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The Footprint Project is here in Louisiana deploying solar and battery storage for some of the hardest-hit areas impacted by Hurricane Ida. I spoke with Will Heegaard, Founder, Operations Director, and CEO of Footprint Project on the phone this weekend. This interview is a followup to an article I wrote previously about the great work that the team of engineers is doing in my state.

Will gave me a recap of some of the work Footprint has been doing in New Orleans and the surrounding area.

“We’ve been deploying small to large mobile or portable solar generator systems to support Ida response and recovery.”

Originally, the team was going to be participating in a festival that got canceled, and Will explained that they were tracking the storm but didn’t know exactly where it would hit. He added that there’s at least one bad one each year and that Footprint is still small but has been hoping to help in these types of disasters.

“The more we can float these various types of mobile solar generator equipment in a fun and non-fun event, then the more we can try to grow the fleets or cache of regional equipment that’s available to be activated for power outage events.”

In other words, they are exposing the general public to an alternative power source that is renewable and using it in disaster to show that solar can save lives. This is a great way to spread awareness about renewables and show how these units can be deployed, especially in mobile situations such as festivals or, sadly, disasters.

Bringing Solar To A Fossil Fuel Dependent State During A Disaster That Sparked Fuel Shortages

With my state being a fossil fuel supporting state, I wanted to know what the core response was to the team as they educated those affected by the storm about solar. We all know about gas and diesel generators, but many people don’t even know about solar generators. I write for CleanTechnica and I didn’t even know about their existence until someone told me. Education and awareness are critical, and we need more of both.

I asked Will what the initial responses were to the solar generators. Will pointed out that free electrons are free electrons, and if people can plug in without the need for fuel, then this is a good thing. This is just the second week of recovery and we are still having fuel shortages. Also, there are still people without power, and they are using fuel for generators. Lines at gas stations have been long, with wait times of over an hour, and for those in the hardest-hit areas, they have to drive 2–3 hours to the nearest gas station, which then may or may not have fuel.

Captain Richard Birk, a retired firefighter and paramedic who served with Las Vegas Fire and Rescue for 30 years, is an advisor for the Footprint Project. He told me that he volunteers because he believed this is well worth his time. He wanted to add an answer to my question about how the people of Louisiana, an oil & gas state, were thinking when Footprint Project deployed the solar generators.

“When you put these electrons made from the sun, what are they thinking? That’s a great question. And from my experience of emergency management and serving communities in trouble on a daily basis for the 911 system, what I found is the visceral experience is the most game-changing experience you can have. …

“They’re used to being without power. They’re used to the power lines coming down. That’s not a surprise. Every one of the people we’ve talked to said ‘yeah, the power lines come down with every storm.’ … They’re used to being without power and the gasoline shortages and the diesel shortages. … They’re used to sitting in the dark with nothing.

“They’re used to being short of breath because all the thousands of people who live on little nebulizers and O2 machines sit in the dark. Somebody scrambles maybe a few generators together. They usually only last during the day or the night hours because they’ve gotta turn it off. They’re used to being uncomfortable.

“And what’s happening is that we can show them a different way. What we’re looking at is, when we put these systems in, is that they’re going to run 24 hours a day. You can plug your medical device in and you now have oxygen. You can plug your nebulizer in and now you don’t have to have an asthma attack. You can plug your C-Pap machine in and you can sleep at night. That is a visceral experience, and that’s how you’re going to change this.

“It’s a matter of life and death. What the Footprint Project is doing is not just putting in solar and batteries and a renewable energy source, but what they’re doing is they’re saving lives. Just like I was trained to do. But they’re using renewable energy to save those lives.”

With Solar, There Is No Risk Of Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

Being able to plug your phone into a solar-powered generator without worrying about fuel, spending $200 or more on fuel, and without the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning is definitely a bonus.

“There’s always going to be an awareness issue with adoption, or how to make sure people understand the capabilities of a solar generator versus a gas generator.”

He explained that for gas generators, everyone knows how to use them, but for solar, there’s a lot that most don’t know.

“The percentage of the general population that knows what a kilowatt-hour actually means based on their cell phone or their fridge or whatever is next to zero. Very few people have a true understanding of what a kilowatt-hour is for their practical life.

“And with a gas generator, they really don’t need to know what a kilowatt-hour is. They just need to know how to find the gas, when to fill the generator with gas, and hopefully how to not die while filling it with gas or not die from the carbon monoxide.”

Sadly, we do have deaths due to carbon monoxide poisoning because people put the generators on inside their homes. This was an issue with Laura last year and has been an issue with Ida as well despite the constant reminders from our local and state leaders not to do so.

One of the team members, Jamie, pointed out that they were asked about carbon monoxide when they deployed the batteries. Furthermore, some don’t even have generators. Will added:

“We were dropping off these small little portable batteries to charge phones and little headlights at this home where there were 20–30 elderly folks. The home has been without power for a week and is still without power and mold is spreading through the building, which is unacceptable and tragic.

“We were passing out these battery packs to charge their lights and their phones so they were not just sitting in the dark after the sun goes down. Particularly for folks that can’t afford a generator — you would think people can afford it, right? There’s a huge segment of our population that can’t. When the lights go out, they’re just in the dark. It’s just the reality.”

No Communications; Devastation All Around

I shared my story of riding out Ida with Will. The team didn’t realize I was also in an impacted area, but that fortunately, Baton Rouge was spared the worst of the damage. We still lost power, and yes, I was fighting for my life and those of my pets in the extreme heat that invaded my home, but I still had a home, running clean water, and a way to stay cool.

I explained that there was no communication and most of my calls and texts weren’t going through after the storm hit. Will told me that it’s still like that in some of the hardest-hit areas.

“You go down there and there’s nothing.

“The first couple of days we got here, we helped Imagine Waterworks and set up that portable system and then by the morning or that night, the power came back on. It’s kind of a game where, particularly in the urban areas — I’m just blown away that this one elderly folks’ home is still without power, because the area around it has power. So, we’re trying to figure out why, but most of the city area has power.

“So, the real question is how far out can we get this equipment so it has the most benefit over the next two to four weeks — potentially six weeks in really hard-to-reach areas.”

He explained that the team was looking for public and community spaces that needed power. If you have any, chime in.

When looking for areas to help, the hardest-hit areas will be on the east side of the storm — which is always heavily damaged. Will shared with me that some of the areas he’d been in, such as Houma, were completely destroyed.

“Houma must have been near the eye because the place is devastated.

“New Orleans has gotten damaged but if you go south of 90 outside the city and places like Boutte, it just gets worse and worse the further southeast you go.

“For us, it’s about how to effectively dispatch the equipment and match-make between a site energy usage portfolio and the equipment that’s available to deploy. I wouldn’t say that we’re experts at it — we learned as we go — but we’re getting better. Every disaster we deploy to, we get better.”

How You Can Help Footprint Project

In the previous article, I included a link to the GoFundMe campaign that was set up, but for more info, Will has three categories that the team divided their needs into.

1. Cash. 

“I break down the types of support into three categories. We need cash from people that can get cash. Cash is the most effective way to respond to disasters. You can spend the money, locally and around the communities that have been hit and kickstart the economic recovery.

“All the data shows that cash is the most effective way to help the responders who are deploying and help the community at the same time.

“If you can give cash to the communities and the responders, it’s always the most efficient and most effective.”

2. Equipment. 

“We spend a lot of our cash on batteries. We can’t do our work without usually lithium-iron-phosphate batteries (LFP batteries). These are 90% of what we’re doing. You can’t build an off-grid solar or set up an off-grid solar generator without a battery, and some of these batteries are heavy and hard to transport.

“We’re trying to deploy these things in the safest way possible. We’ll deploy anything that’s not a gas or diesel generator, but we prefer if we can set up lithium or LFP-based solar panels and microgrids.”

Other types of equipment they also need are inverters, wiring, cabeling MC4s, crimpers, power tools, and all the things a typical installer would bring to a site.

3. Volunteers. 

“We always need people. We’re still trying to build up our training and our volunteer base. There’s just not a lot. We’re trying to partner with industry folks who have the human resources to deploy volunteers who already know how to MC4 crimp or already know how to assess a site for battery storage sizing.

“That is still a small industry and it’s hard to find electricians around here. You’re not going to find one around here for months now, much less one with knowledge of off-grid solar installations. We’re trying to build that volunteer base across the country so that we can deploy people closer to the storm that knows what a 40kWh solar system can do and what brand they are working with, such as Tesla. We need people who know how to do this work, and this is in very short supply.”

Final Thoughts From Will

This industry, he pointed out, is usually pretty technical, but Will wanted to emphasize the importance of looking beyond the technical details and helping one to understand that this technology is out here saving lives.

“The real story is about how these free electrons and the ripple effect they have throughout the community. When there’s a safe, quiet self-sustaining source of power deployed to a community that just got rocked — just lost everything — aside from the quantitative benefits of not having to get fuel or not being exposed to carbon monoxide that is important, I think the qualitative effects rolling in a vision of the future for people who just lost everything is so understated.

“I’m trying to communicate this with people because there’s just nothing more powerful than bringing a version of hope for that community and showing them that they can build back better, stronger, and greener. This is why we do the work.”

 

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Economists, experts call for governments to ditch hydrogen, go fully electric

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Economists, experts call for governments to ditch hydrogen, go fully electric

In a joint statement, French and German economists have called on governments to adopt “a common approach” to decarbonize European trucking fleets – and they’re calling for a focus on fully electric trucks, not hydrogen.

France and Germany are the two largest economies in the EU, and they share similar challenges when it comes to freight decarbonization. The two countries also share a border, and the traffic between the two nations generates major cross-border flows that create common externalities between the two countries.

At the same time, the EU’s transport sector has struggled to reduce emissions at the same rate as other industries – and road freight in particular is a major contributor to harmful carbon emissions issue due to that industry’s heavy reliance on diesel-powered trucks.

And for once, it seems like rail isn’t a viable option:

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While rail remains competitive mainly for heavy, homogeneous goods over long distances. Most freight in Europe is indeed transported over distances of less than 200 km and involves consignment weights of up to 30 tonnes (GCEE, 2024) In most such cases, transportation by rail instead of truck is not possible or not competitive. Moreover, taking into account the goods currently transported in intermodal transport units over distances of more than 300 km, the modal shift potential from road to rail would be only 6% in Germany and less than 2% in France.

FRANCO-GERMAN COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC EXPERTS (FGCEE)

That leaves trucks – and, while numerous government incentives currently exist to promote the parallel development of both hydrogen and battery electric vehicle infrastructures, the study is clear in picking a winner.

“Policies should focus on battery-electric trucks (BET) as these represent the most mature and market-ready technology for road freight transport,” reads the the FGCEE statement. “Hence, to ramp-up usage of BET public funding should be used to accelerate the roll-out of fast-charging networks along major corridors and in private depots.”

The appeal was signed by the co-chair of the advisory body on the German side is the chairwoman of the German Council of Economic Experts, Monika Schnitzer. Camille Landais co-chairs the French side. On the German side, the appeal was signed by four of the five experts; Nuremberg-based energy economist Veronika Grimm (who also sits on the National Hydrogen Council, which is committed to promoting H2 trucks and filling stations) did not sign.

You can read an English version of the CAE FGCEE joint statement here.

Electrek’s Take

Hydrogen-sceptical truck maker MAN to produce limited series of 200 vehicles with H2 combustion engines
MAN hydrogen semi; via MAN Trucks.

MAN Trucks’ CEO famously said that it was “impossible” for hydrogen to compete with BEVs, and even committed to building 200 hydrogen-powered semi truck to prove out that hypothesis.

He’s not alone. MAN’s board member for research and development, Frederik Zohm, said that the company is the one saying hydrogen still has years to go. “(MAN) continues to research fuel cell technology based on battery electrics,” he said, in a statement quoted by Hydrogen Insight, before another board member added that, “we (MAN) expect that, in the future, we will be able to best serve the vast majority of our customers’ transport applications with battery-electric trucks.”

With companies like Volvo and Renault and now Mercedes racking up millions of miles on their respective battery electric semi truck fleets, it’s no longer even close. EV is the way.

SOURCE | IMAGES: CAE FGCEE; via Electrive.

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Quick Charge | the terrifying Trump tariffs are finally upon us!

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Quick Charge | the terrifying Trump tariffs are finally upon us!

On today’s tariff-tastic episode of Quick Charge, we’ve got tariffs! Big ones, small ones, crazy ones, and fake ones – but whether or not you agree with the Trump tariffs coming into effect tomorrow, one thing is absolutely certain: they are going to change the price you pay for your next car … and that price won’t be going down!

Everyone’s got questions about what these tariffs are going to mean for their next car buying experience, but this is a bigger question, since nearly every industry in the US uses cars and trucks to move their people and products – and when their costs go up, so do yours.

Prefer listening to your podcasts? Audio-only versions of Quick Charge are now available on Apple PodcastsSpotifyTuneIn, and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.

New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded, usually, Monday through Thursday (and sometimes Sunday). We’ll be posting bonus audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage daily news.

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Got news? Let us know!
Drop us a line at tips@electrek.co. You can also rate us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show.

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SunZia Wind’s massive 2.4 GW project hits a big milestone

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SunZia Wind’s massive 2.4 GW project hits a big milestone

GE Vernova has produced over half the turbines needed for SunZia Wind, which will be the largest wind farm in the Western Hemisphere when it comes online in 2026.

GE Vernova has manufactured enough turbines at its Pensacola, Florida, factory to supply over 1.2 gigawatts (GW) of the turbines needed for the $5 billion, 2.4 GW SunZia Wind, a project milestone. The wind farm will be sited in Lincoln, Torrance, and San Miguel counties in New Mexico.

At a ribbon-cutting event for Pensacola’s new customer experience center, GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik noted that since 2023, the company has invested around $70 million in the Pensacola factory.

The Pensacola investments are part of the announcement GE Vernova made in January that it will invest nearly $600 million in its US factories and facilities over the next two years to help meet the surging electricity demands globally. GE Vernova says it’s expecting its investments to create more than 1,500 new US jobs.

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Vic Abate, CEO of GE Vernova Wind, said, “Our dedicated employees in Pensacola are working to address increasing energy demands for the US. The workhorse turbines manufactured at this world-class factory are engineered for reliability and scalability, ensuring our customers can meet growing energy demand.”

SunZia Wind and Transmission will create US history’s largest clean energy infrastructure project.

Read more: The largest clean energy project in US history closes $11B, starts full construction


If you live in an area that has frequent natural disaster events, and are interested in making your home more resilient to power outages, consider going solar and adding a battery storage system. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. They have hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.

Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisers to help you every step of the way. Get started here. –trusted affiliate link*

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