately funded, with fundraising opportunities coming at a later stage.

"There are 10,000 homeowners in the Palisades," Craig said. "There are already probably hundreds who already have solar, who we'll make sure are participating. We're hoping to get into the thousands."

Also during Wednesday's meeting, nominations for 2021-2022 officer candidates will be announced. The community council also expects to have an update on Councilmember Bonin's proposal to install a safe campsite for the homeless on the parking lot at Will Rogers State Beach.

READ MORE: Resilient Palisades Looks To Build Solar-Powered Microgrid

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