Hurricane Ian amplifies urgent need for resilient, renewable and just energy grid

Hurricane Ian will be remembered as one of the most destructive storms in U.S. history, leaving an estimated 2.5 million people in Florida — and all of Cuba — without electricity as the death toll mounts. This comes days after Hurricane Fiona battered Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, wiping out power to huge swaths of those islands.

Climate change is fueling these storms and other extreme weather. These devastating disasters are no longer an anomaly and will continue to occur more frequently and with more intensity.

Compounding the suffering is the fact that corporate utilities, state regulators and politicians are standing in the way of distributed renewable energy, like rooftop and community solar. These commonsense climate solutions make communities safer and more resilient.

Disaster-caused power outages can be lethal. In addition to shutting off heat or air conditioning, losing power means people can’t refrigerate medicines or run lifesaving medical equipment.

Many of the deaths in Puerto Rico attributed to Hurricane Maria in 2017 happened not during the storm but after it, because of an extended island-wide blackout. In Texas, roughly 700 people died in 2021 when extreme winter storms froze gas pipelines, leaving 4.5 million homes and businesses without power.

Distributed renewable energy — renewable energy generated at or near the place where it will be used — keeps the power flowing to homes, hospitals and businesses when disasters hit.

During Hurricane Fiona, homes and essential community services, including a local fire station, that had installed rooftop solar with battery storage kept their power on. Hurricane Irma knocked out electricity to 6.8 million customers across Florida in 2017, but homeowners and businesses with off-grid solar had electricity.

In addition to improving climate resilience and helping fight climate change by reducing reliance on fossil fuels, distributed energy democratizes electricity and saves people money.

But distributed energy threatens corporate utilities’ bottom lines, so these monopolies are working to block its adoption and unfairly tip the scales in favor of their centralized power sources and fossil fuel infrastructure.

Pepco, a subsidiary of Exelon, wants to charge residential solar customers in the Washington, D.C., area as much as $20,000 each for ill-defined “system upgrades,” putting rooftop solar out of reach for some homeowners.

In Ohio, the electric utility FirstEnergy Solutions spent tens of millions of dollars in a bribery scheme to pass a bill that, among other things, wiped out renewable energy and energy efficiency policies in the state.

In Florida — hit by almost twice as many hurricanes as any other state — utility attacks on rooftop solar have been particularly egregious. For example, Florida Power and Light, the state’s largest utility, spent millions of dollars on political consultants who bribed a “ghost” candidate to siphon votes from a state legislator who supported rooftop solar.

Nonetheless, interest in rooftop solar is high and growing. Hurricanes like Ian and Fiona will only increase public demand for resilient, renewable energy systems.

The recently passed Inflation Reduction Act provides some carrots for distributed renewable energy in the form of home tax credits and direct payments for nonprofit organizations. But the success of these programs hinges on whether state and local laws allow these systems to flourish and corporate utilities are reined in.

Only a handful of states (Florida not among them) allow power purchase agreements for solar, which reduce upfront costs to customers by allowing developers to organize the permitting, financing and installation.

Many states, including Florida, have no laws authorizing community solar programs, which allow renters and others who cannot install their own rooftop solar to subscribe to offsite solar systems and reduce their energy bills.

Utilities are also challenging state net metering programs, which credit rooftop solar customers for the energy they generate, making it more affordable.

At the federal level, the Federal Trade Commission can investigate the utility industry for alleged widespread abuses against distributed energy competitors, a call recently made by more than 200 organizations.

President Biden can jumpstart the buildout of distributed energy by declaring a climate emergency. An emergency declaration would unlock a host of executive powers, including allowing the president to direct the Federal Emergency Management Agency to limit construction of fossil fuel infrastructure and prioritize distributed renewable energy resources, like rooftop solar and storage.

Hurricane Ian is another tragic reminder that a fossil fuel-based electricity grid controlled by corporate utilities is unreliable and dangerous.

Distributed renewable energy is the cornerstone of a just energy future, and it’s within our grasp. We must prioritize affordable, resilient and democratized energy, not fossil fuel utilities and their shareholders. 

Augusta Wilson is a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity’s energy justice program.