Item 5.E - Virginia Avenue Park
Community Resilience Center
What is a Community Resilience Center?
• Existing community-serving facility augmented with a microgrid to support residents and coordinate resource distribution and services before, during, and after a hazard event
Benefits include:
• Central location for community needs
• Increase access to health improvement initiatives
• Increase effectiveness of community-centered programs • Reduce air quality impacts and GHG emissions
What Is a Microgrid?
Opportunity:
VAP Community Resilience Center
Increase Community Resilience:
• Support existing
programs and services offered at
VAP
• Designed for use during
emergency events AND year - round
• Provide safe heating/cooling
during climate events
Increase Energy Resilience:
• Utilize existing solar and install
additional solar
• Install battery energy storage
system
• Eliminate need for diesel
generators
What Does a Microgrid Look Like?
Why Virginia
Avenue Park?
• VAP is an existing hub
for community programs
• Pico Neighborhood – most
culturally diverse neighborhood in the City
• Environmental injustice and
historical siting of infrastructure
• Established Cooling Center and
vaccination location
• Center equitable access to climate
mitigations in the Pico
neighborhood
EMFs
• World Health Organization (WHO) established
the International EMF Project in 1996 to
assess the scientific evidence of possible
health effects of EMF.
• EMF radiation levels in solar panels
and batteries are lower than those emitted
by other electronic and electrical devices,
such as cell phones, televisions,
and microwaves.
• These sources of EMF are non-ionizing and
are generally understood to not pose any
adverse health risk to humans (Source: National
Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
)
EMFs
The following sources/studies have all concluded that there is currently not enough evidence to suggest that EMF radiation from household appliances, solar photovoltaics, or battery energy storage systems pose any adverse health risks to humans:
• National Insitute of Environmental Health Sciences:
• California Public Utilities Commission
• World Health Organization
• Medway, Massachusetts Battery Energy Storage study
Questions
Solar + Battery Storage Projects in California
• City of Petaluma School District
• San Diego County JVR Energy
Park Project
• Borrego Springs
2030 OBJECTIVES
• Increase community resilience to climate change
• Protect vulnerable groups from impacts
• Integrate climate change impacts into City planning,
operations & infrastructure projects
2030 STRATEGIES
• Capacity Building for Resilience
• Resilient Infrastructure