“This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.” Most of us learned those words as children. At Progressive Community Church in Gary, keeping the light shining has taken on a very literal meaning.
In 2016, we installed a 7.6-kilowatt solar system because we believed being good stewards of God’s creation also meant caring for our community. What began as an environmental commitment grew into a vision for community resilience.
Over the next decade, Progressive Community Church and FAITH CDC worked with government, hospitals, universities, food organizations and philanthropic partners to build an interconnected system of food, health, agriculture and energy. Together, we expanded urban agriculture, developed our Fresh to Frozen operation, trained young people and built a food is medicine initiative providing medically tailored meals and produce Rx boxes. But all of it depends on something we often take for granted: electricity.
That is why the American Red Cross invested in battery and backup-power infrastructure at our facility. We were preparing to answer one question: When disaster strikes and the grid fails, will we be ready to serve?
On Aug. 11, we found out. A devastating storm struck Northwest Indiana and the grid went down. Our solar and battery system stayed on for a limited time. We continued our food is medicine program without missing a delivery day. In the weeks after the storm, we assisted more than 10,000 people with food, charging capabilities and other essential support. Our preparation worked but only to a point.
Although we had additional power-production capability installed, NIPSCO would not allow us to island the additional 7.6 kilowatts of production without voiding the grandfathered net-metering status of our existing system. We were not asking to send that additional electricity onto NIPSCO’s grid. When the grid is operating, utilities must regulate electricity entering their systems and protect workers, infrastructure and customers. But when the grid is down and a facility is safely disconnected — or “islanded” — electricity generated and consumed behind the meter remains on the property rather than being exported onto utility lines.
That distinction had real consequences. During the outage, our solar and battery system generally provided electricity for approximately 10 to 12 hours each day. We lost the majority of the food stored through Fresh to Frozen and could not serve as an overnight shelter for residents whose homes were severely damaged because we could not guarantee continuous power. Another 7.6 kilowatts would not have solved every problem. But based on our system’s performance, we believe it would have significantly increased our ability to preserve food, maintain operations, provide shelter and serve more people.
Our experience points to three changes Indiana should consider before the next major outage.
First, protect behind-the-meter emergency power. Indiana should distinguish electricity exported onto the grid from electricity generated and consumed solely behind the meter while safely islanded. Using additional generation under those conditions should not cause a customer to lose grandfathered net-metering status, provided safeguards prevent that electricity from reaching utility lines.
Second, recognize qualified community resilience hubs as part of Indiana’s emergency-response infrastructure. Churches, nonprofits and community organizations often have facilities, kitchens, food-distribution networks, volunteers and relationships with the people they serve. They should be incorporated into emergency planning before disaster strikes.
Third, establish standards for qualified community resilience hubs and create a mechanism to reimburse them for reasonable, documented emergency-response costs during prolonged outages. When the grid fails, organizations like ours use facilities, staff, food, refrigeration, batteries and other resources to serve residents.
These reforms are connected: allow communities to safely use their power, recognize the infrastructure serving people, and reimburse reasonable costs of providing those services.
This is bigger than net metering. It is about energy resilience, food security, public health and emergency preparedness. We spent a decade preparing. We had the solar panels. We had the batteries. We had the food. We had trained staff and volunteers. We had partners who believed in the vision. When the storm came, we served more than 10,000 people. But we could have done more. We had the capacity to shine brighter, but we could not fully turn on the light.
When the next major storm comes and the grid goes down, families will need somewhere to turn. The time to prepare is not after the lights go out. It is now. And when that moment comes, community resilience hubs like ours should be able to say: “Come in. We’ll keep the light on for you.”
