This coverage is made possible through a partnership between BPR and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.
During Hurricane Helene, the Asheville bookstore and co-op Firestorm Books served as a community hub, where people dropped off and picked up supplies. But for almost a week after the storm, the shop could not provide the disaster relief work the staff really wanted to do. Although Firestorm had solar panels, the shop had no way to store that energy for a long period of time, leaving staff unable to offer critical services like refrigerating food or offering a powered space to the community after sunset.
“A lot of people were contributing and donating perishables, but we weren't really able to hold those because we didn't have operational generators,” said Libertie Valance, a Firestorm staff member. “People weren't able to charge power tools. There were a lot of people coordinating things like tree removal from around our space.”
The frustration of having solar panels they couldn't actually use during the blackout led the co-op to look for solutions. After Helene, they reached out to the Footprint Project, a nonprofit that works to build small-scale renewable energy projects in disaster-impacted communities. The organization donated an inverter and 20 kilowatt-hours of battery capacity, while Firestorm secured a zero-interest loan from the Appalachian Solar Finance Fund to complete the installation.
The store can now use power off-grid in case of an emergency.
“That will run our building for about 24 hours without the sun being out,” Valance said.
Devin Williams, a project manager for the Footprint Project, told BPR that this work is part of a larger mission to build disaster-resilient communities through small-scale renewable energy projects. The nonprofit is based in New Orleans and arrived in the region to assist with the response to Hurricane Helene.
“And then there was just a huge need,” Williams noted, describing the devastation in Western North Carolina, “and they opened up a wing in Asheville.”
That local presence has grown into a major state partnership. Footprint is now part of a project funded by the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality to support community resilience hubs, or “beehives”, throughout the region. The State Energy Office received $10.4 million from the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act for use over the next five years. Of that, $5 million is earmarked for this microgrid initiative, which will install up to 24 stationary systems at critical locations like a fire station in Burnsville.
“In case there's another outage, you know, these places can stay online and stay running to help serve the community,” “ Williams said.
For Valance, even Firestorm’s smaller-scale shift to renewable energy makes a difference. They pointed to their now-decreased dependence on Duke Energy’s Lake Julian gas plant, noting methane gas is a fossil fuel that contributes to climate change. It's an "opportunity here to increase resiliency while addressing root causes,” Valance said.
